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Category: Cost Modeling & Analysis

Toolkit for Enabling Adaptive Modeling & Simulation (TEAMS™)

TEAMS is a decision support tool that uses simulation to help NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) model various activities associated with spaceport project operations, improving decision making in areas like space vehicle mix impact, launch rates, asset utilization, and spaceport life cycle costs.

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) was experiencing problems from the numerous configurations and payload possibilities with their planned spaceport, and they lacked a tool to assist in the modeling and analysis of spaceport decisions.  Not to mention, spaceport management was also in need of a method for capturing knowledge pertaining to spaceport operations.  This dilemma resulted in an initiative entitled Toolkit for Enabling Adaptive Modeling and Simulation (TEAMS™), and a solution was consequently developed with KBSI’s expertise in methods and project management.

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Cost Benefit Analysis Support Environment (CBASE)

KBSI developed and demonstrated a new integration-driven paradigm for cost benefit analysis.  The CBASE technology provides qualitative and quantitative methods for modeling problem situations, performing cost benefits analysis, validating cost analysis by simulation, generating alternative scenarios, and comparing cost benefits across scenario.

The first phase of the Cost Benefit Analysis Support Environment (CBASE) initiative focused on developing and demonstrating a new integration-driven paradigm for cost benefit analysis.  Throughout the CBASE research, KBSI used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods for:

  • Modeling problem situations,
  • Performing cost benefit analysis,
  • Validating cost analysis by simulation,
  • Generating alternative scenarios, and
  • Comparing cost benefits across scenario.

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Reliability Centered Maintenance Costing (RCMC™)

The RCMC™ methods and tools support the critical knowledge discovery, cost modeling, and maintenance cost projection needed by Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) decision makers.  The methodology considers proposed maintenance actions on aggregate level metrics like engine availability, performance, and life cycle costs.

Current aircraft engine maintenance activities performed by the Air Force must account for both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance needs.  These maintenance activities, whether scheduled or unscheduled, are characterized as following an on-condition maintenance (OCM) strategy:  the maintenance work is performed to repair only what is broken or has already exceeded its time-on-wing (TOW) limits.

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Hybrid Discovery Wizard (HDWizard™)

HDWizard™ is a hybrid decision support toolkit that provides agent-based decision support for the automated generation of information from disparate and distributed data to support user-defined decision support goals.

Government and industry lack robust, hybridized approaches and methods for applying common sense reasoning techniques in decision support and knowledge management systems.  KBSI’s Hybrid Discovery Wizard (HDWizard™) project focused on developing a generic HDWizard™ toolkit that includes data mining, fusion, and inference/reasoning methods.

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Lean Value Chain (LVC)

The LVC initiative developed technologies and process improvements supporting critical part anticipation, solution presentation, and solution management oversight at the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) and Tinker Air Force Base.

The Lean Value Chain (LVC) initiative was a three-year program that supported the analysis of critical part management at the U.S. Army’s Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) and Air Force’s Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC).  The focus of KBSI’s work on the project included the implementation of technologies and process improvements in support of critical part anticipation, solution presentation, and solution management oversight.

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On Demand Simulation Support (ODSS)

ODSS is a system for creating and applying simulation modeling in depot management decision support.  ODSS uses a hybrid discrete-event/rule-based simulation engine, providing support for optimizing plans, schedules, situation response, and process designs.

The goal of this initiative was to design, build, and deploy an On Demand Simulation Support (ODSS) system prototype within the depot-MRO domain.  The ODSS prototype (referred to as the Virtual Planning Wizard – VPW), developed and tested using shared facility data from the paint and strip area at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC), has demonstrated the effectiveness of the ODSS technology for the rapid creation and application of simulation modeling for depot management decision support.

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Reliability Centered Maintenance Scheduler (RCMS™)

The RCMS™ tool and methodology encapsulate a reliability-centered maintenance strategy that supports maintenance planning and scheduling.  The methodology and tool consider the overall effects of maintenance actions, or the risk of not performing those actions, on aggregate level metrics like engine availability, performance, and life cycle cost.

To meet their high standards of system reliability, the Air Force’s current engine maintenance practices involve frequent inspections, parts replacements, and re-working of the engines.  These frequent maintenance activities correspondingly require that the Air Force maintain a large inventory of spare engines and engine components.  How much of this cost is truly needed to ensure the same level of aircraft reliability and availability?

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Agile, Wireless-Enabled Workflows for Ship Manufacturing & Repair (AWSM™)

The AWSM™ technology represents a new paradigm for ship manufacturing that redesigns manufacturing processes and uses computing and wireless technologies to deliver information–activity statuses, resource availability, design and scheduling changes–to every user, work crew, or process involved in the project.

A central challenge in any large-scale manufacturing environment is to effectively adjust to production and procurement glitches that ripple across and continually threaten manufacturing schedules.  The ship manufacturing industry is no exception.  With manufacturing projects that stretch over years and involve numerous divisions, materials, facilities, and manpower, how can U.S. shipyards achieve the kind of proactive flexibility needed to develop and maintain the most efficient and cost-effective production schedules?

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Pathfinder

Pathfinder is a comprehensive suite of technologies for life-cycle cost justification, cost/benefit analysis, integrated performance prediction, quantified trade-off analysis, and management decision-making for individual project selection, monitoring, and control.

Pathfinder, a KBSI-led effort in partnership with Texas A&M University (TAMU), focused on the design and development of a comprehensive suite of technologies for life-cycle cost justification, cost/benefit analysis, integrated performance prediction, quantified trade-off analysis, and management decision-making for individual project selection, monitoring, and control.  The goals of Pathfinder addressed the need for life-cycle costing in depot environments, where the operational benefits of acquiring and maintaining weapons systems must be continually balanced.

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