Context
With a portfolio of 25 million square meters of built surfaces, 2 billion square meters of unbuilt land, and over 80,000 structures of 150 different types, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces oversees more than €15 billion worth of assets. The Ministry sought to assess the required budget—both funding and staffing—to ensure the preservation of its real estate and Infrastructure assets at both national and site-specific levels. The objective was to justify and communicate these needs in order to secure appropriate funding and reduce the Ministry’s infrastructure maintenance backlog (“dette grise”).
Our solution
- 01 Performance mapping of infrastructure and building assets
- 02 Modeling and simulation of asset aging using the Oxand Simeo™ software, followed by the definition of an optimal strategy
- 03 Evolution of the performance map under budgetary constraints (Military Programming Law) at both the national level and per defense base over a 10-year period (LPM scenario), including simulation of the infrastructure maintenance backlog (“dette grise”)
What Oxand delivered
Three scenarios weighed at Cabinet level
Three main scenarios defined to balance risk, maintenance backlog and budget constraints, and put before the Ministry’s Cabinet.
The maintenance debt put before parliament
The maintenance debt, and the strategic orientations that follow from it, communicated to both chambers of the parliament.
Questions about this reference
What is the scale of the estate concerned?
25 million square metres of built surface, two billion square metres of unbuilt land, and over 80,000 structures of 150 different types, representing more than 15 billion euros of assets.
What did the Ministry set out to establish?
The budget required — funding and staffing both — to preserve its real estate and infrastructure assets, at national level and site by site, so that the need could be justified and communicated rather than asserted.
What is the dette grise, or grey debt?
The maintenance and renewal an estate has postponed and still owes itself. It is called grey because it appears in no account: the work has not been done, no liability is recorded, and the cost surfaces later with the risk that deferral has added.
How is the effect of a budget constraint shown?
The performance map is projected forward under the constraints of the Military Programming Law, at national level and per defence base, over ten years — with the maintenance backlog simulated alongside, so the consequence of the envelope is visible rather than assumed.
Does the work only concern what is kept?
No. Objective insight into asset condition also rationalises the disposal strategy, because deciding what to release is the same decision, taken from the same evidence, as deciding what to renew.