Equitably Distributing Quality of Marine Security Guards Using Integer Programming

Abstract

Established through the Marine Security Guard (MSG) Program during the 1940s, the partnership between the Marine Corps and Department of State has allowed them to provide critical security to designated diplomatic facilities worldwide. Approximately 250 Marines execute permanent change of station orders within the program five times every year to support personnel manning requirements. Are these Marines being sent to the right location? Is one embassy unintentionally staffed with MSGs of disproportionate quality? Is there a better metric to measure and assign Marines based on a decision-maker's preference? The current assignment process is manpower intensive and involves more than 15 personnel across three levels of command. At present, there is no formal methodology to quantify or measure how well MSGs are being assigned. The purpose of this research is to provide senior leaders at Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG) Headquarters with a method to complement the current assignment process by equitably distributing the quality of MSGs using integer programming. The results of this research support an improvement in quality distribution of up to 96% using the sum of squared differences across each region. The impact of this method can be expected to significantly decrease MCESG assignment man-hours.