Military Job Transports Carney McNicholas to Africa
DJIBOUTI, Africa –- Delivering furnishings and preparing living quarters for a U.S. naval base can be a challenge to any installation crew. Our company, Carney McNicholas Inc., has done so at such bases across the country. But what if the job isn’t within the United States but halfway around the world, across an ocean and a continent?
Such was asked of us when we were asked to build new buildings and living quarters in the Horn of Africa that juts into the Indian Ocean.
In that peninsula is Djibouti, the northernmost country in the Horn, with an area of not quite 9,000 square miles and a population of 700,000. To its north is Eritrea, its west Ethiopia, and its south Somalia.
The citizens of the country, a former French protectorate, speak French and its second official language is Arabic. Ethnically, Djibouti is mostly Somali and Afar, and Islam is the predominant religion. Its location allows it to serves as the port of entry to much of eastern Africa and the only U.S. naval base on the continent of Africa, Camp Lemonnier, is there.
After 9/11, the Navy began retaliating against Al Qaeda – and terrorists sympathetic to Al Qaeda in the Middle East and eastern Africa – from Camp Lemonnier, using the camp as a base of operations. The port of Djibouti, on the Gulf of Aden, sits directly west of Yemen.
The U.S. war on terrorism was going to require a long-term engagement with the nearby governments as well as that of Djibouti and, in 2007, the Navy’s presence at the camp went from expeditionary to permanent. At that time, the condition of the base was going from decrepit to a state of disrepair. As a result, the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa began renovations.
This involved constructing new maintenance and living quarters, referred to as containerized living units (CLUs), that would be more durable than the tents. The camp continues its expansion to 500 acres from 97 and increasing the Special Forces presence to more than 1,000. This expansion required the continuous construction of CLUs and their furnishings.
Enter Carney McNicholas.
The Planning
At the beginning of this year, Carney McNicholas took on an assignment has proven among its most complex and daunting to date: to transport and install 55 container loads of new manufactured furniture, fixtures and equipment to Camp Lemonnier in three phases.
Phase one involved moving trailer loads of new furniture from Seattle and Grand Rapids, Mich., to Chicago. In Chicago this cargo was loaded into 22 40-foot overseas containers and moved by rail to a cargo ship at Norfolk, Va. From there the goods were moved to Africa and Camp Lemonnier via Mediterranean ports of call and the Suez Canal.
Key to running this operation was detailed planning and preparation. Carney McNicholas and our agent-owned cooperative, UniGroup World Wide Logistics in Fenton, Mo., coordinated all the freight forwarding, booked space on the ships, tracked routes, arrivals and handling, cleared customs at the port of Djibouti and the delivered the furnishings to the camp.
The Installation
The 22 containers arrived in early June. Because of construction, labor disputes and Muslim holidays, the installation was pushed back to the first week of October. This forced us to deliver the containers to a storage yard at the camp.
Concerns were raised about what the condition of the furniture would be after sitting in container left out in temperatures of 120 degrees plus. The manufacturer, very confident its furniture would remain intact, was right.
The heat and humidity on the base in Djibouti were only one aspect of the challenging working conditions. The security checks and safety mandates, obviously necessary, simply added to the adverse conditions. But Carney McNicholas boasts insightful and resourceful project managers.
Before leaving, our project managers, Ken Bruns and Josh Waddell, had secured visas allowing them to work in the Republic of Djibouti up to one year. They were also vaccinated for yellow fever and took preventive measures for other illnesses such as malaria.
Bruns and Waddell arrived in September and began installing the furniture Oct. 1. Their crew consisted of 13, all of whom played crucial roles in the installation.
In addition to our project managers were eight Djiboutians who handled the product, another designated to operate the forklift used to shift the product from the containers to upper level CLUs, another operated the tele-handler used to reposition the containers from the storage lot to the job site, and a translator.
The Djiboutian crews were employees of Groupe Marill, an Africa-based moving firm also affiliated with UniGroup World Wide Logistics.
Based on experience from our earlier international and domestic installations, we planned to unload and install two 40-foot containers per day. We found this goal overly ambitious and so, after a week, we adopted a new strategy. Except on Friday, the Muslim sabbath, we unloaded, installed, stripped and removed the debris of one container every day.
Challenges
Having never before done an installation in Africa, we faced a lot of unknowns and the local work ethic was one of them.
The Djiboutians, being Muslim, take two 15-minute prayer breaks every day. This slowed down the operation, but we appreciated the need to respect their religion and culture. That in mind, the crew coordinated its lunch hours to accommodate these periods and reduce the time spent not working.
The Djiboutians speak French, Arabic, Afar and Somali and our Carney McNicholas managers had limited experience with French and none with Arabic, Afar and Somali. So communications posed another challenge as the crew tried to instruct the Djiboutians on how to break down the packaging waste to make maximum use of the space in the dumpsters.
As at most construction sites, everyone’s No. 1 priority at the base was safety. Making sure the workers wore the proper protection and followed the procedures governing the equipment added 30 minutes to our installation time at the site. But the few accidents that occurred were minor and resulted in no work stoppages
The security measures at Camp Lemonnier, being a naval base, saw the workers presenting their identification every morning and some being searched.
The heat hovered between 110 and 120 degrees at all times except when we worked inside a CLU or container of furniture and equipment – and then it measured 140 degrees.
The Carney McNicholas managers adapted and their discomfort did not hinder the integrity of the installation. But it most certainly was a mental challenge in performing physically demanding labor.
Conditions at the site were something less than ideal and working around the schedules of other contractors in such close proximity was an issue from time to time. Competing for space and logistical priorities is common on installation jobs both domestically and internationally. But we at Carney McNicholas took the approach of cooperating with other vendors and working with them, not against them, to accomplish our goal.
Final Result
The first 22 containers were installed and all the packaging debris removed in one month. Carney McNicholas project managers left Djibouti Oct. 30 having set up and installed 372 beds complete with mattresses. Wardrobes and chairs were installed into 186 containerized living units. Also installed into separate CLUs for a designated laundry were 28 washers and 28 dryers.
Those involved in the transportation and installation were satisfied with their work and look forward to the next two phases.
Editor’s note: The author, Anna Carney, was senior project manager of the move and installation of furniture and equipment at Camp Lemonier.
This story appears in the December edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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