Optimizing Portfolio-Level Modernization Investment: An Overview of the Aim Point Investment Model (APIM)

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Best, Katharina Ley

Contributor:

Eckhause, Jeremy M.

Edenfield, Nathaniel

Long, Duncan

Markel, M. Wade

Mayer, Lauren A.

Nuber, Tony

Regan, Liam

Vermeer, Michael J. D.

Woods, Dulani

Language:

English

Other Title:

Optimizing Portfolio-Level Modernization Investment

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2023

Summary:

This report introduces the Aim Point Investment Model, an optimization model for portfolio-level resource allocation across U.S. Army programs and time. The report is intended to provide a technical overview of the model and its capabilities while also detailing the motivation for creating the model and recommendations from related research. The recommendations should be of interest to decisionmakers and those interested in improving decision support tools for asset allocation problems. In brief, the project's objective was to develop a method and tool to support quick-turn exploration of modernization investment portfolios in light of changing budget constraints and operational priorities in order to develop rough-order optimal investment strategies across a preestablished set of investment options and set of budget and requirement assumptions. Given the enormous complexity of the decision space, some sort of automated decision support tool was required. To develop that decision support tool, the authors explored alternative approaches to extracting the information needed about programs' relative utility and any constraints on the Army's ability to procure the capability from existing Army data sources. This report describes one of these approaches, which uses Army prioritization guidance—synthesized from several sources—combined with plausible constraints to produce resource allocation solutions that are consistent with the Army's stated modernization strategy.