Mitigating the Erratic Behavior of the Transportation Working Capital Fund Through Accurate Forecasting.

摘要

Sequestration and its accompanying budget cuts demand the DoD enters into a new era of fiscal responsibility. The need to leverage the rising cost of readiness with exploding personnel cost has led to dramatic force reductions and among many AFSCs ominous clouds of uncertainty have been cast. If America is to remain the preeminent global force, then we must break our reliance on antiquated frameworks containing our basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodologies that promote and even reward inefficiency. The time is ripe for overhauling our thoughts on estimating cargo demands and the number of assets required to meet those demands. The primary focus of this research will be on mitigating the erratic behavior of the TWCF through modeling cargo demand with higher fidelity than is currently enjoyed by the United States Transportation Command. The research will create a more stable environment for customers, Civil Reserve Airfleet partners and budgeters by reducing the need to make quarterly expansion buys via the CRAF program and potentially saving tens of millions of dollars per year. The secondary objective of this research project is to cast light on an alternative view of the CRAF expense and aerial Port Hold Time (PHT).