Page 15

the total cost of Navy infrastructure. They also influence every other category of the infrastructure and are worthy of a separate review and/or study.

The committee was briefed on U.S. Navy training activities after making a specific request to obtain information on training-related initiatives designed to reduce infrastructure costs, but it failed to find any cost reduction initiatives comparable to those being developed and supported in the installation management area. Personnel management is another area that was not considered in detail; however, it is apparent that sea-shore rotation objectives have come into conflict with U.S. Navy objectives to reduce the number of support personnel ashore and thereby reduce infrastructure costs (see Chapter 3).

Organization of this Report

A review and assessment of selected U.S. Navy initiatives to reduce infrastructure costs are presented in Chapter 2. As indicated above, the review focuses on the initiatives being supported within the OPNAV-N4 establishment for two reasons: (1) the leadership within the functional portions of the OPNAV staff for reducing infrastructure costs lies in OPNAV-N4, and (2) the committee's attempts to obtain information on significant infrastructure cost reduction initiatives in other functional categories did not bear fruit.

Chapter 3 points to the need for an overall strategy for managing the Navy's infrastructure. As paraphrased from the words of General Andrew Goodpaster, a strategy contains three elements: (1) What is to be achieved? (2) How is it to be achieved? and (3) With what will it be achieved? In this case the “what” is to reduce the Navy infrastructure in order to recapitalize and modernize the Navy. The “how” is by reengineering the business practices of the infrastructure and applying technology to the infrastructure to enhance efficiency. The “with what” is, in particular, what the committee found lacking as it reviewed individual initiatives. Specifically, the integrating threads—a comprehensive strategy—to tie disparate, and sometimes overlapping, initiatives and activities together were lacking.

Chapters 3 and 4 indicate that two objectives are key to the Navy's success in meeting its recapitalization and modernization goal: (1) assessing and specifying the key enablers that the Navy should use to implement its chosen strategy (i.e., specifying the third, “with what,” portion of a coherent strategy) and (2) defining top leadership's role and potential actions needed to achieve a major change of the magnitude required.

Chapter 3 covers a strategy for implementing three key enablers that are essential for achieving the resource shifts necessary to support the Department of the Navy's recapitalization goals. Chapter 4 provides the mechanism for introducing the strategy and enablers to the Department of the Navy. Supplemental information is provided in the appendixes.