Research for Formals

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) provides consulting, research, and education services to a wide range of military and some civilian medical facilities. However, the Defense Health Program must subsidize AFIP's activities with an annual budget of roughly $55 million. As part of its Revolution in Business Affairs, the Department of Defense is striving to increase efficiency by making its various activities as self-sufficient as possible. The CNA Corporation was asked to evaluate whether AFIP has the potential to become a self-sufficient organization. We also looked at a range of alternative organizational structures that might be used to run AFIP and offer some insight into the effectiveness of those structures. We believe that AFIP could exist as a fee-for-service activity, but would require significant organizational restructuring.

This work was done as part of a larger study conducted for N814. The purpose of the larger study was to examine the link between mission performance and readiness drivers using data from CVN-71's combat operations during Operation Allied Force (OAF). In this part of the project, we looked specifically at material readiness of the embarked airwing (CVW-8). Our original intent was to estimate the parameters for a complete Markov model of aircraft material condition. We were unable to implement a complete realization of this model because of problems that included missing data and resource constraints. However, we were able to make substantial progress on two components of the process, and present these results.

As part of the Navy's Manpower and Personnel Integrated Warfare Architecture (M&P IWAR), N81 asked CNA to examine trends in the training recruits receive before their first fleet assignments. The Navy expects to enlist approximately 55,000 sailors each year in the near future. The Navy's system of training and delivering these recruits to operational billets must be an efficient one. The flow of sailors into the fleet depends on two things: the number of sailors who get there and the amount of time it takes. Accordingly, policy-makers are concerned with both the attrition of recruits during the period of initial training and the lengths of the training pipelines themselves. To examine these trends, we tracked recruits' early career histories from "street-to-fleet." This report updates a 1999 CNA analysis, adding recent accessions and reflecting training reengineering that the Navy has undertaken since then. We also examine initial skills training in more detail, looking at all contract lengths (2-, 3- and 5Yos, as well as 4- and 6YOs) and at ratings.

Sea manning shortfalls have plagued the Navy over the latter part of the 1990s-with E4-E9 sea manning dropping below 90 percent for much of that time. The Navy considered two general solutions: ordering sailors to sea for longer or offering incentives for sailors to volunteer for additional sea duty. Although the assignment to sea duty is involuntary, the length sailors actually serve reflects both their sea duty obligation and their willingness to serve at sea . As we will document here, many sailors do not complete their sea tours, so lengthening sea tours may not be an effective way to improve manning. A recent CNA study used survey data to predict how sailors would respond if the Navy were to restructure sea pay, which is the Navy's primary distribution tool. In this annotated briefing, we look at historical data on the average time sailors spend at sea and relate them to changes in sea pay. Survey and anecdotal evidence exist, but little direct evidence links sea pay and time spent at sea. These data provide additional empirical evidence on sailors' response to sea duty incentives and the groundwork for a more detailed study in the future. In addition, as the Navy reforms sea pay, it will need to monitor the system and change sea pay rates when necessary. The measures we present here may provide a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the reform.