The U.S. Military is one of the most significant users of simulations in the world today.  The Generalized Air Mobility Model, or GAMM,*  simulates the entire theater airlift system’s movement of cargo from source to destination.  Hence, the DSS provides simulation of flights, airdrops, overland cargo transshipment, and the survivability of cargo in the various modes of transportation.  (The DSS does not simulate the outcome of the campaign, just the ability of the airlift system to meet the operational demands of a given scenario.)

The quality of the insight from this simulation, as in any simulation, comes from the quality of the measures that were built into the system for evaluation.  Historically, the military  used measures such as rate-of-cargo movement, average aircraft flying time per day, utilization rate, and departure reliability.  While these measures provide some indication of the basic throughput of the operation, they do not measure the effectiveness of the mission, nor how it supports combat forces.  Hence, GAMM has factors of evaluation such as:

•  timeliness of deliveries;

•  effectiveness in making multi-flight deliveries within narrow time and location constraints such as those necessary for combat missions;

•  ability to move large, oversize items