A Marine/Task Centric Approach to Determine Planning Requirements for the Base of the Future

Base of the Future A Marine/Task Centric Approach to Determine Planning Requirements for the Base of the Future 11 September 2020

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BLUF: A Marine-centric approach to installation planning (as opposed to our traditional facility-centric approach) will provide the USMC with greater resiliency and flexibility to respond to a rapidly evolving threat context as well as improve efficiency and effectiveness of the day-to-day operation of bases.

1) THE OBJECTIVE Resilient installations take different forms based upon mission requirements of the Fleet Marine Force and respective tenant commands.

Installations need to be robust to withstand both changes to the operational environment while allowing operations to continue, but also extensible, allowing for flexibility and adaptation. Agility will be key in responding to the next unconventional threat in multiple theaters.

Individual Marines are our most important weapons system and therefore the capabilities that Marines need to execute their jobs are at the root of building a resilient system of buildings and infrastructure where the capacity and capability to “take a punch”, “stay standing”, and “punch back” is robust and extensible. While some threats may impact the physical environment, it the ability of each Marine – either by themselves but more often in groups – to continue to execute the mission that good planning needs to ensure. The objective for extensibility similarly relates to continually evolving mission requirements, such that USMC investments are not easily overtaken by events but instead are developed with intention to adapt, achieve, and overcome.

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2) THE CURRENT PROBLEM Our most important warfighting resource, our Marines, is often highly constrained by the very infrastructure that is supposed to support them.

Planning for installations has traditionally centered on either the infrastructure or equipment. Decisions about where to locate facilities or what facilities to build are driven primarily by real estate, civil engineering, and facility standards considerations.

Once those decisions are made, the base tenants are forced into the planned solution.

One of the reasons that this current approach diminishes operational efficiency is that base infrastructure decisions have not been directly tied to the capability requirements of the units.

Infrastructure is established in an industrial age approach for long lifespans and assuming unchanging mission requirements, years in advance and based on a planning assumption that was developed based on past precedents.

The unintended consequences of, for example, of an expeditionary airfield logistical support squadron moving from a 1950s barracks located with its motorpool to a new headquarters-type building several miles from the motorpool, impacted response time and effectiveness of the unit. The motorpool itself remained segregated in its original location, forcing the unit to spread their operations across several square miles of the base increasing unit costs in time, fuel, and management oversight.

If the planning for their new HQ had permeated the jobs that airfield logistical support Marines do every day, the new HQ could have made them more efficient and more resilient, rather than less so.

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3) PROPOSED SOLUTION As bases have shifted from safe havens to power projection platforms, a novel approach to innovation-based planning is needed. This approach reverses the thinking of the current methods. Instead of “fitting Marines into” installations that were planned based on static design standards, it starts with the individual Marine and his/her mission requirements. By understanding and modeling the Fleet Marine’s mission support activities, it should be possible to create a baseline of requirements and dependencies against which to test and evaluate whether any proposal improves their ability to do their job, or makes it harder.

The primary foundation of this warfighter and mission centric planning model is the principal of “Get Stuff Done,” or GSD. Marines spend their day GSDing—for duty, self, and home—and the installation should be planned to help them do it.

This approach has proven to be a powerful lens for analyzing and proposing solutions that enable warriors to effectively do their jobs and execute the mission. As 2020 has clearly demonstrated, the pandemic response has exacerbated and impeded many daily tasks that take time away from other critical mission and life activities. It has also clearly exposed tasks that are difficult or impossible to accomplish during disruption because mission essential functions are under the control of others, whether within the fence or in host communities, and are no longer accessible or available.

Ultimately, an in-depth understanding of the jobs a Fleet Marine is required to execute would serve as a foundation for a future machine-learning based, digital planning tool (aka Virtual Sand Table) that will allow leadership to create and compare alternate planning scenarios. This approach will help leadership understand the implications of decisions made today on the future interconnected physical, temporal, and infrastructure systems that

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make up the foundation of an efficient operational Fleet Marine community and thus make more optimal installation planning decisions.

3.1) GAINING THE REQUIRED MARINE UNDERSTANDING While much of the data and technology to pilot an interactive planning tool exists, a clear understanding of the individual Fleet Marines’ routine, their jobs, and their mission-centric capability requirements has yet to be developed.

This knowledge would be a critical pre-requisite and design feature necessary for the future development via a Virtual Sand Table. Identifying mission essential functions and tasks would also facilitate a better understanding of what metrics are needed to make impactful planning decisions.

The generation of this knowledge begins with collecting and consolidating what is already known: • Every unit of the operating force and tenant commands has a Mission Essential Task List (METL) that outlines what that unit needs to do to be successful in combat and what is required in terms of tools and resources to get the job done.

• Every installation has a Table of Organization and Equipment and Facilities Unification (TOEFUE). This is a list of all personnel, and equipment that the force needs, and the corresponding facility/space requirements for those units and materiel as dictated by force design plans created 5 years earlier.

• Every installation has a set of functions known as the Common Output Levels of Service (COLS), which includes 40 installation functions with corresponding sub-functions spread across 7 portfolios. The COLS are designed to provide the necessary support from the installation to the Fleet Marine Force tenant units. This enables Force Generation, Force Sustainment, Force Protection, Force Projection, and Force Operation.

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Once the current landscape has been sufficiently categorized, the information must be augmented with additional detail (e.g., METL activities, required personnel, required resources, etc.) to determine how the operational, logistical, and physical environments need to be modified to enable more resilient Marines. These job descriptions are not about manning documentation, i.e. the job title or organization structure, but more about how work is done, with whom and in what environment. For example, the requirement to work in a group (whether maintaining an airframe, working with heavy equipment in a depot or in a combat unit) versus activities that can be done socially distanced or remotely such as desk work, have fundamentally different dependencies and requirements.

This structure must also recognize that, as shown by recent events, more efficient operation is often more brittle and increases risk to mission. The lack of redundant systems and strategic reserves, which may cost more to maintain and be slower to respond, have clearly exposed a number of pain points down the mission thread, both on base and in GSD. Overlaying the physical, temporal and organizational characteristics of jobs with other installation characteristics that support the generation, sustainment, projection, and operation of the joint force will establish a baseline against which to measure proposed solutions. By applying the principles of warfighter and mission-centric planning to selected pilot installations, a dossier will be developed that identifies the various work and living environments on an installation characterized by the jobs to be done (GSD) that occur within. With this information, solutions can be developed to address the potential impact of unknown future threats and mission requirements.

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This proposed solution would ultimately require four phases, the first two of which proposed here: 1. Research: Employ a range of data-driven and ethnographic methods, across the range of jobs within the Fleet Marine Force and supporting establishment. This would develop data on Marine/ civilian personnel and the key operational characteristics of their roles including, but not limited to: a. Type/description b.

Spatial characteristics

c.

Temporal characteristics

d.

Key adjacencies

e.

Ability to execute individually or in groups

f.

Ability to execute remotely or spatial/ logistics/equipment dependencies.

This step is expected to be iterative in nature as it will require some experimentation with method and data to determine exactly what needs to be collected and with what methods.

2. Develop an initial framework Determine which job types and dependencies (physical, temporal, and logistics) can be placed to describe the Fleet Marine’s capability requirements across all nine vectors (protection, resilience, training and range support, maintenance, mobility, community, operational reach, command, and control).

This proposal is for these two initial research phases and will establish the basis and methodology for future work to expand the approach and framework to cover the entire range of MOS’s and mission types.

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These future phases would likely include: 3. Pilot:Develop a conceptual pilot proposal using one or more installations to test the job descriptions, framework, and existing geophysical information to determine if this provides sufficient data upon which to virtually model and create scenario plans for an installation.

4. Virtual Sand Table: Develop a machine-learning based, digital planning tool that will allow leadership to fully understand the implications of decisions on the interconnected physical, temporal, and infrastructure systems that make up the foundation of a healthy Fleet Marine ecosystem. The tool should be hardware agnostic– meaning that it is the ability to answer questions that is important not the display technology or programming system.

An interdisciplinary team of planners, technologists, mission essential function SME’s, and installation leaders must be involved to ensure that this becomes a tool that can be used across silos.

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CONCLUSION Operating in an ever-changing threat environment requires the ability to plan and execute installation support both efficiently and effectively. However, the ability to do this ultimately comes down to enabling the Fleet Marine Force and its supporting establishment to have the capabilities required to do their jobs, wherever the jobs may be. Through understanding those jobs, across a range of physical, temporal, and organizational characteristics and, in particular, their requirement to be executed in groups or alone, is a necessary pre-condition to creating a resilient force. Jobs descriptions, when combined with installation and mission characteristics, can create a model in which it is easier to ensure that Marines have the facilities, platforms, and tools that they need to resiliently execute their mission, whether in garrison stateside or when deployed abroad.

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