Consolidating the US Air Force's conventional munitions models

Starting in 1990, the USAF's shrinking budgets caused increased competition for procurement dollars for stocks of conventional munitions. This situation also increased scrutiny of the models used to compute requirements for conventional munitions. Unfortunately, at that time the USAF was supporting four different optimization models to accomplish this job, with the predictable result that different organizations using different models were generating different requirements. In 1995, three of the four models were consolidated into one optimization system, with the aims of using the best ideas in the existing models leveraging investment in common databases, and providing a common baseline for munitions analyses in the USAF. This paper documents the formulation and development of the new Conventional Forces Assessment Model from both a functional and analytical point of view. More importantly, this paper shows it is both analytically and organizationally possible to consolidate existing models and reduce the support requirements while giving the users a better analysis tool.