NRC Facilities-related Recommendations

The Federal Facilities Council has sponsored a number of studies that have addressed a diverse set of issues related to federal facilities. These studies have involved committees of experts appointed by the National Research Council. These experts have made a series of recommendations related to the management of federal facilities. A select set of those studies and their respective recommendations are below. Full copies of the studies are available at www.nap.edu.

• Core Competencies for Federal Facilities Asset Management  Through 2020: Transformational Strategies
• Committee on Core Competencies for Federal Facilities Asset Management 2005-2020

2008

Recommendation 1: To effectively manage federal facilities portfolios through 2020 and beyond, federal organizations and their facilities asset management divisions should operate within the overall framework depicted in Figure S.2.

The recommended framework advises federal organizations to:

• Adopt the mindset of an owner of facilities;
• Adopt behaviors that integrate facilities-related decisions into strategic planning processes to support the organization’s overall missions;

Recommendation 2: To develop its core competencies, each federal Facilities asset management division should first identify the functions and skills it will need to perform or oversee in support of its organization’s missions. Although similarities will emerge, the unique aspects of each organization will become apparent only after a careful analysis of current and future functional requirements.

Recommendation 3: Each federal facilities asset management division should also conduct an analysis that compares its current skills base to the skills base required for facilities asset management in 2020. The analysis should account for planned or potential changes in missions, requirements, and technologies through 2020 and should identify actions needed to close any skills gaps.

Recommendation 4: Federal organizations should develop a comprehensive, long-term strategy to acquire, develop, and sustain a workforce with the required core competencies for facilities asset management.  Senior executives should show their commitment and provide the resources necessary for individuals to develop and refine their skills, including leadership skills, through a continuum of experience and opportunities.

Recommendation 5: To overcome barriers to recruiting and hiring individuals with required skills and capabilities, the directors of federal facilities asset management divisions and senior real property officers should collaborate with the Chief Human Capital Officers Council and the Office of Personnel Management to revise the GS-1600 job classification series.

Recommendation 6: Federal facilities asset managers should seek to expand the knowledge base related to facilities asset management and use the results to improve decision making and achieve the desired outcomes. Knowledge can be transferred through involvement in professional societies, certification programs, and research using in-house or outside expertise.

Recommendation 7: Federal organizations should use a Balanced Scorecard approach for measuring progress in developing and sustaining core competencies for facilities asset management through 2020 and beyond.

• Investments in Federal Facilities: Asset Management Strategies for the 21st Century
• Committee on Business Strategies for Public Capital Investment
  

2004

Recommendation 1: The federal government should adopt a framework of procedures, required information, and valuation criteria for federal facilities investment decision making and management that incorporates all of the principles and policies enumerated by this committee.

Recommendation 2(a): Each federal department and agency should update its facilities asset management program to enable it to make investment and management decisions about individual projects relative to its entire portfolio of facilities.

Recommendation 2(b): Each federal department and agency should ensure it has the requisite technical and business skills to implement a facilities asset management approach by providing specialized training for its incumbent facilities asset management staff and by recruiting individuals with these skills.

Recommendation 2(c): To facilitate the alignment of each department’s and agency’s existing facilities portfolios with its missions, Congress and the administration should jointly lead an effort to consolidate and streamline government-wide policies, regulations, and processes related to facilities disposal, which would encourage routine disposal of excess facilities in a timely manner.

Recommendation 2(d): For departments and agencies with many more facilities than are needed for their missions—the Departments of Defense, Energy, State, and Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration, and possibly others—Congress and the administration should jointly consider implementing extraordinary measures like the process used for military base realignment and closure (BRAC), modified as required to reflect actual experience with BRAC.

Recommendation 3: Each federal department and agency should use its organizational mission as guidance for facilities investment decisions and should then integrate facilities investments into its organizational strategic planning processes. Facilities investments should be evaluated as mission enablers, not solely as costs.

Recommendation 4(a): Each federal department and agency should develop and use a business case analysis for all significant facilities investment proposals to make clear the underlying assumptions, the alternatives considered, the full range of costs and benefits, and potential consequences for the organization and its missions.

Recommendation 4(b): To promote more effective communication and understanding, each federal department and agency should develop a common terminology agreed upon with its oversight constituencies for use in facilities investment deliberations. In addition, each should train its asset management staff to effectively communicate with groups such as congressional committees having widely different sets of objectives and values. Mirroring this, oversight constituencies should have the capacity and skills to understand the physical aspects of facilities management as practiced in the field.

Recommendation 5(a): Each federal department and agency should use life-cycle costing for all significant facilities investment decisions to better inform decision makers about the full costs of a proposed investment. A life-cycle cost analysis should be completed for (1) a full range of facilities investment alternatives, (2) the staff, equipment, and technologies inherent to the alternatives, and (3) the costs of the required funding.

Recommendation 5(b): Congress and the administration should jointly lead an effort to revise the budget scorekeeping rules to support facilities investments that are cost-effective in the long term and recognize a full range of costs and benefits, both quantitative and qualitative.

Recommendation 6: Every major facility proposal should include the strategy and costs for exiting the investment as part of its business case analysis. The development and evaluation of exit strategies during the programming process will provide insight into the potential long-term consequences for the organization, help to identify ways to mitigate the consequences, and help to reduce life-cycle costs.

Recommendation 7: Each federal department and agency should base its decisions to own or lease facilities on the level of control desired and on the planning horizon for the function, which may not be the same as the life of the facility.

Recommendation 8: Each federal department and agency should use performance measures in conjunction with both periodic and continuous long-term feedback and evaluation of investment decisions to monitor and control investments, measure the outcomes of facilities investment decisions, improve decision-making processes, and enhance organizational accountability.

Recommendation 9: To increase the transparency of its decision-making process and to enhance accountability, each federal department and agency should develop a decision process diagram that illustrates the many interfaces and points at which decisions about facilities investments are made and the parties responsible for those decisions. Implementation of facilities asset management approaches and consistent use of business case analyses will further enhance organizational accountability

Recommendation 10: Congress and the administration and federal departments and agencies should institute appropriate incentives to reward operating units and individuals who develop and use innovative and cost-effective strategies, procedures, or programs for facilities asset management.

Recommendation 11: In order to leverage funding, Congress and the administration should encourage and allow more widespread use of alternative approaches for acquiring facilities, such as public-private partnerships and capital acquisition funds.

• Outsourcing Management Functions for the Acquisition of Federal Facilities
• Committee on Outsourcing Design and Construction-Related Management Services for Federal Facilities
  

2000

Recommendation: A federal agency should analyze the relationship of outsourcing decisions to the accomplishment of its mission before outsourcing management functions for planning, design, or construction services. Outsourcing for services and functions should be integrated into an overall strategy for achieving the agency’s mission, managing resources, and obtaining best value or best performance for the resources expended. Outsourcing of management functions should not be used solely as a short-term expedient to limit spending or reduce the number of in-house personnel.

Recommendation: Federal agencies should first determine their role(s) as owners, users, and / or providers of facilities and then determine the core competencies required to effectively fulfill these role(s) in overseeing the outsourcing of management functions for planning, design, and construction services.

Recommendation: Once a decision has been made to outsource some or all management functions, a responsibilities-and-deliverables matrix should be established to help eliminate overlapping responsibilities, provide accountability, and ensure that, as problems arise, solutions are managed effectively.

Recommendation: Agencies that outsource management functions for planning, design, and construction services should regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the outsourcing effort in relation to accomplishment of the agency’s mission.

Recommendation: Agencies should establish performance measures to assess accomplishments relative to the objectives established for the outsourcing effort and, at a minimum, address cost, schedule, and quality parameters.

Recommendation: Owner / user agencies should retain a sufficient level of technical and managerial competency in-house to act as informed owners and / or users when management functions for planning, design, and construction services are outsourced.

Recommendation: Provider agencies should retain a sufficient level of planning, design, and construction management activity in-house to ensure that they can act as competent providers of planning, design, and construction management services.

Recommendation: Agencies should provide training for leaders and staff responsible for technical, procurement, financial, business, and managerial functions so that they can oversee the outsourcing of management functions for planning, design, and construction effectively.

Recommendation: Interagency coordination, cooperation, collaboration, networking, and training should be increased to encourage the use of best practices and improve life-cycle cost effectiveness in the delivery of federal facilities.

• Stewardship of Federal Facilities: A Proactive Strategy for Managing the Nation's Public Assets
• Committee to Assess Techniques for Developing Maintenance and Repair Budgets for Federal Facilities
  

1998

Recommendation 1: The federal government should plan strategically for the maintenance and repair of its facilities in order to optimize available resources, maintain the functionality and quality of federal facilities, and protect the public's investment. A recommended strategic framework of methods, practices, and strategies for the proactive management and maintenance of the nation's public assets is summarized on Figure ES-1.

Recommendation 2: The government should foster accountability for the stewardship of federal facilities at all levels. Facilities program managers at the agency level should identify and justify the resources necessary to maintain facilities effectively and should be held accountable for the use of these resources.

Recommendation 3: At the executive level, an advisory group of senior level federal managers, other public sector managers, and representatives of the nonprofit and private sectors should be established to develop policies and strategies to foster accountability for the stewardship of facilities and to allocate resources strategically for their maintenance and repair.

Recommendation 4: Facility investment and management should be directly linked to agency mission. Every agency's strategic plan should include a facilities component that links facilities to agency mission and establishes a basis and rationale for maintenance and repair budget requests.

Recommendation 5: The government should adopt more standardized budgeting and cost accounting techniques and processes to facilitate tracking of maintenance and repair funding requests, allocations, and expenditures and reflect the total costs of facilities ownership.

Recommendation 6: Government-wide performance measures should be established to evaluate the effectiveness of facilities maintenance and repair programs and expenditures.

Recommendation 7: Facilities program managers should be empowered to operate in a more businesslike manner by removing institutional barriers and providing incentives for improving cost-effective use of maintenance and repair funds. The carryover of unobligated funds and the establishment of revolving funds for nonrecurring maintenance needs should be allowed if they are justified.

Recommendation 8: Long-term requirements for maintenance and repair expenditures should be managed by reducing the size of the federal facilities portfolio. New construction should be limited, existing buildings should be adapted to new uses, and the ownership of unneeded buildings should be transferred to other public or private organizations. Facilities that are functionally obsolete, are not needed to support an agency's mission, are not historically significant, and are not suitable for transfer or adaptive reuse should be demolished whenever it is cost effective to do so.

Recommendation 9: Condition assessment programs should be restructured to focus first on facilities that are critical to an agency's mission; on life, health, and safety issues; and on building systems that are critical to a facility's performance. This will optimize available resources, provide timely and accurate data for formulating maintenance and repair budgets, and provide critical information for the ongoing management of facilities.

Recommendation 10: The government should provide appropriate and continuous training for staff that perform condition assessments and develop and review maintenance and repair budgets to foster informed decision making on issues related to the stewardship of federal facilities and the total costs of facilities ownership.

Recommendation 11: The government and private industry should work together to develop and integrate technologies for performing automated facility condition assessments and to eliminate barriers to their deployment.

Recommendation 12: The government should support research on the deterioration/failure rates of building components and the non-quantitative effects of building maintenance (or lack thereof) in order to develop quantitative data that can be used for planning and implementing cost-effective maintenance and repair programs and strategies and for better understanding the programmatic effects of maintenance on mission delivery and on building users' health, safety, and productivity.

• Pay Now or Pay Later: Controlling Cost of Ownership from Design Throughout the Service Life of Public Buildings
• Committee on Setting Federal Construction Standards to Control Building Life-Cycle Costs
  

1991

Recommendation: Each agency should formally recognize life-cycle cost management as a basic and essential element of the agency's operating policies.

Recommendation: In developing designs and management strategies for facilities, agencies should require their staff and consultants to undertake an explicit analysis of alternatives to explore opportunities for controlling life-cycle costs.

Recommendation: Those agencies that use value engineering programs should assure that savings are achieved in expected life-cycle cost rather than construction cost only.

Recommendation: Agencies should request that designers prepare a report that can serve as a life-cycle management guidebook for new or substantially renovated facilities.

Recommendation: Agencies should encourage exchange and cross-training of design and O&M management personnel to assure that members of each group have practical understanding of life-cycle cost management principles and how lifecycle cost is controlled at all stages of a facility's service life .

Recommendation: Agencies should work cooperatively to establish life-cycle cost management systems.

Recommendation: Accountability for effective use of maintenance and repair funds and other actions that may invalidate prior decisions on facility life-cycle cost should be assigned at the highest levels in the agency.