Using Simulation to Model Time Utilization of Army Recruiters

Abstract : It is a well-known fact Army recruiters work very long hours in a demanding environment. In many cases, recruiting stations are geographically isolated from military bases, with recruiters often tolerating a high cost of living, crime, and other such adverse conditions that characterize the communities they work in. The job itself demands self-starting, motivated individuals with a wide range of skills, from street-savvy to salesmanship, in order to succeed. A number of factors in recent years have made military recruiting more difficult, which include scandals involving highly-placed soldiers and changes in attitudes towards military service among eligible men and women. A recent mission increase has exacerbated this problem even further for the many recruiters who must shoulder this burden. Unlike previous studies which have concentrated on the effects of advertisements and other determinants of enlistments in the Army, this study instead focuses on the individual recruiters themselves, with the ultimate purpose of defining the relationship between the various recruiter tasks and the end product - qualified Army recruits. The key step towards the accomplishment of this goal was the determination of which factors influence recruiter effectiveness. In the course of developing a model and subsequent computer simulation of the recruiting process, a thorough process flow description of the major recruiter tasks was generated. Task completion times were estimated on the basis of empirical studies of actual recruiting stations in anticipation of their use as model input parameters. All of this information was then incorporated into working Simprocess and ModSim computer simulations of a single recruiting station with an arbitrary number of recruiters.