Sponsor:

Air Force Research Laboratory

Research Team:

Manuel D. Rossetti, Brad Hobbs, Paul Faas

Universities Involved:

University of Arkansas

Start Date:

09/05/03

End Date:

03/31/06

Summary:

The objective of this project is to evaluate automatic data collection system’s benefits and costs within a logistics environment and provide decision support technologies for the integration of the automatic data collection system with the simulation planning mechanisms
Several of AFRL/HEAL’s current and planned programs will require field measurement of human performance and/or simulation to estimate impacts of the technology. Much of this technology will be based on sensors and automatic data collection devices, either on the aircraft or on the flight line. There exists a need for flexible models of the maintenance environment with enough detail and accuracy to serve as a vehicle for impact analysis of various sorts of maintenance innovations. In addition, these models should take into account realistic and innovative field measurement plans and procedures that allow the validation and benchmarking of unit-level impacts of innovations at the worker level. Automatic data collection is appropriate for these systems because they are inherently event-based or Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (DEDS). Discrete event dynamic systems consist of sets of interacting objects which compete for services from a variety of resources dynamically at discrete points in time. Automatic data collection (ADC) systems support system monitoring by capturing data on the interactions of the objects as they compete for resources within the DEDS. Despite their growing use, automatic data collection systems and management information systems have not produced all of the desired benefits in terms of their ability to improve the socio-technical productivity of the system. The introduction of an automatic data collection system can significantly impact the operational performance of the system in both positive and negative ways. The ADC system can hinder the performance of work methods or may allow manual work methods to be eliminated. In addition, ADC can allow increased event visibility and additional management decision points to become available. Systematic methods are required to enable the comparison of alternative automatic data collection strategies in terms of the impact of the automatic data collection system’s operation, both in terms of benefits and costs.