A New Approach to Career Field Matching for Commissioning Air Force Cadets
Abstract
The current method of assigning graduating cadets from the United States Air Force Academy and Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) detachments to their career xC;fields uses an integer programming model to maximize "global" Air Force utility, subject to several Air Force-dexC;fined constraints. This utility evaluates the positive benexC;t of assigning a certain cadet to a certain career fixC;eld. This paper discusses the issues with such a model, as well as presents a new, more refixC;ned approach to the problem. Rather than provide a one-size-fixC;ts-all formulation of this particular assignment problem, a Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) framework is applied, in conjunction with an optimization model using the framework, to measure overall solution quality for an alternative assignment of cadets to career fixC;elds, given numerous weight and value parameters. The power of optimization under a VFT framework is in the ability to capture what decision-makers want, as well as how much they want it. This research shows that the new VFT model outperforms the original model on solution quality by almost 7 when measured using different VFT weight and value parameters.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 24, 2022
- Accession Number
- AD1172355
Entities
People
- Laird D Griffen
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology