Minimizing Army Cadet Temporary Duty

Abstract

Every newly-commissioned Army officer from a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) commissioning source joins one of 19 different basic branches (e.g. , infantry, armor) and undergoes initial training to develop fundamental skills at an Officer Basic Course (OBC). Each basic branch has a separate training program and offers multiple OBC classes every year. The Army grants commissions to approximately 3,000 ROTC cadets annually and, under the current system, manually schedules each cadet to attend an OBC class. In addition, the Army schedules approximately 850 of these cadets to fill one of two temporary duty (TDY) assignments en route to their OBC class. This thesis develops a mixed integer linear program called Minimizing Cadet Temporary Duty (MCTDY) to reduce the time needed to schedule cadets and reduce the TDY costs as well as pay and allowances incurred by all 2Lts prior to their OBC class. For 2,828 cadets receiving commissions in 1998, MCTDY produces face-valid, cost-effective results. Direct comparisons between MCTDY and manual schedules are not made but experiments with MCTDY indicate a difference in TDY costs of up to $15 million is possible.