Simulating the Repatriation of Canadian Forces Materiel from Afghanistan

The Canadian Forces ceased combat operations in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan in 2011 and were instructed by the Government of Canada to complete its redeployment out of Kandahar by the end of December 2011. Materiel and equipment were transported back to Canada over several lines of communications. Nearly 1500 sea containers full of materiel, 800 vehicles, and 200 air pallets of material were returned to Canada by combinations of air, sea, and ground transport. This paper describes a discrete-event simulation model developed to analyze the repatriation of Canadian equipment from Afghanistan to Canada via the applicable lines of communication. The objective was to develop a model that could be used to analyze the repatriation in order to enable and improve future mission planning. The discrete-event simulation model is shown to be representative of the actual repatriation effort and is subsequently used to determine the impacts of different potential courses of action, measured mainly through results on the total cost and duration of the returns.