The Impact of Force Reductions on Promotions in the Navy Medical Service Corps

The objective of this thesis is to test an interactive PC based software model that allows manpower planners to study the impact of policy decisions on future inventories. This force structure model called FORCE and based on a Markov chain theory, allows manpower planners to use current inventory data and various estimates of continuation rates, promotion rates as well as planned accessions to forecast futures inventories. This thesis attempts to demonstrate the flexibility of this force structure model to monitor the effect of a reduction in force (RIF) on the Navy Medical Service Corps. Data from the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Information System (BUMIS) for fiscal years 1985 through 1989 and projected promotion flow points from the Medical Service Corps five year plan were used in the forecast. The force reduction tested was a three percent decrease in force end strength each year for five consecutive years. The primary emphasis of the analysis is to determine the impact of this reduction on the promotion flow point to lieutenant commander and commander. The effects were examined for the aggregate Medical Service Corps as well as the Administrative subcommunity, assuming that they will bear the major portion of the force reduction.