The Federal Air Marshal Service Using Value Focused Thinking to optimize field office allocations

The Federal Air Marshal Service's (FAMS) mission is to promote confidence in the nation's civil aviation system through effective deployment of Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) to detect, deter, and defeat hostile acts targeting United States air carriers, airports, passengers, and crews. To accomplish this mission, the FAMS has established field offices across the United States and assigned marshals to these offices. As with all of government, the FAMS continues to work to operate efficiently as well as effectively. To this end, they seek to determine the best field office and marshal assignment set to maximize risk coverage at the minimum cost.