GENERATING EFFICIENT AND ROBUST SCHEDULES TO DELIVER BULK FUEL VIA AMPHIBIOUS CONNECTORS

During an amphibious operation, transporting Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) resources from ship to shore is a burdensome endeavor full of risks and complexity. Current scheduling techniques are arduous and time consuming, resulting in inefficiencies in the transition of resources from sea to land. Planners need an effective tool to limit these inefficiencies in an effort to expedite and prioritize the movement of supplies. In 2017, Major Robert Christafore developed the MEU Amphibious Connector Scheduler (MACS) tool to optimize the delivery of bulk fuel to forces ashore. This thesis further improves the MACS model to develop models and algorithms capable of handling bulk fuel delivery across a variety of MEU scenarios. The improved MACS model takes into account multiple objectives, weather implications, and reliability issues, which greatly enhances the MACS tool’s ability to deal with real-world situations. The updated model incorporates cost penalties, fuel efficiency factors, fuel consumption rates, and risk assessments to better facilitate planning.http://archive.org/details/generatingeffici1094559597Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited