System Engineering Analysis of Squadron Officer College

Abstract

Squadron Officer College (SOC) provides professional military education to captains in the U.S. Air Force. Improved requirements elicitation, work-breakdown structure analysis, and capacity analysis are recommended to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of SOC. Because course length is constrained by other USAF needs, a method for trading requirement satisfaction using stakeholders is recommended to maximize value from the available time. Significant efficiencies are identified that can result in increased student throughput, increased curriculum content, or both. Currently, SOC can graduate 4,060 students yearly and has facilities to handle over 6000 students per year. Increasing the percentage of staff that actively teaches has the greatest effect on throughput; 36% of staff are actively instructing. Administration and organization efficiencies should be explored to increase the percentage of active instructors. Implementing a continuous improvement cycle could increase student learning regardless of throughput. Spiral development could be implemented to update lessons or the entire course. Customer feedback and stakeholder involvement need to be improved; currently, SOC customers, Air Force commanders, do not have a direct and timely way to influence curriculum design. Using different delivery modalities, SOC may find new efficiencies or increase learning effectiveness. SOC should examine combinations of online delivery methods in order to reduce course length or costs.