Navy officer manpower optimization incorporating budgetary constraints

Abstract

Every two years, the Chief of Naval Operations is responsible for submitting the Program Objectives Memorandum to the Secretary of the Navy for further review and inclusion in the President's two-year budget input to Congress. The Chief of Naval Personnel's Strategic Resourcing Branch is challenged with building a manpower budget program that both meets the budget limitations set forth by Congress and the manning requirement choices made by Navy leadership. This thesis develops the Requirements-Driven Cost-Based Manpower Optimization (RCMOP) model. RCMOP is a linear optimization program designed to guide monthly values for officer inventory, promotions, accessions, designator transfers, and forced and natural losses. RCMOP's goal consists of minimizing a weighted penalty function of unmet manpower requirements while meeting the Navy's fiscal constraints over a two-year time horizon. Implementation of the test scenario shows that resulting costs fall within 10% of predicted budget estimates, and promotion metrics approximate the values expected by law and policy. The model also indicates a need to increase total OCS accessions (by 11%) with respected to projected values as well as the percentage of 1000-coded billets filled by staff and fleet support officers.