Force Management in the Army

The Army has endured many issues as ebbs and flows with this process. It is imperative for any long-term operation to be a sustained warfighting effort. The quality of the force readiness is measured on its ability to be sustained. Sustainment in itself has eight different elements of which each has multiple facets or sub-elements that comprise the system.

(U) HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (HQDA) EXECUTIVE ORDER 10-13 IN SUPPORT OF THE HQDA FISCAL YEAR (FY) 13-15 ACTIVE COMPONENT MANNING GUIDANCE. (U) (ATSG-NCOA) The United States remains a nation at war, in FY13, the Army will begin the initial stages of force reduction. Currently, the Army has enough Soldiers to fill every authorization in the aggregate. Invest top quality officers and non-commissioned officers in the institutional army to develop Soldiers in diverse and broadening positions in order to secure the development of tomorrow’s Army. This manning guidance supersedes HQDA, Active Component Manning Guidance for 2012 dated 17 December 2012 effective 2QTR, FY13. This new guidance will align manning levels in accordance with

Marine Online (MOL) is a computer based information system that is used throughout the Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps, this system enables all military and some civilian personnel the capability to access their electronic personal record which retrieves information from Marine Corps Total Force System (MCTFS). According to Onley (2005), “MCTFS is the only fully integrated personnel and pay system supporting active and reserve forces within the Department of Defense (DOD)” (p. 1). Due to the sensitivity of the data that is entered in MOL, the Marine Corps is making all efforts to make sure that the information in this system is safeguarded. Marine Online is a Marine Corps information system of the future. A key argument

In this article we can see that different disciplines can be combined for a more effective organization development and management change of thinking.

There are many ADP’s that build the structure of the Army for my battle buddies and myself. This paper will focus only on one of those ADP’s. ADRP 4-0 is the army doctrine based on the sustainment of army missions. Sustainment is known to be broken down into three main elements. These elements consist of logistics, personnel services, and also health service support. This ADP applies to unless otherwise stated to Army National Guard, Active Army, and also Army Reserves. The policy focuses on how the components of sustainment warrant operational success. It gives the Army forces freedom of action, operational influence, and prolongs durability. The mission is completed by making sure that the Army services are prepared and tangibly available.

The U.S. Army plans on cutting 80,000 soldiers by 2013. This will be done by cutting the number of combat brigades from 45 to as low as 32. This restructuring comes as the Pentagon works on its 2013 fiscal year budget, which much reflect $260 billion in savings over the next five years. On January 26, 2012 senior DOD leaders released a new defense strategy, this is based on the current budget constraints. “This new strategy will focus on a smaller, leaner military that is agile, flexible, rapidly deployable, and more technologically advanced (Feikert & Henning page 5, 2012).” This new military will

The historical process of creating and implementation of the Military Decision Making Process has changed significantly since World War I. The US Army did not have a published staff doctrine or guidance to assist commanders in the decision making process. The Regulations for Field Maneuvers (1910), did not provide staff guidance. In 1914, the field service regulation (FSR) identified the need for decision making processes. The Staff Officer Field Manual (1932), complied principles, data, and information that was intended to guide the operations of staff of all units and territorial commands. The Staff Officer Field Manual (1932), was a detailed manual that explained staff functions and more complete commander estimates of implementation time.

I agree with your previous analysis with the force management process. Of particular concern, is DoD’s intent with new training doctrine to implement the new DOTMLPF requirements within the current operating environment. Over the last fifteen years of warfare, DoD attempted to maintain the professional development of NCOs and officers while on deployment through waiving NCOES training requirements and requiring field-grade officers to complete the advanced operations course (AOC). The resulting training “bubble” created an overall backlog in the training environment for NCOES and OES in completing DOTMILPF requirements. To rectify training deficiencies, DoD reinstituted completion NCOES prior to promotions and implemented constructive credit

There are several key areas identified in the unit that require supportive change management to improve mission capabilities. Kotter’s eight-step approach to planned organizational change can be applied as a recommendation, but first identifying the cause of military cuts, operational challenges and limiting factors must be identified.

The Army Force Management Program (AFMP) provides integral guidance in developing the future force. In essence, the AFMP provides directional adjustments to the existing force, balances force structure requirements (manpower and equipment) within available and planned resourcing (i.e. people, equipment, time, and resources) and provides vital direction in shaping the force of the future. (AFMM, p. 1) Army leadership utilizes the force management (FM) process to direct force structure adjustments based on strategic guidance, constraints, and precedence in leadership decisions. (ibid) For example, programs such as the Current National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, directed Total Strength Reductions, Joint Force 2020, Decision

I agree with the author’s argument about the importance of understanding and studying force management because it grounds three broad concepts: to develop strategic thinking, emphasize professional development, and remarks on the importance of the military as an instrument of national power. The first reason is because the military is an important instrument of national power. Organizationally, the Army possesses valuable resources: human, finance, technological, and all materiel needed. Understanding properly the organizational processes, officers are able to better determine force requirements, means of resource allocation, and assess the use of these resources. It also facilitates to recognize how organization, integration, decision making,

Fourth phase is coordination, the organization can accomplish growth with this phase is by utilizing the formal system to increase more prominent coordination through more proficient distribution of the corporate and nearby assets. A greater amount of staff parts are enlisted in this stage which will give more representatives to work and have better administration given to the clients. This will likewise help investment opportunities in global business sector. The last but not least is the fifth phase; collaboration. In this stage, development happens and initiative is more adaptable and behavioral. At this state, the quick “problem solving by cross-functional teams, reduction and reintegration of headquarters staff members, matrix types of structures with the right teams solving appropriate problems, conferences of key managers frequently held to solve significant problems, educational programs used for managerial training,

The Army needs educated and trained officers in force management, who can effect change and can integrate into the numerous force management processes. As I red and analyzed the reading “The Professional Case for Force Management”, I strongly believe that the author makes and effective argument to support the importance of professional military officers to understand and study force management. The author gives great explanation of the FM importance, and also gives 8 excellent reasons why FM is important; in which I completely agree with.

The multifunctional nature of Operations Management requires a high level of process- and system-based synchronization across many different departments and divisions to be successful. The structural organization of the US Army is heavily dependent on Operations Management for missions to be accomplished, and long-term strategic visions to be attained (VanVactor, 2007). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how the five areas of accounting, industrial engineering, management, management science and statistics, in conjunction with critical path analysis and linear programming, are used extensively throughout the US Army's supply chain operations.

There is a problem with the organization that involving communication. To eliminate any type of rumor about how and what type of change is going to occur within the organization, meetings will need to be held. To assist in this type of meeting the company can incorporate Town Hall meetings and teleconferences to ensure that all employees can be apart of the meeting. The next phase of organization will include the split of Sales and Delivery sections of the company. These departments have very different focuses, and it will be easier to focus on needs with separate sections. Opening the lines of communications will also be an essential for developing sustained change. Once each department is split, a conference will need to be conducted to solicit ideas of goals and performance based incentives so that each employee understand the need to grow along with what they can do to further themselves within the organization and other incentives. Some types of incentives that may be need would include sales based incentives for but the Marketing and Sales departments and a benchmark performance based incentive for the Delivery section of the company.