CNA Resource Analysis

CNA Resource Analysis: helping improve effectiveness and efficiency. 

CNA Resource Analysis provides analytical services – through empirical research and through modeling and simulation – to help develop, evaluate and implement policies, practices and programs that make people, budgets and assets more effective and efficient. Major areas of research include energy and environment; manpower management; acquisition and cost; infrastructure; and military readiness.

CNA Resource Analysis Teams

  • Cost, Acquisition, Readiness, and Logistics
  • Defense Workforce Analyses
  • Environment & Energy
  • Fleet and Operational Manpower
  • Infrastructure & Resource Management
  • Marine Corps Manpower

Specific Areas of Analysis

Environmental Issues and Implications: Assessing the effects of military operations on the environment and the impacts of environmental restrictions on the military's ability to train. Examining the potential effects of climate change on world stability and conflict and their implications for national security and national defense planning.

Energy Policy Analysis: Analyzing the implications of current energy policies for the Department of Defense and the nation, and helping DoD formulate energy management policies in both its operational and installation missions.

Acquisition Management: Evaluating acquisition organizations and policies; examining acquisition oversight; evaluating alternative acquisition strategies and reform initiatives; assessing cost and schedule performance and risks of current programs; and reviewing past-program executions for lessons learned.

Cost and Budget Analysis: Assessing program acquisition and total-ownership costs, analyzing cost growth, examining contract and industrial-based issues and how they affect costs, and assessing the fiscal implications of acquisition strategies.

Equipment Management: Evaluating alternative ways of maintaining equipment availability, assisting in equipment maintenance and readiness by examining the effectiveness and efficiency of maintenance policies, developing optimal supply inventory rules, and evaluating the effects of aging and operations on reliability and budget requirements.

Infrastructure Management: Assistance in base closure processes and analyses of outcomes, identifying facility requirements to meet operational requirements, developing methods to minimize support costs, assisting in shaping military housing policies, helping clients adhere to environmental laws and control cleanup costs.

Manpower Planning: Analyzing manpower requirements, developing billet structures that provide required career paths, analyzing historical trends and forecasting future attrition and retention, developing models that project future inventories, simulating the effects of policies and the economy on the manpower and personnel system, and analyzing the impact of manpower and personnel policies on Fleet and Marine Corps manning and operations.

Personnel Policies: Analyzing the cost effectiveness of military compensation and benefits packages, helping structure special pays and bonuses to address hard-to-fill jobs, analyzing diversity initiatives and chokepoints in achieving diversity, analyzing reserve policies and the continuum of service between the reserve and active components, and evaluating new policies, pays, and pilot programs.

Workforce Development: Determining the demographic and military characteristics of successful enlisted recruits and officers, assessing the selection and assignment of recruits and officers to occupations that require technical skills or special qualifications, evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of schoolhouse training, and analyzing how career paths support career development.

Metrics Development: Helping clients define clear, high-level metrics, including assisting OSD and the Navy in developing better metrics to judge the readiness of its forces, and developing metrics to measure progress toward attaining energy and environmental goals.

Our History

In 1962 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara encouraged the introduction of corporate business practices and cost-benefit analyses into DoD’s decision-making processes. As part of this push, economists and cost analysts joined the group of operations analysts who had been working on defense-related issues at MIT since the 1940’s and became the Center for Naval Analyses. CNA Resource Analysis is the direct descendant of that founding group.