Mission resource allocation in the Gulf of Guinea

Abstract

Naval Forces Europe-Sixth Fleet (CNE-C6F) is responsible for the Gulf of Guinea (GOG) in Central-West Africa. CNE-C6Fâ s goal is to provide persistent presence, pursuant the Global Fleet Station (GFS) concept, supporting U.S. Navy strategic priorities of Maritime Security and Theater Security Cooperation (TSC). Increased presence and developmental activities will assist host nations in developing their own maritime security. Limitations on USN capacity and logistics support present a challenge to scheduling, sustaining, and allocating mission resources in the GOG. This work presents an optimization model to aid in the mission planning and scheduling process. Specifically, we use notional data from the GFS prototype developed by CNE-C6F GOG Regional Planning Team which uses an LSD as the platform to accomplish almost 100 missions over six months. The problem is constrained by a budget, re-supply needs, and transit times between countries, among other logistical requirements. Our results show substantial improvements over current manual planning methods. For example, we demonstrate that 85% of the missions scheduled to be accomplished over the course of six months can be accomplished in three. Significant savings are realized by using a High Speed Vessel or by relaxing the request to achieve the maximum TSC value by 10%