Former Mercedes head of strategy Vowles took control of the Grove outfit in February as the replacement for ex-Volkswagen motorsport boss Jost Capito, who left after two years.
He is trying to gather voting support for future F1 Commission meetings to allow Williams more capacity within the capital expenditure spending limitations to upgrade its factory.
But Vowles has warned that, even if new construction projects were to begin immediately, it would take at least three years for the team to feel the benefit on track.
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Asked by Autosport to outline the realistic timeframe for an F1 team to recover up the competitive order, Vowles said: “Right now, for a lot of facilities that are missing, even if I had a spade and I broke ground tomorrow, it'll be 36 months before most of the big infrastructure is in place.
“That's different to a lot of other teams that already have that. And that's not an abnormal period of time. The really quick stuff would be 24 months.
“That's just getting the infrastructure in place. That's not changing behaviours, cultures, systems, integrating proper [Enterprise Resource Planning] into our entire world.
"That's just buildings and infrastructure that's not there.
Source: Autosport