Optimal Use of German Army Maintenance Resources.
Abstract
The German Army's maintenance branch has lost 25 percent of its soldiers since the end of the cold war. The maintenance branch has insufficient military personnel within maintenance units to maintain all combat unit equipment. The Army, therefore, purchases civilian man hours (mhrs) to satisfy some required maintenance. This thesis develops a mixed integer linear program, named ADOPT (administrative order optimizer), to optimally assign combat unit equipment to maintenance units and to distribute a budget to purchase civilian mhrs. ADOPT also determines beneficial cross-training of soldiers from one maintenance type to another. Since it is not always possible to maintain all combat unit equipment, ADOPT minimizes the gap, prioritized by equipment types, between needed maintenance mhrs and available military and civilian maintenance mhrs. ADOPT provides a tool to determine and evaluate options and principles that impact the readiness of a German Army Division's materiel. ADOPT validates its effectiveness with data of Military District VIII' Mechanized Infantry Division. Results indicate a potential budget saving of one-third when cross-training of maintenance soldiers from one maintenance type to another is allowed. ADOPT also shows that the regional principle (as-signing common combat unit equipment to the nearest maintenance units) is inefficient.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA345966
Entities
People
- Joerg Wellbrink
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School