Penn State Intercom......January 18 , 2001

Interdisciplinary group to work
on Marine Manpower Project

Researchers from the Applied Research Laboratory, College of Engineering, School of Information Sciences and Technology and The Smeal College of Business Administration have teamed to help the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) meet its future manpower and human resource development needs.

The Studies and Analysis Division of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command awarded a $548,000 to the Marine Corps Research University (MCRU) at Penn State for research support. A multidisciplinary team of subject-matter experts is being led by James Wise of the Applied Research Laboratory and Soundar Kumara of the College of Engineering's Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering.

Working with them are Chao-Hsien Chu of the School of Information Sciences and Technology, Jack C. Hayya of The Smeal College's Department of Management Science and Information Systems, Vittal Prabhu and Natarjan Gautam of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Management and Christopher Byrne of the Applied Research Laboratory. Retired Lt. Col. Ron Madrid, USMC, associate director and program manager of the MCRU, is coordinating the effort with the Marine Corps.

The Penn State team will produce a systems architecture that defines the information systems and models that will support the USMC's total force structure and human resource development processes into the 21st century.

Based on an analysis of current Marine Corps systems and mission requirements, the team will then recommend specific computational methods, computer hardware and software, and information requirements to support new manpower and human resource systems.

The work involves interviews with USMC officers and personnel to review information needs, in-depth analyses of the currently used information architecture and a broad-based search for systems to meet the Marine Corps' projected needs.

In 1999, Penn State was designated the Marine Corps Research University and, as such, provides education and research support to the Corps. To date, the MCRU has been awarded 28 tasks valued in excess of $12.6 million.

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