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The US Army Uses Decision Analysis in Designing Its US Installation Regions

Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996
Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996, and Innovative Decisions Inc., PO Box 231660, Centreville, Virginia 20120-1660
Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996
Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996
Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996
Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York 10996
tim.trainor{at}usma.edu
gregory.parnell{at}usma.edu
gparnell{at}innovativedecisions.com
brigitte.kwinn{at}usma.edu
john.brence{at}us.army.mil
eric.tollefson{at}us.army.mil
patrick.downes{at}us.army.mil

Senior leaders responsible for managing US Army installations asked the United States Military Academy to analyze the regional organization of the US Army’s Installation Management Agency (IMA) and recommend alternatives. They wanted an analysis of IMA’s use of four geographical regions to manage installations in the continental United States. We interviewed stakeholders to identify the functions of the IMA regional organization. We used decision analysis to define the potential value added of various regional alternatives by measuring how well each alternative would perform the functions. The measures captured the effectiveness and efficiency of the regional organization for each function. We then developed and evaluated several regional alternatives (one region, two regions, three regions, four regions, five regions, and eight regions). Using decision analysis, we showed that four was a reasonable number of regions to manage installations effectively. We demonstrated that decreasing the number of regions below four would significantly reduce the value regions added to installation management and increasing the number would provide little additional benefit.

Key Words: military; cost effectiveness; decision analysis; applications