Designing a decision support system for military base camp site selection and facility layout

The deployment of US military forces to conduct operations other than war (OOTW) has become increasingly common over the past two decades. The deployment mission subsumes a critical and often under-performed task: set up and occupy a base camp that projects, sustains, and protects the force. Military operational-level planners currently lack a decision support tool that provides necessary information to aid the commander in determining the best locations for base camps. Decisions on location are based primarily on tactical considerations, specifically the employment of tactical units given their OOTW mission. Once a unit arrives and occupies an assembly area, the location becomes, over time, a de facto base camp location. Additionally, military planners would benefit from a decision support tool that optimizes a facilities layout for a base camp. This paper presents our research in identifying base camp functions inherent to site-selection and facility layout decisions. The paper concludes with a discussion about future research, highlighting system requirements for a decision support system.