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This paper aims to propose two solution approaches to determine the number of ground transport vehicles that are required to ensure the on-time delivery of military equipment between origin and destination node pairs in some geographic region, which is an important logistics problem at the US Transportation Command.

The author uses a mathematical program and a traditional heuristic to provide optimal and near-optimal solutions, respectively. The author also compares the approaches for random, small-scale problems to assess the quality and computational efficiency of the heuristic solution, and also uses the heuristic to solve a notional, large-scale problem typical of real problems.

This work helps analysts identify how many ground transport vehicles are needed to meet cargo delivery requirements in any military theater of operation.

This research assumes all problem data is deterministic, so it does not capture variations in requirements or transit times between nodes.

This work provides prescriptive details to military analysts and decision-makers in a timely manner. Prior to this work, insights for this type of problem were generated using time-consuming simulation taking about a week and often involving trial-and-error.

This research provides new methods to solve an important logistics problem. The heuristic presented in this paper was recently used to provide operational insights about ground vehicle requirements to support a geographic combatant command and to inform decisions for railcar recapitalization within the US Army.

Film has been used to teach leadership in recent decades, but a review of the literature indicates much of this work is prescriptive rather than empirical. This study sought to understand the effectiveness of film in an undergraduate leadership class by determining learner perceptions of a film analysis assignment and exploring learner ability to identify the stages of group development. A mixed-method approach was undertaken. Learners were surveyed to elicit their perceptions of an essay assignment where they analyzed the stages of group development in the film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. In addition, their essays were subject to a content analysis to determine if learners could successfully identify the stages of group development. The survey indicated that learners enjoyed the assignment and preferred film analysis as an assessment of their understanding of group development. The content analysis indicated that learners could identify the stages of group development throughout the movie. However, there was variation in which scenes were representative of the different stages. Future research should explore the distinction between inductive and deductive approaches to content instruction and learner outcomes. Film familiarity and its impact on learner outcomes should also be investigated.