JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2000 1094-7167/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE 73 and long-term (five to 20 years) range. It involves tailoring the policies (such as pro- motion, recruitment, departure, transfers, and so on) for the various personnel categories. It must take the current situation into account, as well as already planned short-term evolu- tions. The goal of predictive personnel man- agement is to check whether reaching the specified objectives from the current situa- tion is possible and, if so, to define which policies make it possible. Five prediction steps address different types of career evolutions. Each step relies on a software tool specifically designed and developed for its purpose. This article focuses on the first tool, the Prospective Vol- ume Policy (PVP) system (the other tools are similar), which routinely solves extremely large constraint-satisfaction problems. The PVP problem The PVP encompasses overall Army per- sonnel (including civilians). For each year, this policy determines the appropriate num- ber of individuals of a given category (offi- cers, noncomissioned officers, civilians, and so on), classified with respect to their statu- tory corps, rank group, and recruitment ori- gin. This policy moves from the current sit- uation described with respect to these parameters, to a target mid- or long-term sit- uation. We state the PVP problem as follows (see the “Terms” sidebar): Given: (1) the current resources of a given cat- egory, classified with respect to their corps, rank group, and origin; (2) the target volumes to be attained at year N, classified with respect to the same criteria; (3) constraints defining possible Predictive Personnel Management Claude Le Pape, Bouygues Telecom Jean-Francois Puget, ILOG S.A. Colonel Moreau, French Army Staff Headquarters Philippe Darneau, Andersen Consulting IN 1989,THE FRENCH ARMY STARTED a modernization plan, the Predictive Person- nel-Management Modernization Plan (Plan de Modernisation de la Fonction Personnel), to improve its personnel service’s organiza- tion and operations. The PMFP includes the development of a forward-looking person- nel-management process to anticipate the Army’s mid- and long-term needs and allow better management of short-term actions. The PMFP offers three main benefits: • better management of individuals through consistent, homogeneous career paths; • optimization of various costs, such as costs for better training or minimal recon- version costs; and • the possible evaluation of important statu- tory evolutions (such as new ranks or the union of two corps) and the study of abrupt changes (such as a profound reor- ganization of the Army). Obviously, these benefits are not easy to quantify, because they relate to the global evo- lution of the Army over many years. On the other hand, this application enables rational management of Army personnel and respects the most crucial long-term objectives. Predictive personnel management is based on the specification of qualitative and quan- titative objectives to be attained in the mid- THE AUTHORS DESCRIBE THE PROSPECTIVE VOLUME POLICY SYSTEM, WHICH ROUTINELY SOLVES EXTREMELY LARGE CONSTRAINT -SATISFACTION PROBLEMS. THE AUTHORS HAVE USED THIS SYSTEM TO SOLVE A PREDICTIVE PERSONNEL-MANAGEMENT PROBLEM FOR THE FRENCH ARMY THAT HAD NOT BEEN SOLVED BEFORE, DESPITE MANY ATTEMPTS OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS. CONSTRAINTS