Suchergebnisse

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JHLSCM-08-2018-0059 ; Purpose – The purpose of this research is to understand whether an organization knows if it is ready to respond to a disaster and whether it has the capabilities to deliver relief. Our initial motivation was to identify unique resources possessed by the United States Navy (USN) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) due to their unique and critical capabilities for humanitarian operations. The recent frequency of disasters around the world suggests these events will continue to create demand for relief capabilities. For this reason we need to understand readiness metrics not just for USN and USMC but for humanitarian organizations (Hos) in general. Design/methodology/approach – We survey relevant literature for understanding how HOs define and develop readiness metrics and associated factors. We studied documents including peer-reviewed scholarly articles, government documents, white papers, research papers and Department of Defense (DoD) briefings. We study literature that is significantly written for DoD, one, the vast experience of USN and USMC and two, the lessons learned have been documented. The literature offers substantial information on what readiness means and why it is important. This documented information is critical because it is known to the researchers in humanitarian operations that data is hard to come by. Findings –The framework for readiness proposed at the end of this article is context the emergency responder probably uses in an informal fashion. The validation of readiness framework, we find exists in the supporting literature we review. Originality/value – The understanding of readiness metrics for humanitarian operations for the organizations we study may offer insight into other HOs. The insights we gain may not be pivotal or counterintuitive to the conclusions based on commonsense. However, they are supported by the literature review. We formalize the concept based on conclusions of a set of diverse set of researchers and practitioners such as academic scholars, DoD personnel and government officials involved in humanitarian missions, USAID representatives that are repeatedly tasked for being ready, military and government officers from host and foreign countries and many more. ; Acquisition Research Program at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) ; NPS Foundation

Second Annual Acquisition Research Symposium ; Many view the Department of Defense's acquisition process as ripe for repair. Shortcomings of predominantly used acquisition approaches, such as the Block approach or Pre-planned Product Improvement (P3I) to fulfill system requirements, have led to a new approach in Evolutionary Acquisition strategy: a process called spiral development. This research study focuses on the process, promise, and limitations of spiral development. This study is centered on the key issues that distinguish a spiral approach from the traditional approaches implemented by the DoD. This study describes the fundamentals of the process of spiral acquisition: increments, characteristics of the increments, and the capabilities they deliver using a simple model. The interest of this research is in understanding the concept of spiral acquisition as it applies, specifically, to Program Managers. In conclusion, the analysis so far suggests two key issues: the necessity for a template or a set of rules that will aid Program Managers in understanding and implementing the concept of spiral development, and the role of modularity in spiral development. This research.;The following article is taken as an excerpt from the proceedings of the annual Acquisition Research Program. This annual event showcases the research projects funded through the Acquisition Research Program at the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. Featuring keynote speakers, plenary panels, mulitiple panel sessions, a student research poster show and social events, the Annual Acquisition Research Symposium offers a candid environment where high-ranking Department of Defense (DoD) officials, industry officials, accomplished faculty and military students are encouraged to collaborate on finding applicable solutions to the challenges facing acquisition policies and processes within the DoD today. By jointly and publicly questioning the norms of industry and academia, the resulting research benefits from myriad perspectives and collaborations which can indentify better solutions and practices in acquisition, contract, financial, logistics and program management. For further information regarding the Acquisition Research Program, electronic copies of additional research, or to learn more about becoming a sponsor, please visit our program website at: www.acquisitionresearch.org. For further information on or to register for the next Acquisition Research Symposium during the third week of May, please visit our conference website at: www.researchsymposium.org. ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Abstract
The U.S. Navy has declared humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) operations as a core mission in support of the U.S. national security strategy. However little work has been done to illustrate which vessels are typically deployed for such operations or the costs of these deployments which, as contingencies, are not part of the regular defense budget. In this work we summarize some of the work that has been done in the area of cost analysis for U.S. Navy HADR operations and conclude with implications for policy makers.

Presented at Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI 2015) conference March 31- April 3, 2015 ; The U.S. Department of Defense has stated that the conduct of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) missions are critical to U.S. national security interests. However, because records are not carefully archived, there is little known about the actual costs and cost drivers of HADR operations which are contingencies for which there are no Joint Staff scenarios to program capabilities against nor are there budgets to do so. This research will examine the financial expenditures of the USN in response to a set of disasters (2004 Tsunami in Sumatra, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami). Through the examination of these complex events, and an analysis of the existing literature on HADR finance, we will provide operational and financial policy recommendations to senior leaders and policy makers regarding those decisions that are most likely to trigger the most significant costs.

The United States government came out publicly with an explicit statement that the so-called "nine-dash line," which the People's Republic of China (PRC) asserts delineates their claims in the South China Sea, is contrary to the international law. China claims that the "nine-dash line" encircles as much as 90 percent of the contested waters. The line runs as far as 2,000 km from the Chinese mainland to within a few hundred kilometers of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. PRC maintains it owns any land or features contained within the line, which confers vaguely defined "historical maritime rights" (Liu 2016). It encircles the area where China demands economic rights. Another interpretation is the line marks the islands and reefs China wants to control rather than the waters inside its boundaries. ¬PRC has long favored a strategy of ambiguity. It does not openly go against international law but prefers to leave space for its more ambitious claims. ; Prepared for the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943. ; Naval Postgraduate School ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13154 ; This study offers a utility framework to identify assets for deployment into humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations. We focus on attributes of the hard assets: capabilities for humanitarian missions, proximity to the affected area, and cost to the organization. We demonstrate the importance of this framework using the case of the United States Navy (USN). On a broader level, we offer a strategy for the decision makers to deploy appropriate assets for executing HADR smartly. Such a method, when employed with relevant data, can enhance efficiency for various orga- nizations involved in HADR, whether military or not. We collected a large amount of data on the assets, specifically ships, of the USN. This collected data alone are a contribution to the literature. We use factor analysis to reduce the dimension- ality and make the dataset manageable while simultaneously retaining the variation and maximal information in the data. Our results, in this case, show that planners need to consider costs to truly maximize utility, especially in cases where two assets, or a combination of them, have similar utility ratings but significantly different costs. Our findings also demonstrate that asset capabilities, proximity, and the duration of an HADR response matter. Finally, we employ our framework to illustrate how HADR responses to the 2010 Haiti and 2011 Tohoku earthquakes could have been conducted more effectively and efficiently. ; Identified in text as U.S. Government work.

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.06.049 0377-2217/ ; Self-Sufficiency (SS) is the ability to maintain capability without external support or aid. Operations in austere environments with limited functional infrastructure and logistical support, which are common in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as well as military operations, must be self-sufficient. In this paper, we explore the challenges of SS in the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Marines engage in a wide variety of expeditionary operations, and must function without logistical support for long stretches of time. They face competing constraints, including the load that a squad can carry, mission requirements, resources required for sustainment, and the extent to which resources can be shared. We extend the knapsack problem in several ways to model a Marine squad's decisions regarding what items to carry and how to distribute them. The Office of Naval Research found the models and the results to be significant as baseline analysis for the resource demands of a self-sufficient squad. Though the data and scenarios are USMC-specific, the challenges of SS can be found in any expeditionary undertakings or operations in austere environments. ; Office of Naval Research (ONR) ; Office of Naval Research (ONR)

Proceedings Paper (for Acquisition Research Program) ; This paper presents the results of our empirical studies of current management practices in services acquisition in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The primary objective of these studies was to develop a comprehensive understanding of how services acquisition is being managed within, as well as across, individual military services. In these empirical studies, we developed and deployed a Web-based survey to collect primary data. Specifically, we studied the current management practices in such areas as contract characteristics, and acquisition management methods including regional- or installation-level acquisition, use of project management approach, acquisition leadership and ownership of requirements. We also studied other program management issues such as scope and ability of personnel responsible for acquisition, adequacy of acquisition billets and their fill rates, and training provided to services acquisition personnel. We found that for the most part the services contracts awarded and administered conformed to our expectation. For example, most service contracts are competitively bid, fixed-priced awards with a minimal use of any type of contract incentives. The survey data also confirmed that the Navy uses regional approach in services acquisition, while the Army and the Air Force use installation-level approach. These differences, in turn, appear to be having important implications for other acquisition management practices such as the use of project management and contract surveillance. One surprising finding of the study was that the project teams are often led by the contracting officer as opposed to a formally designated project manager responsible for the overall service project success. Finally, the survey respondents indicated that the number of authorized staff positions for services acquisition was inadequate and, furthermore, that the existing billets were inadequately filled. The analysis and comparison of management practices in different military services was used as the basis to develop, and report in this paper, our preliminary recommendations for improving the management of services supply chain in the Department of Defense. Keywords: Service Supply Chain, Services Acquisition, Service Lifecycle, Contract Management, Project Management, Program Management ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Sponsored Report (for Acquisition Research Program) ; The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) annually procures billions of dollars worth of systems, supplies, and services in support of the national military strategy. Faced with budget cuts and other resource constraints, the DoD must monitor its procurement process to ensure a continuous flow of critical supplies and services. One aspect of current transformation in DoD is the use of a strategic sourcing approach for the procurement of installation-level services. Using the Air Force''s strategic sourcing process as our context, we develop an optimization model for selecting a set of bids among multiple offerors'' proposals for installation services. The selection achieves the most favorable objective based on balancing the confidence performance level in past performance of the offerors and the cost to the Air Force. The research findings based on a realistic scenario demonstrate improvements in both overall performance and cost than the current process ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Sponsored Report (for Acquisition Research Program) ; This paper presents the results of our empirical studies of current management practices in services acquisition in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The primary objective of these studies was to develop a comprehensive understanding of how services acquisition is being managed within as well as across individual military Services. In these empirical studies, we developed and deployed a web-based survey to collect primary data. Specifically, we studied the current management practices in areas such as contract characteristics, and we studied acquisition management methods, including regional- or installation-level acquisition, use of the project management approach, acquisition leadership, and ownership of requirements. We also studied other program management issues such as the ability of personnel responsible for acquisition, adequacy of acquisition billets and their fill rates, and training provided to services acquisition personnel. We found that for the most part, the services contracts awarded and administered conformed to our expectation. For example, most services contracts are competitively bid, fixed-priced awards with minimal use of any type of contract incentives. The survey data also confirmed that the Navy uses a regional approach in services acquisition, while the Army and the Air Force use an installation-level approach. These differences, in turn, appear to be having important implications for other acquisition management practices, such as the use of project management and contract surveillance. One surprising finding of the study was that the project teams are often led by the contracting officer as opposed to by a formally designated project manager who is responsible for the overall success of the service project. Finally, the survey respondents indicated that the number of authorized staff positions for services acquisition was inadequate and that the existing billets were inadequately filled. The analysis and comparison of management practices in different military services was used as the basis to develop, and report in this paper, our preliminary recommendations for improving the management of the services supply chain in the Department of Defense. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Proceedings Paper (for Acquisition Research Program) ; Services acquisition in the US Department of Defense (DoD) has continued to increase in scope and dollars in the past decade. In fact, even considering the high value of weapon systems and large military items purchased in recent years, the DoD has spent more on services than on supplies, equipment and goods (Camm, Blickstein & Venzor, 2004). The acquired services presently cover a very broad set of service activities''including professional, administrative, and management support; construction, repair, and maintenance of facilities and equipment; information technology; research and development, and medical care. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

PurposeVertical lift (VL) assets are vital and expensive resources in humanitarian missions. What and where supplies are needed evolves in short time following a disaster. The purpose of this paper is to offer analysis to understand the range of capabilities of these assets.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use scenario analysis to investigate the tradeoff between two key capabilities of VL, agility and speed. The authors do this by generating loads and distances randomly, based on historical data. In post hoc analysis, based on different factors, the authors investigate the impact of configuration of Expeditionary Strike Force (ESG) on providing disaster relief.FindingsThe authors find the most effective deployment of VL in a HADR mission is in supplying essentials to victims in a focused region. Delivering sustainment requirements leads to substantial shortfall for survival needs. If the configuration of the ESGs were changed for HADR, it would better-meet the demand.Research limitations/implicationsCargo capacity is modeled assuming every aircraft type was equal, in terms of mean and variance of cargo-capacity utilization. Detailed information on cargo-bay configurations was beyond the scope of our model and data. However, this means the benefit of standardizing cargo load-outs and the variability associated with randomized load-outs may be understated in the results.Practical implicationsThe analysis presents decision-makers with projections of VL asset performance in the early stages of disaster relief, to assist in planning and contingency planning.Originality/valueThis research deals exclusively with the most critical but expensive capabilities for HADR: VL. The in-depth analysis illustrates the limitations and benefits of this capability.