Evaluation of a US Marine Corps combat service support logistics concept

One of the primary responsibilities of a Marine Corps Combat Service Support Element (CSSE) is to provide water, fuel, and ammunition requirements for the primary task forces and other Marine Expeditionary Force elements. This paper evaluates a proposed concept on how to best use the CSSE resources of a Force Service Support Group (FSSG) to transport supplies to Regimental Combat Teams over constrained networks with time constraints. A model was developed that optimizes the use of resources, assets, and network routes. The model first solves a capacitated vehicle routing problem, where a set of customers has to be served by a fleet of vehicles within a certain time. The stochastic aspects of the problem were modeled through the use of a discrete event simulation that uses the results of the optimization model. The optimization model goes beyond the traditional routing problem by accounting for special features such as vehicle capacity for each commodity and cargo incompatibility (e.g. fuel and ammunition).