The United States Military Academy Reception Day: A Process Improvement Study

On Reception Day (R-Day), the United States Military Academy inducts more than 1,100 civilians into the Corps of Cadets so that they are prepared to start military training the following morning at 5:20 a.m.. The structure of the process has changed little during the past century, partly because of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIISE Annual Conference. Proceedings p. 2800
Main Authors White, Phoebe, Goethals, Paul L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Norcross Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) 01.01.2014
Subjects
Candidates
Efficiency
Engineering
Identification documents
Immunization
Military schools
Military training
Simulation
Tattoos
Traditions
United States > US
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Summary:On Reception Day (R-Day), the United States Military Academy inducts more than 1,100 civilians into the Corps of Cadets so that they are prepared to start military training the following morning at 5:20 a.m.. The structure of the process has changed little during the past century, partly because of tradition, but also because R-Day has a no fail mission (all new cadets must complete the process) and it only occurs once a year. The successful progression of Reception-Day depends on a number of different sub-processes, many of which involve multiple components of variability and the proper sequencing of individuals. In our research, a discrete-event simulation is developed that examines the effects of altering the sequence and locations of in-processing stations, from the arrival to completion of all tasks. Then, upon a thorough analysis of various scenarios, several process improvement strategies are identified.