Breaking New Ground—Stories from Defence Construction Breaking_new_ground | Page 96

Staff members at Head Office in Ottawa
participate in a baseball tournament to
raise funds for United Way and celebrate
DCC’s 40th anniversary.
DCC’s structure underwent other changes, primarily as
a result of government policy and budgetary pressures:
the Pacific and Prairie regions were amalgamated into
the Western Region and operations management was
consolidated under a single Vice-President, Operations.

Celebrating 40 years
In May 1991, DCC celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Major-General John Adams, Chief Construction and
Properties at NDHQ, took the time to commit
congratulations to paper:
The mere fact that this very unique relationship between
our two organizations has endured for four decades,
despite monumental changes in society, government,
industry and the international situation, is in itself
significant. Even more significant is the product of this
relationship: 40 continuous years of timely, efficient and
effective construction and maintenance in support of
the Department of National Defence… all of you in DCL
are absolutely vital to our success.
Relying on technology
Computerization was also doing its part to improve
efficiency and reduce costs. By the spring of 1992, all
Regional and Site offices had access to the contracting
database thanks to the Regional Information Management
System (RIMS), which was designed to decentralize
administrative procedures. Regional offices were
assigned responsibility for managing contract security
and insurance, while field office employees started to
capture information on site conditions and input from
DND electronically for the first time.
DCC and DND also worked with PWC on a review of the
SPEC system in the early 1990s, adding new types of
work to the system, including environmental work. In
October 1993, DCC replaced its old system of advertising
proposed procurements in newspapers and trade
journals with the Open Bidding Service (OBS) database.
Since OBS was user-pay, DCC no longer incurred notice
costs, with initial savings estimated at $150,000 per
year for construction project advertising and $25,000
more for consultant project advertising.
DCC’s Strategic Information Management System
(SIMS), a more sophisticated enterprise resource
planning system, replaced the home grown RIMS system
in 1996 after an initial investment of $1.7 million
including software customization and employee training.
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BREAKING NEW GROUND
DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA