PERFORMANCE RECKONING FOR PROJECTING MANPOWER AND SKILL LEVEL REQUIREMENTS

AN ISOPERFORMANCE MODEL IS DESCRIBED WHICH WILL PERMIT TRADE-OFFS BETWEEN SIGNIFICANT PEOPLE-RELATED ELEMENTS IN MILITARY SYSTEMS AND PERMIT HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS TO ANSWER "WHAT IF" QUESTIONS. SINCE THE TECHNIQUE INVOLVES ESTIMATING IN ADVANCE THE LIKELY CONSEQUENCES OF PARTICULAR COMBINATIONS OF PERSONNEL, TRAINING, AND EQUIPMENT FOR MILITARY SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE, IT IS LIKE A FRONT-END ANALYSIS, AND IT BEARS A RESEMBLANCE TO OTHER COMPREHENSIVE APPROACHES SUCHAS MANPRING AND HARDMAN. THE APPROACH MAKES USE OF EXPERT JUDGEMENT IN PREDICTING JOB PERFORMANCE WHICH OTHERS AT ARI HAVE USED WITH SUCCESS RECENTLY, AND IT PERMITS COST-EFFECTIVENESS STUDIES TO BE PERFORMED WHICH INCORPORATE ALL THREE OF THESE ELEMENTS SIMULTANEOUSLY. THUS FAR, UNDER USAF SPONSORSHIP, A FORMAL ANALYSIS HAS BEEN CONDUCTED OF INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. THE ANALYSIS REVEALS THE MODEL TO BE VIABLE BUT DATA ARE NOT AVAILABLE IN SUITABLE FORM. WE WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THESE METHODS ONE STEP FURTHER BY PROVIDING AN INTERACTIVE EXTENSION TO THE ISOPERFORMANCE MODEL ("PERFORMANCE RECKONING"). TO THIS END WE PROPOSE FURTHER ANALYTIC DEVELPMENT OF THE MODEL, AND CONDUCTION OF A FORMAL EXPERIMENT TO PROVIDE THE NECESSARY DATA TO VALIDATE THE MODEL AND THE MODEL'S ASSUMPTIONS.