Selected Studies
CNA Resource Analysis Publications
This study assessed soldier perspectives on the reliability and durability of their weapons in combat. The study found that most soldiers indicate satisfaction and confidence in the reliability and durability of their weapons.
The Navy has two pays designed to help attract and retain aviation officers: Aviation Career Incentive Pay (ACIP) and Aviation Career Continuation Pay (ACCP). In principle, these tools provide the Navy with the capability to offer compensation to aviators in order to meet its requirements. This study examines the empirical relationship between financial incentives and retention of aviation officers, as well as the relationship between civilian labor market conditions and aviator retention. Our analysis suggests that increases in relative military pay do lead to increases in pilot retention. Responsiveness to compensation is highest for propeller pilots and lowest for helicopter pilots. In contrast, we do not find any statistical evidence of a relationship between pay and Naval Flight Officer retention. We suspect that this is due to the lack of variation in retention over the time period on which we focus, rather than to the absence of a behavioral response. We also observe a negative relationship between civilian labor market conditions and pilot retention. In principle, increases in ACCP can offset the deleterious effect of a healthy civilian airline industry on pilot retention. For Naval Flight Officers, we do not find any statistical evidence of this relationship.
The Department of the Navy wants to recapitalize but finds that it does not have as much buying power as it used to. Last year, CNA examined the trends in the Navy's budgets and prices to understand why the Navy could not buy as many weapons platforms as it used to: the study found that the Navy had less to spend on procurement than before and that the Navy's mix of ships and aircraft cost more on average now than before. To reverse the trend and buy more platforms, the Navy needs to devote more money for procurement and/or buy less expensive platforms. This study examined various initiatives or savings opportunities (total of 17) that would allow the Navy to allocate more money for procurement. Taken together, the total savings from these initiatives are about $7 billion to $10 billion (or 5 to 8 percent of the Navy’s annual budget). We assessed the risk associated with these initiatives and deemed most to be minimal to moderate risk in terms of cost uncertainty, effects on readiness, or other effectiveness measures. Nonetheless, tough decisions must be made and cultural and other barriers must be overcome before the Navy may reap the savings.
A Review of Millennial Generation Characteristics and Military Workforce Implications
As military missions increase in frequency, variety, and complexity, the need for quality, skilled, and deployable members to fulfill missions becomes more critical. Active enlisted recruitment targets in 2007 surpassed 180,000; however, there are growing difficulties in meeting recruiting goals. To complicate matters, the retirement of Baby Boomers over the next decade has the potential to leave huge gaps in the workforce. These gaps must be filled by a new generation known as the Millennials (that segment of the population born between 1980 and 2000). The American workforce is changing demographically and becoming more complex and diverse generationally, culturally, and racially. Finally, the political and economic climate has been in a state of unrest since September 11th, 2001—the beginning of the global war on terror and the subsequent wars in the Middle East. Yet employers, both military and civilian, must try to maintain workflows, missions, and goals. In a workforce climate with so many competing factors, what will it take to attract, recruit, and retain productive workers, and what role will generational change play? The 10th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC) asked CNA to conduct background research on Millennials (also known as the Internet Generation, Generation Next, Echo Boom, etc.) to explore the potential impact of targeted policies, especially compensation and retirement, on this cohort.
A Review of the Navy's JAG Corps (study in progress, to be completed June 2008)
In 2006, the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps asked the Center for Naval Analyses to review its organization and staffing, and the services it provides. CNA's Resource Analysis Division, which conducts research on manpower and personnel issues, is leading the two-year study, which will: survey the legal and other services the JAG Corps provides to the Navy and other government agencies; assess the quantity and quality of those services; assess the current numbers and propose mixes of JAG Corps personnel to determine how well they would suit the organization's assignments; and recommend ways to optimize the JAG Corps's provision of legal services.
Black and Hispanic Marines: Their Accession, Representation, Success, and Retention in the Corps
An updated and expanded report on minorities' service in the Marine Corps, this study conducted by CNA researchers by order of the Marine Corps Commandant, looks at the make up of the Corps "to ensure that enlisted Marines and officers reflect the racial and ethnic characteristics of broader American society."
Functional Review of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps
Researchers from the Center for Naval Analyses have begun a review of the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. The study will examine several issues, including how the JAG Corps can improve the way it provides legal services
Marine Corps Deployment and Retention in FY05
CNA researchers analyzed the effects of wartime deployments on Marines making reenlistment decisions. Despite the challenges involved in regular and often long deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps successfully met its fiscal 2005 reenlistment goals.
The researchers found that:
- First-term Marines were less likely to reenlist if they had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Career Marines and commissioned officers were more likely to reenlist if they were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Single Marines, particularly first-termers, were less likely to reenlist than Marines with families.
Personnel Management
Military Compensation Reform in the Department of the Navy
Policy-makers and analysts have consistently pointed to the need to reform the military compensation system. In this study for the Department of the Navy, which encompasses the Navy and the Marine Corps, economists Michael Hansen and Martha Koopman say that despite the broad consensus, transforming the system into a set of compensation tools that are aligned with the department's objectives will not be easy.
In reforming its compensation system, the authors recommend that the Department of the Navy:
- Seek to reduce, but not eliminate, across-the-board compensation. This will allow the department to retain certain useful across-the-board salary increases while having more flexibility in using targeted pay raises.
- Modify its existing compensation tools so that the system can reward high performance.
- Reduce the compensation system's emphasis on deferred compensation, such as retirement pay and retiree health care, by repealing recent enhancements or, at a minimum, by aggressively resisting any further increases.
Does Education Reform Make Recruiting More Difficult?
The number of young people who receive General Education Development (GED) certificates rather than high school diplomas has increased recently. At the same time, states are tightening their requirements for high school graduation. These changes have the potential to make recruiting more difficult because military policies strictly limit the number who may enlist without a high school diploma.
CNA researchers examined data from the 2000 Census, as well as Navy and Marine Corps service records, to discover the effects of these changing education policies and found that the changes help some civilians but harm others. Within the Navy and Marine Corps, the effects are more muted. The policies have not affected attrition rates, but have had some influence on the quality of recruits.
Statistical Analysis of Hearing Loss among Navy Personnel
In 2004, the Veterans Administration (VA) spent $108 million dollars on hearing loss disability payments to nearly 16,000 former Navy personnel—an increase of $65 million since 1999.
CNA researchers undertook a study to assess how hearing loss relates to service time aboard ships, with the aim of reducing disabilities and costs, by examining the medical hearing test records of nearly 251,000 enlisted sailors and officers from 1979 to 2004. Comparing enlisted sailors who spent most of a 24-year Navy career assigned to a surface warship and similar sailors who spent their entire careers on shore duty, they found a 19 percentage point increase in probability that the sea-based sailors would leave the Navy with some hearing loss.
The study’s authors made several recommendations, among them that the Navy:
- Identify opportunities for improved ship design. Locating sleeping quarters in an insulated, low-noise area, for example, would improve hearing loss recovery and prevent permanent disabilities
- Assess whether certain ships types are more apt to cause hearing loss among sailors than others
- Further investigate the type of ear protection it provides its personnel. For example, are ear muffs more effective than ear plugs?
- Gather VA data on individuals who collect hearing loss disability payments to see whether there is a relationship between the time they spent at various duty stations and their disability
A follow-up study addressing the opportunities for further research is due out in late 2006.
Non-citizens in Today’s Military
Legal permanent residents, or green card holders, are highly successful in the military, which bodes well for the Department of Defense as it examines future recruiting prospects.
The study points out that today’s foreign-born U.S. population is the largest in history, and immigrants will fuel much of the future growth among America’s youth. The authors conclude that this population could help alleviate recruiting gaps and meet current and future personnel needs, while also providing needed opportunities for new immigrants. Of the 16 million foreign-born people who came to the United States between 1990 and 2002, almost a quarter were under age 21.
But despite a large pool of roughly 1.5 million non-citizens, there are obstacles to their recruitment. The military services require that at least 90 percent of its recruits have a high school diploma, and many recent immigrants have not completed high school. Limited English proficiency among non-citizens is another challenge.
The study’s authors recommend that in order to further facilitate recruitment and retention of non-citizens, the Department of Defense should:
- Develop recruiting materials aimed at non-citizens that explain eligibility for expedited citizenship, the benefits of filing for citizenship while in the military, and the benefits of attaining citizenship.
- Consider more structured, installation-based assistance that would help non-citizen service members and their dependents with the citizenship process.
- Investigate, through the Office of the Secretary of Defense, whether more uniform treatment of non-citizens across the military services is needed. Military policy is generally uniform across the services, but in matters of recruitment, reenlistment, and use of non-citizen service members, the policies of each service branch differ.
Proceedings from the Navy’s Fifth Annual Workforce Conference:
Building on the Pillars of the Navy’s Human Capital Strategy
The fifth annual Navy Workforce Research and Analysis conference, held in April 2005, convened researchers from think tanks, academia, and Navy leadership and featured research presentations on manpower, personnel, and training.
Full Document
2004 Proceedings
Recruiting Hispanics: The Marine Corps Experience
The Marine Corps has been very successful at recruiting Hispanics, and Hispanic recruits do extremely well in the Marine Corps. This study highlights several challenges that may affect the Services' ability to recruit Hispanics in the future—including high levels of high school dropout rates, language fluency of recruits and their parents, and citizenship status. Recommended actions that the Department of Defense (DoD) or any organization interested in this segment of the population can take to ensure the continued success of Hispanic recruits include:
- Supporting a stay-in-school campaign
- Urging that the federal government raise the minimum age for taking the GED exam
- Translating recruiting brochures and materials into a variety of languages
- Adding country-of-origin identification to accession data
- Ensuring Green Card Service members have information about legal permanent residency and expedited citizenship.
The Hispanic population has grown dramatically over time—from 5 percent of the population in 1975 to over 12 percent in 2003. In fact, Hispanics are the largest minority population in the United States today, and the population is predicted to grow 25 percent over the next decade. Whether recruiting for the military or for the civilian workforce, understanding how to attract and retain this segment of the U.S. population is becoming increasingly important.
CNA's Retirement Choice Calculator: Computing DoD's Retirement Options
CNA's Retirement Choice Calculator lets future military retirees determine how much they would earn under DoD's High-3 retirement plan, which bases retirement pay on the highest average basic pay for three years of a career, or under the REDUX plan, which provides a $30,000 upfront bonus with smaller retirement checks over time. (The differing plans affect service members who joined the military after July 31, 1986.)
The calculator, developed as part of CNA’s Retirement Choice study, allows service members to determine which plan would earn them the most money based on factors including their retirement age, years of service, and the rank at which they will retire.
The Effect of Enlistment Bonuses on First-Term Tenure Among Navy Enlistees
CNA examined, for the Navy Personnel Plans and Policy Division, the influence of enlistment bonuses on Navy enlistees' attrition behavior during the first term of service.
The enlistment bonus is one of the more flexible tools that the Navy has to meet its recruiting goals. The enlistment bonus can be offered at different levels to various classes of accessions. The Navy has traditionally employed these bonuses to meet several objectives and has been eager to assess the effectiveness of the enlistment bonus and the impact of enlistment bonuses on various aspects of the career decision of enlisted personnel.
Enlistment bonuses have typically been viewed as being useful in recruiting—routing personnel to a specific branch of Service, directing recruits into hard-to-fill ratings, extending sailors' obligated service, and increasing accessions during off-peak months. The findings of this study suggest that enlistment bonuses may have a secondary effect, decreasing attrition.
Statistical Analysis of US Marine Corps Non-Combat Accidental Deaths
The Marine Corps sought to understand how individual characteristics and events may be associated with fatal accidents among Marines, in cars or in other non-combat related accidents.
The objective of the study was to determine the variety of factors that explain accidental fatality rates. The information has helped the Marine Corps to tailor safety messages to the points in a Marine's career where risk is high. Further, this study recommends that those in positions of direct leadership intervene proactively to reduce fatalities among those identified as most at risk.
Workers' Compensation: The Case for Improved Department of the Navy Management
CNA first looked at the Department of the Navy's workers' compensation program in 2001. At the request of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Safety), CNA recently updated its original analysis of the Navy's worker compensation program and recommended ways to help control costs while helping to return employees to the workplace as soon as possible.
Resource Management
Military Sealift Command Management Review: Framework for Change
The Military Sealift Command (MSC) asked CNA to review command wide personnel resource allocation, provide a plan to maximize the allocation of resources and recommend required personnel reductions.
MSC strives to improve the quality of service and reduce the cost of its services. Additionally, in September 2001, the Navy's major claimants were directed to reduce the workforce at major headquarters by 15 percent. This paper explores and provides the options available to MSC in responding to both tasks.
Navy Oil Spills in San Diego: Recent Trends and Future Prevention
The study builds on previous CNA work regarding the impact of oil spills and the Navy's efforts to reduce oil spills in the San Diego area. We analyzed and updated data to determine the root causes of oil spills and to make recommendations for further reductions.
The DoD Toxic Release Inventory: Outlook for Meeting the New 2006 Reduction Goal
At the request of the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environment, CNA reviewed DoD toxic release inventory data and recommended ways to meet new goals of toxic chemical reduction on federal facilities by 2006.
Impact of Marine Mammal Protection Requirements on Navy Operations
Marine mammals receive special protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and in many cases under the Endangered Species Act. Federal agencies, such as the Navy, are required by law to consider the potential environmental impacts of their actions on marine life. In this study CNA examines the impact of marine mammal mitigation measures on naval operations and training.
Smartship Metrics and Return on Investment
CNA determined, for the Navy, the appropriate cost/benefit metrics and performed a return on investment analysis for the systems and technologies collectively known as the Smartship Integrated Ship Controls System. The Navy developed this group of integrated systems and technologies to improve the efficiency of ship manning and maintenance.
Material & Logistics Management
Results on the Cost of the Naval Flight Hour Program
This briefing summarizes CNA's analysis of the Flight Hour Program, which includes aviation depot-level repair (AVDLR) of components. Most of our analysis focuses on AVDLR costs; however, we also include some results from our analyses of the costs of disposable/consumable parts connected with aircraft repair.
A Model to Study Consolidation and Its Impact on MC Rates and Other Readiness Measures
CNA investigated the ways in which customer wait times, cannibalization, and maintenance consolidations affect the material readiness of aircraft. We also developed several new metrics in the course of this analysis to help the Navy better understand and measure consolidation actions and their effect on mission-capable rates and other readiness measures.
Acquisition & Contracts
Designing Auctions to Generate Procurement Savings
The use of online auctions to procure routinely needed supplies and equipment has become widespread throughout DoD and other government agencies. These auctions have traditionally used a sealed-bid format in which potential suppliers are unable to view or respond to competing bids. Under a pilot program at Defense Supply Center Columbus, some items were switched to an open-bid format. CNA analysis of the purchase prices showed that open bidding lowered prices by up to 4 percent. While switching the bidding format may not yield savings in all cases, these results suggests government procurement agencies seeking the most competitive prices should carefully consider (or even experiment with) their procurement auction formats.
Choosing R&D Technology Investments
This paper examines several methods by which the Office of Naval Research can choose from among a diverse assortment of investments in research and development for science and technology, to achieve the defense goals of the Navy and the United States as a whole.
Facility Management
Installing Electric Meters at Navy Facilities: Benefits and Costs
CNA examines the costs and benefits of installing advanced electric meters and the development of an implementation strategy. Advanced electric meters can help energy managers track electricity consumption. The study was completed in anticipation of Congressional legislation that would require electric meters to be installed at federal facilities.
Housing
Does School Quality Influence Housing Choices of Navy Personnel
CNA explores the relationship between school quality and service members' housing decisions.
Many Navy personnel have a choice between military housing and civilian housing. Those with school-aged children often cited school quality as an important factor in the home buying process.
Do Military Families Achieve the American Dream? A Comparison of Navy, Marine Corps and Civilian Home Ownership Rates
Buying a home is often the biggest investment decision a family will make. Military home ownership rates are often reported to be lower than civilian rates. To test whether this is true and to learn more about the relationship between military and civilian home ownership rates, CNA looked at the rates for Navy and Marine Corps personnel who live off-base and compares those rates with civilian home ownership rates.
Housing Characteristics of Young Civilian Bachelors
One measure of suitability of military housing standards is to compare it to housing occupied by civilians with similar characteristics. In this analysis we compare housing choices of young, unmarried civilians who are similar to junior sailors. CNA conducted this study in support of the Department of Defense's effort to improve the quality of enlisted bachelor quarters.
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