Pattern Recognition on Usage of Operational Clothing in Canadian Armed Forces

The Canadian Department of National Defence has been issuing Operational Clothing at no cost to Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members based on tear and wear through clothing stores for many years. A significant change will be introduced: CAF is considering using annual point allocations and quantity caps to manage the expenditure of Operational Clothing though an e-business. To build such a point system, this research studied usage patterns of Operational Clothing and identified the differentiating factors affecting the usage patterns based on ten years of massive individual clothing transaction data and individual personnel data. Not only traditional statistical tests but also diagnostic analytics have been used for the analysis. The results of this study will inform decision making on the establishment of the new point system for managing expenditure of the Operational Clothing for CAF.