Service-Oriented Architectures and Project Optimization for a Special Cost Management Problem Creating Synergies for Informed Change between Qualitative and Quantitative Strategic Management Processes

Abstract

Mobility plays a central role in the support of military staff of the German Federal Armed Forces. This demand most often is fulfilled by a central organizational unit which allocates needed vehicles out of a local car pool of the military facility. One essential maxim is to meet the approved demand for mobility for any military employee of that facility at any time. This paper is based upon the experience out of an optimization project that has been conducted at a large German military facility with about 3000 employees. The optimization effort aimed at two dimensions: Optimization at business process level (qualitative) Optimization at the cost level (quantitative) A short introduction is given into the overall process from the application for a vehicle to the allocation of the needed vehicle. After analyzing the old process and its inefficiencies, a proposal for an improved process design supported by a service oriented software approach is given. The second part of this paper is focused on potential mathematical optimization approaches that can be chosen to reduce cost and make intelligent allocations to the given demands. The demanding goal was a user-friendly decision support system that is able to make intelligent allocations.