A goal programming application for army officer accession planning

The purpose of this paper is to present an application of Goal Programming (GP) to the Army Officer Accession Planning problem. The GP model aids the army's Officer Personnel Management Directorate (OPMD) to determine the optimal distribution of officers into each of the fifteen career branches referred to as the Officer Accession/Branch Detail Problem. This study presents two GP formulations, preemptive and non-preemptive models, for accession planning. The results of the two GP models using data provided by the Distribution Division of OPMD are also discussed.