July 2018

The 86th Military Operations Research Society Symposium (MORSS) was held at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California from June 19 – 21.  With an attendance of nearly 1,000, the symposium featured presentations, panels, training and discussions in multiple working group, special sessions, demonstrations, and tutorials.  MNA continued its support to the operations research community with Britt Bray chairing Working Group 20 (Analytic Support to Training and Education) and John Nelson serving as the chair for Composite Group D (Resources/Readiness/Training). 

In addition to their chair responsibilities, both Britt and John presented at the symposium.  Britt’s presentation entitled “Information Demand and Supply: Automated Matching and Goodness Assessment” showcased the effort Britt is leading for MNA in support of the Army Research Laboratory (ARL).  Britt’s presentation described progress in an ongoing effort to develop an automated capability to match the best available information sources to decision-maker information requirements.  A government/industry team has adapted the Missions and Means Framework (MMF) to create a formal process flow diagram as a guiding framework for design and development of key components.  The just completed baseline effort focused on developing a reasoning engine to assess available information source(s) and the information they can potentially provide against specific information requirements and associated conditions of satisfaction specified by the user. Information could come from a myriad of potential sources including: processed outputs from service, joint, or coalition sensor packages such as UAVs; intelligence reports and summaries; operating reports; knowledge repositories and databases; or even open sources such as social media or news reports.  The foundational approach for the effort is a capabilities-based analytical framework that MNA has been applying and expanding in support of the analytical community and interagency operations.  In John’s presentation, “Modeling the Impact of Change Readiness on Capabilities”, John outlined a method for modeling the factors that influence organizational change and assessing the resulting impact on capabilities, a unique empirical approach developed by MNA.

The symposium was a great opportunity to reconnect with members of the analytical community in person.  MNA will continue its support to MORSS at the 87th Symposium to be held next June at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.