Civil Works Assessment of Systems and Structures for Enterprise Tradeoffs (ASSET) Project

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Coastal & Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) performs research on ocean, estuarine, riverine, and watershed systems in support of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) Task Force in support of the Ocean Commission. A multi-disciplinary team of scientists, engineers, and support personnel work in CHL's internationally known, unique facilities. This team has developed state-of-the-art experimental and computational models for solving water resource problems worldwide. Physical facilities of approximately 1.7 million square feet and high-performance computing facilities at the DOD Supercomputing Research Center (http://www.erdc.hpc.mil) are the basic infrastructure for producing cutting-edge products for successful coastal, inland water resources, and navigation management. CHL work, although primarily in support of the DOD and the Corp's districts, also interfaces with other federal, state and local agencies, academia, conservation groups, and the general public, as appropriate. The Research Participation Program for USACE-ERDC-CHL provides opportunities to participate in new and on-going applied research and development projects. Research projects range from design guidance to three-dimensional computational models. Focus is placed on inland and coastal navigation, military logistics over the shore, dredging, flood control, storm and erosion protection, waterway restoration, fish passage, hydro-environmental modeling, water/land management, and other water and sediment-related issues facing the nation. For more information about USACE-ERDC-CHL, please visit https://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Locations/CHL/.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), is composed of two major programs: Civil Works and Military. Each program is responsible for millions of dollars annually and is required to maintain numerous assets nationwide. With Civil Works, there are multiple business lines that are responsible for assets that require annual maintenance, repair, and periodic replacement. Additionally, new assets are added to the Civil Works portfolio as needed. Determining maintenance, repair, replacement, and acquisition activities that will provide the greatest value to the USACE and to the Nation is an annual task requiring significant effort. Thus, USACE-CW Asset Management seeks to create a value model capable of calculating the benefit of project alternatives regardless of business line. Furthermore, USACE-CW seeks to utilize this value model for the generation of defensible budgets that consistently bring high value to the USACE and to the Nation. 

The participant will research on metric identification and value model integration. This research includes collaboration with team members and stakeholders and literature reviews. The participant will receive mentoring from subject matter experts in the process of their research. The research will also include an opportunity to co-author numerous publications including technical reports, journal articles, and conference presentations. 

This ORISE appointment is for one year. Appointments may be extended depending on funding availability, project assignment, program rules, and availability of the participant.

Participants will receive a stipend to be determined by ERDC-CHL. Stipends are typically based on the participant’s academic standing, discipline, experience, and research facility location. Other benefits may include the following:

The participant will not enter into an employee/employer relationship with ORISE, ORAU, DOD, or any other office or agency. Instead, the participant will be affiliated with ORISE for the administration of the appointment through the ORISE appointment letter and Terms of Appointment.

The candidate should be a current student in a Master's or PhD level graduate program with a systems engineering focus. Experience in value modeling and related metric identification desired. Additional skills such as knowledge in enterprise tradeoffs and swing weight matrix decision making are also desired for this research project.