Mobilizing Marine Corps Officers

Dan O. Bausch, Gerald G. Brown, Danny R. Hundley, Stephen H. Rapp and Richard E. Rosenthal
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Dan O. Bausch: Insight, Incorporated, Bend, Oregon 97709-1609
Gerald G. Brown: Operations Research Department, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California 93943
Danny R. Hundley: United States Marine Corps, Washington, DC 20380
Stephen H. Rapp: United States Marine Corps, Washington, DC 20380 and Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California 93943
Richard E. Rosenthal: Operations Research Department, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California 93943

Interfaces, 1991, vol. 21, issue 4, 26-38

Abstract: The ability to rapidly mobilize the Marine Corps in times of crisis is a cornerstone of United States defense strategy. To mobilize rapidly, the marines need an efficient system for assigning officers to mobilization billets. The system we designed and built is based on a network optimization algorithm that works in conjunction with carefully designed and scrupulously maintained Marine Corps data bases. It takes less than 10 minutes on a 386-based personal computer to complete a mobilization involving 40,000 officers and 27,000 billets and to produce output suitable for generating orders to report via MAILGRAM . Prior to our work, the Marine Corps had a mainframe-based system that took two to four days to complete a mobilization. The new system is not only much faster than the old system, but it also produces significantly better assignments with respect to all measures of effectiveness considered.

Keywords: military applications: manpower; optimization: networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1991
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