Jacobs Engineering, an independent contractor, was hired in 2011 to complete an assessment of the Corps’ Facility Equipment Maintenance (FEM) National Utilization Plan. According to best practices cited by Jacobs, an organization should be spending 4.8 percent of its budget on maintenance. Right now, the Corps spends about 0.2 percent. As a result of the assessment, Michael Ensch, chief of operations, Directorate of Civil Works, Headquarters, issued a national memorandum concerning the development of a maintenance management strategy. The memorandum detailed the creation of eight pilot studies, one for each of the Corps’ eight divisions, to be completed by November 2012.