Oh, the Places You'll Go: Optimizing Enlisted Personnel Assignments in the United States Army Using a Multicriteria Assignment Problem

We report on the recent formulation and implementation of a novel multicriteria optimization approach to the assignment matching problem for midcareer Army enlisted personnel. Our model uses a goal program to balance competing priorities of Army readiness and meeting individual preferences over their next assignment. Nine objectives are formulated in a multicriteria assignment problem and solved lexicographically to produce an assignment slate. The model is extended to inform market formulation decisions. We also provide a customer-model interface that enables assignment managers to review and modify, where needed, the initial slating output. We finally present key perform-ance indicators to summarize model performance during the first full year of implementation.