Mr. FURCOLO. Well, I understood that they had prepared some-thing whatever that might have been-which was to be ready by May 1, 1951. Later on that was changed. Now, directing my attention just to whatever it was they had prepared for the May 1, 1951, completion date, it seems to me that they must have had something prepared there which someone else could look over and check on. Mr. CAREY. Well, there is no question about that. It could have been checked, but it would take time to check an estimate of that kind in detail. On some jobs it is necessary to go over each one of these items, because some of these plants have been inoperative for years. Until it is actually uncovered it is hard to tell what the conditions are. Mr. FURCOLO. May I ask you this question: Do I understand that it was at least not a situation where the Engineers wanted to check but the Ordnance would not cooperate in letting you look over their plans? General HARDIN. NO. Mr. FURCOLO. It was rather a situation where there just was not the time? It was not through any lack of cooperation between the Engineers and Ordnance? General HARDIN. That is true exactly. Mr. FURCOLO. Do I understand also that at least so far as future work is concerned as much as possible you are trying to check it as you go along? General HARDIN. Yes. Mr. FURCOLO. So if there had been any defect in the operation. here, that at least, is not going to happen again if we can avoid it? Mr. CAREY. For the present program they are first of all made up in the field by Ordnance and the district engineer. The estimates come into the Chief's office for review, and then they are forwarded to Ordnance and then to higher authority before the project is approved. INEFFICIENT OPERATIONS ON CONSTRUCTION JOBS DUE TO ORGANIZATIONAL DIFFICULTIES Mr. FURCOLO. It seems that running through all of these casesnot simply as concerns the Army or Ordnance or any one in particular we seem to continually be confronted with a situation where the original estimates are not realistic, or the completion dates are not, or something else. While it may not be the fault of anyone, under the conditions under which they were working, it has cropped up so much that it seems we ought to be trying to do something to avoid it in the future. Now, in paragraph 5 of one of these documents it is pointed out that There were excessive contractor personnel for the work. and then it goes on to point out in No. 7 that- It is recommended that the inspection and supervision be increased. Iwould just like to know in general your opinion as to whether or not ordinarily this committee would expect to find that there is a tendency on the part of contractors to have more people in the administrative or manual capacity than there should be, and whether or not it would in the long run save the Government any money if the Engineers were given more personnel or money to carry on this supervision and inspection? I realize sometimes you can be overloaded with supervisors and inspectors. I am not asking you to suggest that, but I would like to get your comments on that. General HARDIN. No, Mr. Furcolo. I think in retrospect the jobs I have been associated with which have been faulty are not due to any limitation on money. It is not due to any limitation on numbers of personnel. Most generally it is because you have to create a working organization where each member will know what is expected of him. You are employing people who are misfits. Until you find out that they are misfits they will frequently be troublemakers, either by loafing on the job, or they will be troublemakers in other respects. There is usually a shake-down period, as I mentioned a little earlier this afternoon, which is necessary in throwing a group of thousands of men together and trying to get effective operations out of them. Some of our jobs give more trouble than others, and you can only relate that trouble to such things as inadequate planning. We have all been too prone to get started too soon, I think. The clamor is, in periods of stress like that, "Something has got to be showing." I must admit that at times you would probably do better if you would do more planning and less working in the early stages of the thing. Yet the pressure you are under to let it be known you are working frequently leads to inefficient operations. You are accomplishing something, but maybe not as much as you might if you planned it better. That applies to the contractors as well as to the Corps of Engineers. But I know of no instance where we were hampered by lack of money. The construction money is available to us, and we can use it either for construction or inspection. As I say, if we find that it is not practical to inspect the work with our own forces, we have the great talents of the whole American architectural engineering profession available to us, because they were out of work and are now. We could hire 10 firms for every one we do hire. You will find better talents in engaging those people than you will by going out into the open market and trying to recruit people. Mr. FURCOLO. Before asking any more questions, I certainly want to compliment you and tell you how much I appreciate the candor and fairness in your answer. Very often I think the experience of any congressional committee is sometimes we ask for it, franklywhen we ask a witness a question such as I asked you, to have the answer come back: "Yes, we are short of personnel and money, but we can only do what we can with what the Congress gives us.' think your answer has been very fair and frank, and I appreciate it. In other words, as I understand it, you would say that by and large there was not too great a degree of overloading of personnel on the part of the contractors? General HARDIN. No; I would not say so. I Mr. FURCOLO. Would you say in general, as I think you touched on slightly in your answer, that on most of the jobs you had anything to do with there would not have been any great delay in the actual completion date, rather than the estimated completion date, if a lit more time had been taken in the beginning? Would you go that fa General HARDIN. Well, with respect to certain operations in ret spect I would say that is true. On others, I think they were qu ably carried on from the outset. There are exceptions both way I can think of quite a number of highly effective operations which g off to a running start and never faltered. Mr. FURCOLO. Then I want to ask you this question, also: I su pose you could go to any job or any plant or any office, private public, and if you were looking for certain things to find in the natu of "horseplay" or "wasting time," those could be found by the cas observer. In general, would you say that there was any excessive amount loafing or "horseplay" on such jobs as compared with what would happening on private jobs? General HARDIN. No, sir; I would not. I have a pretty high gard for the American workman. He is not addicted to that sort thing as a general rule. You will find individuals with high spir and what not who will be inclined to fool around, or not put out full day's work, however. INEFFICIENCIES PREVALENT UNDER COST-PLUS-FIXED-FEE CONTRAC Generally it falls in the category of less effective effort on the cost-plus-fixed-fee operations simply because by the very nature the beast they are not undertaken with the planning and the orga ization which you will find in a deliberate type of contracting whe a man has had ample time to prepare his organization, and where knows definitely what he is going to do. Now, when you have firm contract with a man, he only accepts changes to that contra if you pay him something for it. He is not inclined to be changin his scope of work or his procedures, because it upsets the niceties a balance in material and men and what not to make the job r smoothly, to be changing plans. That is the reason why you adop one of these cost-plus-fixed-fee operations, because it is so subject changing requirements of the Government. Otherwise you wou bog down and never get another type of contract going. Mr. FURCOLO. Would you say that on the average the contract on a governmental job gets about as much work from the employe as the same contractor would get with those same employees on private job? General HARDIN. Well, now, you are speaking as between the cos plus-fixed-fee operation and the bid type of operation? Mr. FURCOLO. Whichever it may be. If you make it the sam contractor and the same employees, that is what I am after. General HARDIN. Yes, sir; definitely. I think it is identical. it is a cost-type contract, whether it be for the Government or fo private employment, I can see no factor which would favor Unite States Steel as against the United States Government. If it is a bi job, a man is out to make every dollar he can. It does not make an difference whether he has it with the Government or with a private owner. Mr. FURCOLO. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman. Mr. RILEY. Mr. Davis? Mr. DAVIS. There does not appear to be any new factor in the experience of the Army in connection with this particular project which has not been found to be present in other projects conducted by the other using agencies. We have been trying to find out just where the responsibility lies here. I do not know whether we have helped ourselves on this particular project or not. It seems to be very much along the same pattern we have been witnessing here; regardless of whether it was an Air Force project or a Navy project or an Army project. There does not seem to be much difference. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) (After discussion off the record.) USE OF RATIO OF MANUAL TO NONMANUAL EMPLOYEES AS GUIDE FOR DETERMINING EFFICIENCY OF SUPERVISORY PERSONNEL Mr. DONNELLY. Mr. Furcolo put his finger on the heart of this proposition of the management of the Sunflower contract. We have here, prepared by the Corps of Engineers, a statement on the ratio of manual to nonmanual employees in this Sunflower plant, and also for various other plants. On the statement for the Sunflower plant, if you will look at the next to the last column you get the percentage of nonmanual employees to the total number of employees, and if you look down there you see that on May 31, 1951, it was 17.3 percent, on June 30, 1951, 22.2 percent, and on July 31, 29.3 percent so that they never did get in hand this question of the management of the people on this contract. By way of contrast, if you look underneath to the other contracts for which the corps has furnished these ratios, we have the Hoosier Ordnance Plant, Indiana, and there, if you look in the last column that will give you the percentage of nonmanual to total employees, and you see how that situation was in hand. Then looking at the next one, which is the Jefferson Proving Ground, in Indiana, again you see how that situation was gotten in hand. Then looking at the next one, the Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, we find the situation again very much in hand. The committee will recall that Admiral Jelley testified here that this way of detecting the efficiency of the supervisory personnel, using this ratio, seemed to him a highly effective way to do it. Mr. FURCOLO. He said it was better than any way that they were using. Mr. DONNELLY. That is right. May these ratios be put in the record at this point, Mr. Chairman? Mr. RILEY. Without objection they may be incorporated in the record at this point. (The matter referred to follows:) |