An Evaluation of the Navys URL Officer Accession Programs, (The Officer Procurement, Retention, and Achievement Study)

The Navy currently procures unrestricted line officers through nine sources which differ widely in their costs and returns. In this paper, we construct a linear programming model that solves for the optimal number of accessions from each source. Life-cycle costs are minimized subject to the constraint that, for each URL designation, the required number of officers at each rank is met. The inputs to the model include the present value of costs, the initial distribution of officers across designations, retention, promotion success, and requirements. The study finds that six of the nine officer accession programs consistently enter the optimal accession program mix. The need for individual programs is linked with certain Navy requirements. The study concludes with three recommendations that should reduce Navy manpower costs.