Transportation and Facilities Management role in Military Essay

Transportation and Facilities Management role in Military - Essay Example In the proving this commitment, the US Army Force has a well instituted program scale named Optimal Stationing Army Force (OSAF) that has helped in setting and making of viable organizational strategies (Dell 421). OSAF has fundamentally helped the US Army in organizing various installation programs and setting up of operational platform for the US Army Force. The Optimal Stationing Army Force has been significantly applied in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). The OSAF provides a significant tool for planning and scheduling the installation and reinforcement of the military forces in manner destined at cutting expenditure and resources spent in maintaining and sustaining the US Army (Dell 421). Every military plan conducted on the basis of the OSAF is done in such way that it will be implemented under the lowest possible cost. OSAF program dictates that every stationing plan for any army unit has to meet particular standards without which the particular unit may be disreg arded. The standards include the availability of field for maneuver training, buildings and various requirements for training a unit. The OSAF also provides strict and explicit mechanism for determining and evaluating every station plan. With the provisions in the OSAF, Army leaders have been able to guide stationing analysts on the appropriate channels and systems to rely upon, those to change and those to ignore in making decisions that meet qualitative and qualitative metrics of Army Stationing. Furthermore, Army has substantially used the OSAF program as a tool for determining appropriate conditioning of various facilities as well as upgrading the underdeveloped and outdated facilities (Dell 423). The Optimal Stationing Army Force (OSAF) is said to cover and perhaps judgmental of only five types of Army installations out of the total thirteen types of the Army installation. The five types of installation stations run by OSAF include the maneuver centers, professional schools con trol and command, major training bases and training schools. As observed by Dell the installation centers operated by OSAF are somewhat different from the other centers not operated by OSAF as determined by the high population of soldiers in the OSAF operated stations (424). In dictating the installation costs, OSAF uses the principles of the Cost of Base Realignment Action (COBRA) Army to arrive at the per-person cost of running particular installation station. The cost of running an individual installation station is calculated in terms of the location, medical costs, repair costs housing operations, modernization costs and the amount of allowances offered. According to Dell the installation programs of various stations face numerous problems and challenges that are however solved and settled by the OSAF (424). One of the noted problems that faces and affects the smooth achievement of the installation programs in various stations is the unpredictability of the actual costs and exp enditures. This results from the variability in the installation costs of different units in particular stations. Another problem faced in the installation program of stations relies upon the high transport costs of the soldiers and their families during their