Research Magazine 2020

Determining Optimal Policies to Maintain the Strategic Mix and Force Readiness of Enlisted Military Personnel

LeoMacDonald and Jomon A. Paul

Coles Research Symposium on Homeland Security Special Issue, SIFALL19-04, October 2019

Overview Maintaining strength is a critical component of military workforce planning. It is a complex problem given the hierarchical structure, large number of personnel, and underlying uncertainties, including the number of promotions and both voluntary and involuntary separations. Our stochastic model of military workforce planning incorporates these uncertainties to inform realistic protocols to maintain force readiness. We first derive algorithms for the optimization of single-period planning scenarios, minimizing overage, underage, and training costs. Specifically, we develop a modified newsvendor approach for the recruitment problem with extensions that address promotion caps and retention policies and provide risk- adjusted solutions to ensure a minimum probability of maintaining target force levels. We then translate these models to a dynamic, multi-period framework, developing heuristics to provide guidance for recruiting and retention policies to enable military planners to meet personnel targets at each rank. Simulations performed at each stage ensure the models and results are consistent with the underlying stochastic problem.

26 | Coles Research Symposium

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