OPTIMIZING MARINE CORPS FORCES RESERVE INSPECTION STRATEGIES

Abstract

The Marine Corps Forces Reserve (MARFORRES) is trained, equipped, and organized to provide operational tempo relief support and enable the active-duty force during peacetime and wartime. This requires that MARFORRES remains in a constant state of readiness to activate at a moment’s notice to support the active-duty Fleet Marine Force. To ensure readiness, MARFORRES executes a series of inspections on its reserve units. We focus on MARFORRES G-4’s Supply and Maintenance Analysis Teams (SMAT) inspection program, which conducts extensive analysis of a unit’s Supply and Maintenance sections. In the last seventeen years, MARFORRES G-4 has seen several variations of SMAT in hopes of optimizing its resources to better execute its mandate to perform internal inspections. SMAT’s current construct is not operating up to the expectation of MARFORRES G-4 leadership. We address this by analyzing the value and management of MARFORRES’ limited resources. We use a multi-period mixed-integer linear program to maximize the total inspection value over a three-year time period, while satisfying various resource and budget restrictions. As a result, we inform MARFORRES on both the value of inspectors on SMAT and the resolution of resources based on commodity sections. Our analysis expands MARFORRES G-4’s decision space affording the ability to study effects on SMAT inspection value given deviations in resource and budget allocations.