Improving the Methodology to Estimate Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore Operational Throughput and Duration

Abstract

Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) is the method the United States (US) Army and Navy use to discharge cargo from large seafaring vessels onto a bare beach when an enemy force has denied access to a deep-water port or the ports have been damaged by natural disasters, terrorist actions, sabotaged by military forces, etc. The last large scale, published analytic study on JLOTS was conducted in 1993 during the Ocean Venture 93 exercise at Camp Lejeune, NC; since that time, nearly the entire US Army inventory of wheeled vehicles have been replaced and tracked systems have increased in size and weight with the additions of reactive armor tiles and urban survival kits. The current estimation method for determining how long a JLOTS operation will take relies on the median duration values in order to determine total operational length. This research shows that the JLOTS activity duration medians published in current military doctrine are no longer representative of the current inventory of US Army vehicles. New planning factors are defined based on JLOTS subject matter expert opinions as well as a new method of JLOTS duration estimation is described through the use of discrete-event simulation. The results of the proposed duration estimation method were compared to both the existing methodology using both the published planning factors and the new planning factors defined through subject matter expert opinion. In both comparisons the current estimation method was found to consistently overestimate operational throughput while underestimating duration since it fails to capture the queuing actions that occur in a resource constrained environment such as JLOTS. It is the recommendation of this research that a time and motion study be conducted on JLOTS operations in order to more accurately define the probability distributions associated with JLOTS activities. These distributions would replace the triangular distributions defined by subject matter experts in this research in order to generate a more accurate estimate of JLOTS duration and throughput. More accurate estimates for JLOTS operations will enable cost savings by providing maritime transportation providers with greater fidelity on scheduling while reducing the time these ships are vulnerable to enemy actions.