Implementing project management plans to control construction costs on military projects in Korea

Over $156 billion annually is spent maintaining the more than 800 overseas US military bases in over 80 countries, highlighting the need for efficient construction acquisitions. International military construction projects intrinsically contain elements of uncertainty that must be effectively managed to meet project cost, schedule, and performance objectives. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) requires the use of project management plans as a primary tool for quality project delivery on all their construction projects. The complete implementation of the Corps' required project management business process (PMBP) has yet to occur for USACE military construction projects in Outside Continental United States (OCONUS) locations. Quantitative data has yet to demonstrate that fully utilizing a project management plan makes a difference in the project delivery team's (PDT) ability to achieve, cost, schedule or performance objectives. Project Managers for OCONUS military construction projects may have reluctance to incorporate USACE's project management business process, because conclusive measurable data cannot demonstrate the process' economic impact. To quantify the impact of the USACE project management business process on construction projects, this research studies the use of project management plans on USACE's OCONUS military construction projects and assesses whether such use influences the project's total cost and time growth relative to that of similar projects that were initiated prior to the revisions to USACE's PMBP. This results of this study demonstrate that utilizing a project management plan, with its associated actions and tasks, throughout the construction project's entire delivery phase is a viable tool to control cost and time overruns.