Fiscal Year 2009 Research Agenda

Resource Management Program

Logistics Enterprise Analysis

This project will assess the ability of the current Air Force logistics system to support future combat support capability requirements and recommends alternative designs that meet operational objectives more effectively and efficiently. The FY09 project will expand the FY08 repair network analysis for the F-16, KC-135, and C-130 fleets to address several other weapon systems. Specific systems will be determined through interactions with A4/7 leadership. The analysis will focus on groups of aircraft, rather than one fleet at a time, to examine the potential for greater efficiencies through consolidation across systems. Candidate groupings include the mobility (tanker and airlift fleets), SOF fleets, combat (fighter and bomber) fleets, and ISR fleets. This project supports Phase 2 of AF/A4M’s Repair Network Transformation (RNT) initiative.

Sponsor: AF/A4/7, A4M, A4I
Project Leader: Bob Tripp, Ron McGarvey

Unmanned Aerial Systems Sustainment Planning

This project will assist the Air Force with life cycle sustainment planning for unmanned aerial systems (UASs). The SECDEF has emphasized the importance of providing more UAS support to current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the new Defense guidance has indicated that future operations will place more demands on providing UAS support for contingency operations. With the rapid development and fielding of a wide-range of UASs with very different operational characteristics and acquisition and sustainment costs, the Air Force finds itself without a well developed sustainment philosophy and approach. Should the UAS sustainment philosophy mirror that of manned aircraft? Does the answer to this question depend on system complexity and cost? What decision parameters should be used to determine maintenance concepts? What are the availability and cost implications of applying “expendable” maintenance standards to low cost UASs versus current “risk adverse manned system” maintenance standards? How should intermediate maintenance be provided–at the unit or from a centralized repair network? How might increased use of cross-skilling impact maintenance requirements? How should workload be distributed among organic and contract support, and is it possible to leverage sustainment capabilities of other fleets, and even other services? How should sustainment funding be approached---should it be on the basis of flying hours or number of UASs? Is the allocation among the active and reserve components appropriate, with the emphasis on continuously deploying UASs in Steady State Security Posture (SSSP) operations? This project builds on PAF’s FY08 UAS roles and missions project and updates preliminary UAS sustainment analyses that PAF conducted four years ago.

Sponsor: AF/A4/7, A4M, AF/A2, AF/A3/5, AF/A8X
Project Leader: John Drew, Patrick Mills

Improving Sustainment Planning in Acquisition Programs to Reduce Life Cycle Costs and Mitigate Long Term Supply Chain Risks

This project will help the Air Force improve its planning for sustainment during the acquisition of new systems, with the goals of reducing life cycle costs and mitigating long term supply chain risks. The foundation for life cycle costs and sustainment supply chain risks for a weapon system is laid early during its acquisition phase. Detailed decisions-such as whether unique or standard parts should be used, the choices of suppliers, the choices of materials, etc., impact both the costs of supporting the system over the long term and supply chain risks such as obsolescence and other drivers of diminishing sources of supply. Such considerations are not unique to the Air Force; defense and non-defense companies have learned to strategically link product support to product development and production. However, the extremely long lifetimes of its weapon systems versus the relatively short lifetimes of key subsystems such as avionics create complex challenges for the Air Force. This project will assess the Air Force's sustainment lifecycle planning process, evaluate the extent to which product support considerations and risks are identified, prioritized, and managed during the acquisition process, compare Air Force practices to the best practices of leading defense and non-defense companies, and identify ways to more effectively and efficiently assess and manage sustainment planning and supply chain risks during weapon system acquisition.

Sponsor: AF/A4/7, A4I, SAF/IEL, SAF/AQ
Project Leader: Nancy Young Moore, Elvira Loredo

Strategic Weapon System Planning Processes and Their Interfaces with Air Force Infrastructure Strategic Planning

This project has two objectives: (1) examine how to better integrate the Air Force strategic planning process with the installation support planning process across the Air Force and (2) identify and assess opportunities for the Air Force to shrink its facility/infrastructure capacity without reducing installation capabilities, with the goal of reducing the physical plant by 15-25 percent over the next 10-15 years. This project will consider how planning processes can be improved to more effectively bring together the disparate concerns and expertise among force planners, MAJCOMs, and bases; how the Air Force should best utilize and leverage its infrastructure to most effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the force as it evolves over time; what planning constructs are needed to help the Air Force better understand its airspace requirements and proactively manage encroachment concerns; how activity management plans will integrate strategic planning (AF-level vision) with base-level constraints; how the infrastructure portfolio management capability can be improved; and the best way to transition from process mapping to the development of playbooks (to standardize the process). This is envisioned as the first year of a two-year project.

Sponsor: AF/A4/7, A7C, AF/A5X, AF/A8P
Project Leader: Julie Kim, Mike Thirtle

Umbrella Cost and Acquisition Policy Project

The objective of this project is to conduct a portfolio of acquisition and cost analysis studies. Specific tasks, which were selected in consultation with the research sponsor, include:

Selected Acquisition Reports (SAR) Database and Weapon System Cost Growth Analyses
Leading Indicators of Cost and Schedule Growth
Evaluation of Contract Incentives
Life Cycle Costing for Stealthy Systems, Including MILCON
Methods for Estimating Software Size and Costs

Sponsor: SAF/AQ, AQX
Project Leader: John Graser

Air Force Source Selections - Lessons Learned and Best Practices

This project seeks specific changes that the Air Force can make in its source selection policies and processes for complex acquisitions to reduce the rate of successful protests. Such protests make the costly and lengthy source selection processes that accompany complex acquisitions of weapon and information systems even costlier and lengthier, for the government and the offerors. The project gives special attention to the skills that the government source selection team requires and methods the Air Force can use to obtain these skills, methods the Air Force can use to protect the integrity of a source selection from inappropriate outside pressures, contract design processes that the Air Force can use to clearly explain the basis for its decisions, technical tools and contracting approaches that the Air Force can use to assess cost realism and to compare the costs proposed by competing offerors, and quality control processes that the Air Force can use within a source selection to ensure that errors do not occur. To do this, the project will collect information on recent experiences in Air Force and other U.S. government complex acquisitions and use this information as a basis for identifying specific recommendations.

Sponsor: SAF/AQ, AQC, AFMC/CC
Project Leader: Frank Camm

Providing Mission Assurance Through Networked Space, Air, Surface, and Cyberspace Domains

This project will examine current mission assurance vulnerabilities within the communications mission area, and identify and assess a range of multi-domain strategies to preserve communications capabilities in the event of an attack. Joint military communications missions [as well as position, navigation, and timing (PNT); missile warning; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)] rely on physical and functional networks that span space, air, surface, and cyberspace domains. Threats exist that hold key components of these networks at risk. In the event of an attack on a set of nodes and links of these networks, the Air Force needs to have in place mitigating strategies to preserve these missions. Such mitigating strategies will take the form of some combination of: robust network architecture, redundancies, diversity, degeneracy, adaptability, replacement, network sharing, and defense of key nodes and links. In FY08 PAF developed a general, integrated analytical approach to mission assurance using recent developments in the theory of networks and complex systems. This study will apply that theory to the communications mission. The project will have two thrusts: First, by adopting an integrated look at communications as a complex network, we will explore current vulnerabilities of the communications mission. Using an integrated approach to study this complex system should reveal vulnerabilities not previously recognized through analysis of individual elements. Second, given the current threat environment and vulnerabilities, the project will use the analytical framework to explore a range of multi-domain mitigating strategies to preserve the communications mission in the event of an attack.

Sponsor: 8 AF/CC, SAF/XC
Project Leader: Don Snyder

Improved Planning for Wartime Requirements for Air Force Medical Service

This project will help the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) improve its planning for wartime requirements by tying the new PAF-developed Stabilize, Triage and Treat, and Evacuate Patients (STEP)-Rate measure of the AFMS’s expeditionary medical capability to the Joint Medical Analysis Tool (JMAT), which uses time-task-treater files to generate wartime requirements. The STEP-Rate measure shifts emphasis away from outdated metrics such as numbers of beds that can be provided to the capability for flowing patients through the medical system so that they can receive more timely and appropriate care. Tying this measure to JMAT will explicitly link the new capability measurement concept to the planning process for AFMS resources.

Sponsor: AF/DSG
Project Leader: Ed Chan

More Effective and Efficient Use of Mobility Air Forces (MAF) Through Global Fleet Management

This project will help Air Force leadership identify and analyze potential courses of action toward improving the effectiveness and efficiency of mobility operations. The Air Force is seeking high payoff transformational initiatives to generate savings for recapitalization. One such option is to improve the flow of mobility aircraft around the world, which would increase utilization of assets and decrease fuel costs associated with scenarios that are consistent with the ongoing Mobility Capabilities and Requirements Study. The project team will examine policies on maintenance and basing constructs to determine their effects on utilization and fuel consumption. Options for consideration include global management of mobility assets (to include potential reallocation of mobility assets across the active and reserve components), alternative maintenance networks, and improved routing to take better advantage of positioning and depositioning legs.

Sponsor: 18 AF/CV, AMC/A4, A9
Project Leader: Ronald McGarvey

Improving the Effectiveness of Contingency Contracting Through Reachback

This project will help the Air Force identify ways to improve contingency contracting through reachback. The project team will examine the potential for reachback to pools of personnel located outside the AOR to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of meeting Air Force requirements for contingency contracting, by drawing on insights from prior PAF research, current experience with Air Force contingency contracting support associated with civil engineering activities, and the Air Force’s new regional contracting centers for installation support. In recent years, high levels of demand in the CENTCOM AOR for Air Force contracting expertise have led to heavy deployment requirements for the Air Force’s most capable contracting officers. Looking to the future, as the Air Force plays greater roles in supporting non-combat operations such as those associated with stability operations and nation-building, it has an opportunity to rethink the way it provides contracting support to the theater. Prior PAF research has examined the potential for reachback to provide the required level of capability more efficiently than with forward-deployed personnel rotating in and out of theater spread across multiple locations.

Sponsor: SAF/AQ, SAF/AQC, AF/A4R
Project Leader: John Ausink