Better Personnel Management through Applied Management Science

Author(s): Harry J. Thie and Robert C. Lorbeer

Source: Interfaces, Vol. 6, No. 3 (May, 1976), pp. 68-73
Published by: INFORMS
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25059334
Accessed: 13-08-2016 06:36 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

INFORMS is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Interfaces

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
INTERFACES
Vol. 6, No. 3
May 1976

BETTER PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT THROUGH

APPLIED MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
HARRY J. THIE
and
ROBERT C. LORBEER

MAJOR HARRY J. THIE received a B. A. in history from St.

Bonaventure University in 1964, an MSIM from Georgia Institute of
Technology in 1972, and is a candidate for a DBA from The George
Washington University. As a member of the Adjutant General Corps,
he has served in various personnel management and operations research
assignments in Europe, Viet Nam and the United States.

CAPTAIN ROBERT C. LORBEER received a B. S. from the

U. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y. in 1968 and an MBA from
the Graduate School of Business Administration, Tulane University,
in 1974. As an infantry officer, he has served in various line and staff
positions in Europe, Viet Nam and the U. S. Both officers are currently
serving as analysts at the US Army Military Personnel Center, Alexandria,
Virginia.

Effective management of Army personnel resources is necessary for suc

cessful accomplishment of the Army Mission. Consistent with military
necessity, policy of the Department of the Army is to utilize personnel in
positions commensurate with their military qualifications and personal
attributes, and to foster an atmosphere which will motivate each individual
to attain his full potential as a soldier.
(Armv Regulation 600-200)

Personnel managers at the U.S. Army Military Personnel Center (MIL

PERCEN) in Alexandria, Virginia are using operations research techniques
to establish a systematic approach for economically and efficiently attracting
and retaining professional soldiers of all ranks; to effectively utilize their
skills; and to provide a framework in which these men and women are
motivated toward top performance and are developed along career lines.
This article discusses in limited detail how the computer and related man
agement science techniques can and are providing support to the individual
soldier in his career development and progression through the ranks of the
U.S. Army.

Background Information
Terminology used within the Army to describe individual qualifications,
job structures, and wage structures seems confusing but has a direct cor
relation to civilian practices. The Army terms most commonly used are
rank/grade, Career Management Field (CMF), and Military Occupational
Speciality (MOS). Rank and grade have a one-to-one correspondence. The
difference is that rank is used for personnel management while grade is used
for pay management. There are nine different enlisted pay grades (E-l to
E-9). For individual soldiers within these pay grades, specific rates of pay
Copyright ? 1976, The Institute of Management Sciences

68

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
are determined by years of service. Personnel managers have seized upon
these pay grades as more practical descriptors than rank (Private, Specialists,
Sergeant, etc.).i Thus in describing the enlisted force at its highest level,
Army personnel managers talk in terms of nine grades (El to E9) and
thirty different year groups (1 to 30). This can be visualized as a matrix;
12 3 4 5 26 27 28 29 30
El
E2

E8
E9

Career Management Fields (CMF) add a third dimension to this matrix.

CMF's equate most readily with a job cluster concept in that they are a
stable group of job classifications which are linked together by technology,
administrative organization, or Army custom so that they have common
personnel management characteristics. There are thirty-six of these CMF's
ranging from the Combat Arms Career Management Field to the Band
Career Management Field. A full list is at Appendix 1. Thus, for summary
personnel management purposes, the Army is represented by three dimensions:
grade, years of service (YOS), and career management field (CMF).

77777./77777\
CMF

77777.
7ZZZ7.
GRADE

Ie
E8
E9

ii 2 3 4 5 YOS -H
26 27 28 29 30

Military Occupational Specialties (MOS

defining the job classifications at each gra
fields. They can be thought of in terms
the apprentice, journeyman, and superv
job descriptions appear at Appendix 2.
1Years of service for pay purposes differ from
ment due to differences between individual sol
reserve component service, etc. Within each grade
for pay and 30 years of service categories for pe

INTERFACES May69
1976

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 The tendency in the past has been to view the Army as a homogenous
group of Infantry soldiers. Personnel managers today, however, consider
the accession, training, and utilization of 700,000 enlisted employees, in
nine different grades, with 0 to 30 years of service, in 36 career management
fields that represent 419 job classifications (MOS). This is a sizeable personnel
management job.

Example problem
When a new recruit enters the Army, he wants to know, and the Army
should be able to assure him, that his promotion opportunity in his chosen
Career Management Field (CMF) is equitable with the promotion opportu
nity in any other Career Management Field. Not every soldier can be a
Command Sergeant Major at the end of a 30-year career, but the probability
of attaining that rank should be equitable regardless of the particular CMF
a soldier is in. There should be a steady flow or progression of movement
from one rank to the next higher rank, with the number of promotions
in a particular year group steadily decreasing with each succeeding promotion.

The shaded area indicates

a decreasing # of promotions
due to attrition, failure, to
meet proficiency standards,
reclassification. etc.

Past promotion policies and career management decisions have often placed
unnecessary and highly restrictive barriers to the steady flow of career
progression. Certain military occupational specialties (MOS) have demands
for soldiers in particular grades, but not sufficient demands for soldiers
in all grades. For instance, a particular MOS might have the necessity for
a large number of soldiers in the grades El through E4, a requirement for
very few in the grades E5 and E6, and then again a requirement for a large
number in the grades E7 through E9. A profile of this MOS might look like
this:

E7 Through E9

E5 - E6

El Through E4

The built-in bottleneck to promotion to the ranks of Sergeant and

Staff Sergeant (E5, E6) also restricts the number of soldiers who are promoted
toE7, E8, andE9.
70 INTERFACES May 1976

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 A commander, without a qualified senior sergeant to fill an authorized
position due to this inadvertent barrier to promotion, is forced to select
a soldier of a lower rank, without the proper qualifications, to fill the vacancy.
This action vacates another position and causes a domino effect within
the organization, in that each vacancy is filled by a soldier of a lower grade
than is authorized by the Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) or
Table of Distribution and Allowances (TDA).2 The commander ends up
complaining that he does not have a sufficient number of lower ranking
enlisted men whereas in truth, he needs more senior enlisted men.
Department of the Army personnel managers are solving this and
related complex personnel problems by utilizing management science techni
ques and the computer to produce a series of normative linear programming
and simulation models.
2TOE and TDA are organizational listings that include personnel authorizations by
rank, MOS, and special skills.

Models
The Army's long-range personnel management plan (Enlisted Force
Management Plan) expresses in qualitative and quantitative terms the
goals and objectives which the Army desires for the personnel management
of soldiers. The key development of the plan is that soldiers will be con
trolled by year-group, i.e. years of service, in addition to the existing controls
of grade and Career Management Field.
The plan includes the design of an Objective Enlisted Force which is
developed through a compromise of the force structure determined by
mission requirements, Congressional and Department of Defense constraints
on grade levels, and personnel management considerations such as promotion
flow, assignment flexibility, and retention/separation standards.
The Personnel Objective Support System-Enlisted is an integrated set
of large scale linear and goal programming personnel models that allow
the Army staff to develop this enlisted personnel objective force at various
levels of detail.
The Enlisted Force Static Model is used at the total Army level of
detail and is designed to assist in the establishment of a long-range enlisted
force described in terms of grade and years of service. This force can be
refined to the CMF level of detail using the MACRO Model of the system
and further refined to include MOS by employing the Objective Force Model
(MICRO Model)
The principle management science technique used within these models
is linear programming. A closer look at the MACRO model will help
explain the use of this technique. The objective function is to minimize
the weighted sum of deviations from the specified total Army grade structure
targets. The weights or penalities for not exactly meeting the specified
structure are set by the personnel managers.
This objective function was programmed against constraints which
provided the following:
1) CMF grade structure constraints: these constraints insure that the
by-grade strength for each CMF is within some specified lower and upper
limits.
2) Total Army grade structure constraints: these constraints accumulate
the strength over CMF and years of service to insure that total Army

INTERFACES May 1976 71

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
strength, by grade, is within acceptable lower and upper limits.
3) Total strength constraints: these constraints insure that the strength
for both CMF's and the total Army are met.
4) CMF and total Army promotion opportunity constraints: these con
straints place lower and upper bounds upon the probabilities of promotion
within a CMF or the total Army.
5) Total Army promotion constraints: these constraints place upper
and lower bounds on the promotion into a particular grade.
The output of these computer models enable the personnel managers
to restructure job classifications within career management fields. This
restructuring provides controls for and permits a more equitable distribution
of job assignments and promotion opportunities among the highly diverse
CMF's. This structuring forms the basis for all of the traditional personnel
management policies and decisions. The net effect of these changes will be
to orient the Army's management practices to include greater emphasis on
personnel management goals in order to achieve higher retention of trained
soldiers, reduction in the annual nonprior service (NPS) accession require
ments, relatively stable NPS accession requirements, and a much more
rewarding career for all soldiers.

Appendix 1: CAREER MANAGEMENT FIELDS

11 Maneuver Combat Arms
12 Combat Engineering
13 Field Artillery
15 Field Artillery Missile
16 Air Defense Artillery
17 Combat Surveillance and Target Acquisition
21 Ballistic, Missile Repair
23 Air Defense Missile Maintenance
26 Non-Integrated Radar Maintenance
27 Combat Missile Maintenance
31 Field and Area Communications Maintenance
32 Fixed Plant Communications Maintenance
33 Intercept Equipment Maintenance
35 Electrical/Electronic Instrument Maintenance
36 Wire Antenna and Central Office
51 General Engineering
52 Power Production
54 Chemical
55 Ammunition
57 Field Services
63 Mechanical Maintenance
65 Transportation
67 Aviation Maintenance
71 Administration
72 Telecommunications and Audio Visual
74 Automatic Data Processing
76 Supply
81 Topographic Engineering and Map Reproduction

72 INTERFACES May 1976

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 91 Medical
92 Petroleum
94 Food Service
95 Law Enforcement
96 Military Intelligence
97 Band
98 Signal Intelligence
00 Exceptional Management Specialties

Appendix 2: EXAMPLES OF MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTIES

11 Maneuver Combat Arms Career Management Field

111 Infantry Sub-field
11B Infantryman
11C Infantry Indirect Fire Crewman
11F Infantry Operations and Intelligence Specialist
11G Infantry Senior Sergeant
112 Armor Sub-field
11D Armor Reconnaissance Specialist
HE Armor Crewman
71 Administration Career Management Field
711 General Administration Sub-field
7 IB Clerk-typist
71C S tenogr apher
7IF Postal Clerk
71G Medical Records Specialist
71L Administrative Specialist
71M Chaplain's Assistant
7IS Attache Specialist
7IT Equipment Maintenance Clerk
712 Personnel Sub-field
75B Unit Clerk
75C Personnel Management Specialist
75D Records Specialist
75E Personnel Actions Specialist
75Z Personnel Senior Sergeant
713 Finance Sub-field
73C Finance Specialist
73D Accounting Specialist
73Z Finance Senior Sergeant
714 Legal Sub-field
7ID Legal Clerk
7IE Court Reporter
715 Information Sub-field
71Q Information Specialist
71R Broadcast Specialist
716 Special Services Sub-field
03B Performing Arts Specialist
03C Physical Activities Specialist
03D Arts and Crafts Specialist
03Z Special Services Senior Sergeant
INTERFACES May 1976 73

This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 06:36:33 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms