CHOOSE YOUR RATE, CHOOSE YOUR FATE?

Matching Navy Recruits to Jobs

(MINIMUM-COST FLOW MODEL)

Kyle Alcock Jemar Ballesteros

Tim Shaffer

5

BACKGROUNDLabor Economics

Issues:• No lateral entry into the Navy• Attrition = loss of return on investment• Low retention = need to replace with new recruits• Expensive training cost per new recruit• Training cost is Navy’s investment; 4/5 yr. contract is

return on that investment • Better investment = reenlistment

BACKGROUND• Rate selection Training pipeline Fleet– Wants of the recruit vs. Needs of the Navy

• Motivation Behind Model:– Sailors who remain happy with their job match are less

likely to attrite and more likely to reenlist and perform well

• Maximize Human Capital

• Right person, right place, right time…

BACKGROUNDBUSINESS PROCESS

• Force management effects (PTS, ERB)

• Current process – FCFS, “needs of the Navy”

• Thought process for improving Human Capital:– Provide recruit’s top rate choices

ASSUMPTIONS

• No attrition throughout the network• Have to set pool of recruits but not necessarily

use all into the model• Assignment process is discretized (in fact, it is

a time continuous process)• Pool is ‘high-quality’ recruits• Only 15 technical ratings

Network Example (Simplified)

Objective: Deliver maximum Human Capital to the Fleet, subject to the network constraints.

(0, 0,

1)(-0.4, 0, 1) (0, 0, 45)

(0,29, 65)

(-1, 0, 1)

(0, 0, ∞)

Network Example (n = 100)

Intuition

• Possible Flow Inhibitors:– Recruit quality – High rating selectivity– Limited schoolhouse capacity– Fleet demand signal

• Rating demand vs. recruit preferences

Min Cost Flow Objective

• Minimize the cost of flow from recruit pool to the Fleet– Equivalent to maximizing human capital delivery

subject to needs of the Navy

Rating Preference Fulfillment

Capital = 415.6Recruits Assigned to Jobs = 460

Network Design: Scenario

• Schoolhouse capacity limitations recognized• Naval Education and Training Command

(NETC) has proposed to augment traditional schoolhouse training with a limited number of computer-based training (CBT) courses to increase training throughput.

Network Design: Action

• NETC can fund up to 5 CBT courses for the following ratings only:– ET, IT, OS, GSE, FC, CTT, EM

• Task: Determine optimal choice of CBT augmentation course offerings. – NETC wants to see the marginal improvement for

adding CBT courses, up to the max of 5.

Network Design Example

Objective: Improve the delivery of Human Capital as much as possible by choosing which CBT augmentation courses to offer.

(0, 0,

1)(-0.4, 0, 1)

(0, 0, 45)(0.3, 0, 15)

(-1, 0, 1)

(0, 0, ∞)

Rating Preference Fulfillment, 1 CBT

IT CBT course addedCapital delivered = 429.6% increase: 3.37%Recruits Assigned to Jobs = 480

Rating Preference Fulfillment, 2 CBT

OS CBT course addedCapital delivered = 439.4% increase: 5.73%Recruits Assigned to Jobs = 493

Rating Preference Fulfillment, 3 CBT

GSE CBT course addedCapital delivered = 445.4% increase: 7.17%Recruits Assigned to Jobs = 500

Rating Preference Fulfillment, 4 CBT

EM CBT course addedCapital delivered = 448.3% increase: 7.87%Recruits Assigned to Jobs = 500

Network Design Curve

Network Design: Summary

• Objective function improves due to:– More people assigned jobs (more flow)– Higher preference fulfillment

Schoolhouse Seat Allocation

• Multi-commodity flow model with 10 different recruit batches

• Schoolhouse capacities now decision variables• Total schoolhouse seating still constrained• Goal: Given recruit batches of varying AFQT

quality and different preferences, set optimal school seat capacities to fulfill projected future rating demands.

• Ran with batch sizes of 100 recruits

Schoolhouse Scenario Results

AE AG AT CTI CTT EM ET FC GSE IS IT MT NUK OS STG0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

7%

4%

7%

2%3%

12%

7%

10%11%

3%

11%

4%

2%

11%

6%

Schoolhouse Seat Allocation by Rating

Limitations and Future Work

• Multi-objective utility function• Time-layered model– Recruiting is seasonal and time continuous

• Expand scope to include all ratings• Use real recruiting data and capacities• Proposal for business process change:– ‘Rack and Stack’ draft process

QUESTIONS?