Alignment of Department of Defense Manpower, Resources, and Personnel Systems

Harry J. Thie, Roland J. Yardley, Margaret C. Harrell, Kevin Brancato

ResearchPublished Jun 5, 2007

Are the Department of Defense manpower, resources, and personnel systems aligned to provide the personnel inventory needed to meet changing military readiness and operational requirements? This report documents a research effort exploring the premise that these systems are misaligned and thus lead to organizations being mismanned or undermanned. RAND’s tasks were to determine whether there was misalignment, assess how the systems synchronize if a misalignment occurs, and identify policies and programs to implement improvements. The research included an analysis of military personnel authorizations and inventory, as well as case studies of the Army’s conversion to the Stryker brigade and the post-9/11 stand-up of the U.S. Northern Command. The manpower, resources, and personnel systems were found to be generally functionally aligned and to be able to adapt and synchronize effectively following exceptional events. In addition, it was determined that overall interoperability could benefit from changes in the personnel system, including additional flexibility to reduce the cycle time needed to meet manpower authorizations.

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Thie, Harry J., Roland J. Yardley, Margaret C. Harrell, and Kevin Brancato, Alignment of Department of Defense Manpower, Resources, and Personnel Systems. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR419.html.
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The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The research was conducted in the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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