CPC Source Executive Summary   

Date: 
10-25-2022

Director, Corrosion Policy & Oversight (DCPO), ODASD (Materiel Readiness), Joseph C. Dean, P.E., Jennifer Merck, Director of Education and Training, AMPP, Steve Geusic, P.E., and Mark Davis, PMP

Updated: 10-25-2022

INTRODUCTION

DoD Facilities support impacts every aspect of mission and asset readiness to include training, availability, capacity, productivity, safety, health, and quality of life. Investment in infrastructure for DoD is complex and resource intensive. The deterioration caused by corrosion represents a significant portion of the total repair requirement for DoD. The associated required funding to repair those corroded facilities is rarely adequate for the requirement. Figure 1 illustrates the mission and readiness impacts of facilities corrosion on mission. Additionally, the inclusion of funding for corrosion, prevention, and control (CPC) features in the design and construction ensures lower sustainment costs and provides for a longer life cycle expectancy.

graphic illustrating the mission and readiness impacts of facilities corrosion

Figure 1: Facilities Corrosion Impacts on Mission and Readiness
Figure Source: Steve Geusic, P.E.

Description

The fact that corrosion control provides a cost benefit is a lesson learned repeatedly by industry, often too late and following catastrophic events (e.g., accidents, failures, and loss of production).

Implementing a well-defined plan for protecting assets from the negative impact of corrosion and other environmental degradation can improve safety, increase facility reliability, and optimize the life cycle cost.

Though not always obvious, cost savings from corrosion control include:

  • Gradually decreasing maintenance costs
  • Decreased monitoring or inspection costs
  • Improved production efficiency and/or better-quality facilities sustainment due to fewer failures
  • Decreased injuries and property damage
  • Reduced environmental impact
  • Asset life extension (directly contributes to bottom-line and/or postpones capital expenditures)
  • Increases facility readiness and availability

Any one of these makes a strong business case for enhanced CPC management, yet it is more likely that it will take a combination of the list above before it will be realized by asset owners. This lapse can be costly and sometimes dangerous.

Managers can address these challenges through considering and implementing or addressing the following:

  • Changing how CPC design and construction decisions are made
  • Justifying CPC actions by business impact
  • Design and corrosion professionals must become fluent in the language of management systems and adopt financial and risk tools used by those that make financial decisions. For DoD, that entails, embracing and leveraging the Sustainment Management System (SMS), and ensuring that there are CPC data elements that record corrosion deficiencies and requirements.
  • Making organizational or industry-wide impact requires commitment to a common way of working by all levels in organizations.

Cost savings from CPC are difficult to measure because:

  • Maintenance costs slowly decrease over time
  • From a sustainment perspective CPC maintenance actions tend to be easy to defer until it becomes a problem which then results in higher corrective costs
  • Monitoring or inspection costs decrease, or inspection intervals increase
  • Fewer failures increase facilities availability and decrease injuries, property damage, and environmental releases
  • Successful CPC improves public relations, but tracking those changes must be consistent and reliable
  • Life extension of the facilities asset can go directly to the bottom line and/or postpone capital expenditures
  • All of these can be included in the business case for enhanced corrosion management
  • Considering the above, the return on investment (ROI) calculation can be difficult to measure and may require the use of predictive maintenance tools and imprecise calculations

Ensuring that there is buy-in and support at all levels of the DoD Chain of Command for CPC is necessary to reduce the risks shown in Figure 1. Additionally, the knowledge base must be broadened at all levels of management to assess and monitor CPC financial investments. This will facilitate the broadening of the scope of awareness of CPC activities and other communications targeted at business leaders and policymakers, enabling the moving away from alarmist language and toward enabling sound business practice.

Making corrosion management an integral part of the full life cycle decision making process, and, ensuring that corrosion issues that usually occur during the operations (sustainment cycle) are considered early in the planning, design and construction phases are essential.

[Source: The 2016 NACE International Impact Study, International Measures of Prevention, Application, and Economics of Corrosion Technologies Study  provides several compelling issues and reasons to address CPC.]

Current DoD Facilities CPC Program Status

For DoD, CPC planning is mandated in 10 U.S.C. 2228 and must include plans to reduce corrosion by "developing and implementing a long-term strategy to reduce corrosion and the effects of corrosion on the military equipment and infrastructure of the Department of Defense." DCPO has addressed these challenges for facilities by accomplishing the following (see Figure 2):

  • Creation and sustainment of the CPC Source with its extensive CPC Resources
  • Providing CPC Training development on the WBDG
  • Upgrading the analytics for corrosion evaluation and applications of Environmental Severity Classification based upon ISO Standards for each installation
  • Ensuring that these ESC Zones and knowledge resources are implemented in Unified Facilities Criteria starting with:
    • UFC 1-200-01 DoD Building Code—includes a Chapter addressing CPC and requires that corrosion protection comply with the appropriate Environmental Severity Zone (Appendix A) for the physical location of the facility.
    • There is a waterfall effect for the UFC 1-200-01 CPC requirements that are reflected in many other UFC and UFGS documents. Topics include coatings, micro-environments, design geometries, material selection, dissimilar materials, and cathodic protection. These must be used in the planning, design, construction, and repair of facilities. Additional language is being added to appropriate UFC documents as resources become available.
  • Creation of exhaustive CPC Checklists for Facilities
graphic depicting cpc source steps to understanding facility corrosion

Figure 2: Relationship of CPC Source Pages, Tables & Knowledge Development
Source: Joseph C. Dean, P.E.

It must be understood that:

  • Protecting DoD investments in facilities to ensure longevity requires attention to recurring CPC related repair (restoration, modernization, and sustainment) actions
  • To achieve the longevity (life cycle) goals, an active maintenance management program including inspection, data collection and information management, and planning must be in place to avoid unscheduled repair actions
  • Unscheduled repairs generally are more costly and push aside other required work
  • Corrosion repairs include the repair of "rust" (visible surface deterioration), and, more importantly, potentially serious facilities deficiencies that are usually unseen threatening mission preparedness
  • Many factors contribute to corrosion that are either environmental (weather, hazardous chemicals, winds (sand)) or manmade such as salt application to control ice and freezing conditions. Age and surface exposure contribute to corrosion.
  • Each of these factors differ by location and intensity. Timely inspections, scheduling, and conducting repairs ensure longer life cycle and mission availability.
  • Ensuring that the design of a facility (new or repair action) includes the application of Unified Facilities Criteria requirements directing the use of corrosion resistant materials and processes will ensure that life cycle goals can be achieved.

Summary

Each of the CPC Source Resource Pages and Knowledge Areas and CPC Training courses share the common theme of Corrosion Prevention and Control (CPC) knowledge development and awareness. Lack of knowledge of corrosion and how to prevent and control corrosion can severely impact safety and operational readiness.

To fully realize [and leverage] the link between corrosion technology [required in UFCs and UFGSs] and management systems, the following two items should be implemented:

  • Broaden the corrosion professional's competence to include financial optimization of corrosion control investments; this includes use of risk assessment and other tools to monetize the return on investment (ROI) of corrosion control activities. Improved training and education are needed to realize this extension in competence, both for new entrants into the profession and the senior technical professional.
  • Broaden the scope of awareness activities and other communications targeted at business leaders [DoD leadership] and policymakers so that recommended changes to management systems elements are communicated in a language that facilitates business improvement. This ranges from justifying a single corrosion control activity to recommending organizational policy changes. This approach has the added benefit of moving the corrosion professional away from alarmist language toward enabling sound business practice.

    (Source: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (2016 NACE IMPACT STUDY AND REPORT, PAGE IV)

The DCPO CPC Source resources have been developed to assist the facilities professional at all stages of the life cycle, and to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the resources available to facilitate wise CPC decisions (see Figure 2). The Facilities and Infrastructure Corrosion Evaluation (FICE) Study (2013)  served as the impetus for this resource.

Recommendations

Management support for implementation of CPC Measures of effectiveness include:

  • Establishment of sustainable CPC policies and procedures
  • Planning and budgeting for CPC requirements
  • Supporting and leveraging SMS Facilities information for CPC to identify requirements
  • Conducting a robust inspection program to identify deficiencies, documenting those deficiencies in the SMS, and conducting corrective CPC actions
  • Enforcing the use of Unified Facilities Criteria for DoD Construction and Repair projects
  • Design and construction programs that include CPC requirements and deliver facilities that meet life cycle expectations
  • Promoting an active dialog to broaden the understanding of CPC and its benefits to mission and operations

Additional Resources

DoD Installations Organizations

Federal Facility Criteria: 
Topics: