Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation for Mixes of Naval Air Weapons Systems

The problem for solution was to develop a method for determining cost and a means for employing cost together with effectiveness in the determination of the next generation attack air weapon system for the Navy. A number of factors in this problem are different from the usual cost-effectiveness problem, some aircraft being procured today will still be in use, Naval aircraft have multiple mission capability (both strategic and tactical), the ships being built now or already commissioned are those from which next generation aircraft will operate and aircraft carriers have a fixed area for accommodating aircraft and relatively fixed personnel accommodations. In addition, when we consider a decision that must be made in the relatively near future, we must allow that not only is the total Naval budget limited, but that each kind of major procurement appropriation (for aircraft, missiles, ships, etc. ) is also limited. These considerations led to the formulation of a weapon system costing methodology that was tailored to Naval operating characteristics, and the development of a cost-effectiveness evaluation methodology by way of linear programming to include the various restrictions cited.