Reducing Rework in Officer Appointment Processes

Appointment scrolls are required for initial appointment of officers and for reappointment in a different grade, military service, or component. In some cases, they are necessary for appointment to a special branch or segment of a service's officer corps. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) processes over 2,500 appointment and promotion packages per year, and many require rework to correct administrative errors and incorrect information. Even without rework, the appointment and promotion scrolling process takes time, affecting the assignment timelines of officers needed in new capacities that require reappointment. The Office of the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness seeks to reduce the time needed to process appointments and the incidence of administrative errors, which result in time lost, administrative costs, and processing delays. In this report, researchers evaluate the requirements for creating appointment scrolls, examine the highly varying processes used to meet these requirements, identify problems in the scrolling process that create delays for both the services and OSD, and recommend improvements to increase efficiency. In addition, they examine Title 10 of the U.S. Code and other related statutes to identify changes needed to appoint officers within a military service rather than within a component of a military service. Book jacket.