Lse working paper 01.38

2

3

Locating Centres of Information and Recruitment of volunteers for the Portuguese Armed Forces: A decision-analysis case-study

Carlos A. Bana e Costa1,2 João P.C.F.Thomaz2,3
1 2 3

Department of Operational Research, London School of Economics

Instituto Superior Técnico (CEG-IST), Technical University of Lisbon Portuguese Army & Autonomous Polytechnic Institute (IPA-Lisbon)

The end of conscript military service in Portugal and the option for a volunteer based military service require a different personnel recruitment and selection system for the Portuguese Armed Forces. In order to attract as much candidates as possible, it was decided to implement Centres of Information and Recruitment (CIR) in the Portuguese territory. This paper describes the decision analysis intervention that helped locate ten CIR. Developed in a Decision Conferencing framework, the study made use of several interactive Decision Support Systems, namely Decision Explorer to support the group cognitive mapping model-structuring process of identifying key location aspects, and MACBETH (Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical Based Evaluation Technique) to develop a simple-additive value model for evaluating CIR location options.

Keywords: Multicriteria Analysis, MACBETH, Decision Conferencing, Location problem

LSE OR Working Paper 01.38

ISBN 0-7530-1486-6

4

1. Problem structuring CIR mission The decision problem addressed in this paper is the choice of adequate locations in Portugal for Centres of Information and Recruitment (CIR) of volunteers for the Portuguese Armed Forces, in view of achieving the objectives of the CIR strategic mission: - to support strategic and operational marketing actions to assure a large base of recruitment in the target-population – 16 to 21 years old (soldiers) and 18 to 26 years old (officers and sergeants); - to attract the maximum number of potential candidates to enlist in the Armed Forces; - to divulge general