Stochastic cycles for modelling workload distributions in military headquarters

Military headquarters coordinate planning and monitoring of military task forces in support of an overall commander. Despite advances in technology, these organisations remain human intensive. Adequately staffing a headquarters is challenging in resource constrained environments where senior decision-makers must also consider the manpower needs of deployed task forces together with their training and sustainment. At MODSIM09 we presented a high level workload model based on competition between irregular linear business processes (triggered by unpredictable external events) and regular cyclic routines that follow a headquarters ‘Battle Rhythm’. We extend this representation here by modelling a richer spectrum of activities to higher fidelity and unifying the treatment of their timing by spanning the range between irregular and regular. We call this the ‘Stochastic Cycles’ approach and demonstrate its utility by modelling planning in a hypothetical headquarters, where there are concurrent strategic, operational and logistic considerations. Using Discrete Event Simulations we show how data on Tasks, Roles and Staff for an existing headquarters enable decision-makers to explore the effect of alternative staff allocations. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Stochastic Cycles approach in organisational modelling.