Reengineering the United States Marine Corps' Recruit Distribution Model (RDM)

Abstract

The United States Marine Corps accomplishes its mission "to put the right Marine in the right place at the right time with the right skills and quality of life" in a variety of ways. One of the information systems assisting the Marine Enlisted Assignments branch is the Recruit Distribution Model (RDM). This thesis proposes changes to the RDM user interface, data management, assignment model, and analysis capability. With the use of business process reengineering, process modeling, mathematical modeling, and database design a fully functional prototype has been developed to address each identified change proposal. This reengineered system includes numerous innovations such as an intuitive navigational scheme using switchboards, and the elimination of manual data entry for data already available in the system. It also provides a number of significant contributions beneficial to the USMC. For instance, the reengineered system allows the user to objectively analyze different results by comparing four different objective measures, and its mathematical model uses commercial-off-the-shelf products eliminating a proprietary solver. All these changes will empower managers to effectively and efficiently manage the assignment of recruits in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century