That statement wouldn't be unusual in the context
of the latest corporate accounting software or a new heating and air
conditioning system. But when Gisele Welch says it, she's discussing the P-3
Orion, a Navy antisubmarine aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
Company starting in the 1960s.
As director of the Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center
(LandMARC) at the Georgia Tech Research
Institute, Welch includes in that goal a wide range of complex systems
that are costly to maintain, from transit buses and trains to industrial
equipment and aircraft like the P-3.
The goal is to use the latest information technology – along with sensors,
hand-held diagnostics, wearable computers, CD-ROMs, Web portals, radio
frequency tags, airborne recording devices, computer-based training and whole
range of other technologies – to improve a long-neglected aspect of these
systems: maintenance and logistics. The center focuses on four major areas:
integrated logistics, supply chain management, systems sustainment and
predictive diagnostics.
"We intend to improve every aspect of logistics and maintenance using
technology that has already been developed for other applications and
integrating it into open-architecture systems," she explains.
A recent Department of Defense study found that maintenance accounts for
more than 60 percent of the lifetime costs for complex military systems, notes
Ron Wagner, a former Navy aviation maintenance officer and co-director of
LandMARC. As these systems continue in active service much longer than their
designers envisioned, maintenance becomes more difficult, costly and
time-consuming. Yet until recently, cost containment efforts in federal
agencies focused largely on initial acquisition costs.
Saving the Navy $1 Million a Year on One
Repair
The LandMARC approach offers tremendous potential
benefits. For instance, Georgia Tech, Lockheed Martin and a team of small
businesses are working together on a project aimed at cutting $1 million a
year from P-3 maintenance costs by improving diagnostic techniques on just one
major repair item.
photo by Gary Meek  |
|
Georgia Tech and Lockheed Martin are working together on a
project to reduce maintenance costs for the P-3 Orion. In the
foreground are, left to right, Tom Sprague of Lockheed Martin,
Gary O'Neill and Gisele Welch of Georgia Tech, and Charlie Levinge
of Lockheed Martin. In the background are, left to right, students
Jennifer Sheridan, Ben MacDonald, Keesah Hall and Ethan Adler. (300-dpi
JPEG version - 497k) | |
The demonstration project focuses on the engine-driven compressor, which
supplies air for several key systems and is the aircraft's single most costly
repair item. Because the equipment is difficult to diagnose, more than 40
percent of the compressors replaced on the aircraft are not really defective.
The cost of these unnecessary "false repairs" amounts to $4 million a year.
But by providing technicians with better information and new equipment to
more accurately troubleshoot problems, the partners expect to reduce that
false removal rate by 25 percent, saving the U.S. Navy $1 million per year on
that part alone.
A key part of the P-3 project is an Electronic Performance Support System
(EPSS) that will integrate hand-held diagnostic equipment, electronic links to
supply system computers, wearable computers for displaying repair manuals,
computer-based training and airborne data collection equipment originally
developed for electronic warfare testing.
GTRI researchers, including Georgia Tech computer science undergraduate and
graduate students, are also merging disparate databases into a single
Web-based information portal for repair technicians. That system will replace
thousands of pages of paper documentation, making the information more
accessible and easier to update.
"We are attacking the cost of labor by giving technicians better tools to
reduce the time it takes to troubleshoot, fill out paperwork, repair a
malfunctioning component, test it and put the aircraft back into service,"
Welch adds. "If we can make better use of the technician's time, we can reduce
the cost of maintaining these older aircraft."
Work at LandMARC benefits from 30 years of Georgia Tech experience with
testing electronic warfare equipment, planning routes for military aircraft,
making documentation available through portable learning systems, integrating
different types of information systems and connecting wireless devices to
computer networks. The center plans to put these proven systems to work in new
ways.
One example is the Firefly Data Recorder, originally developed to collect
data from radar warning receiver tests. In LandMARC's hands, the equipment
will monitor performance of engines, compressors and other aircraft systems,
giving maintenance technicians a comprehensive view of system performance at
the conclusion of a flight.
A Two-Way Street for Students
Graduate and undergraduate students form the backbone of
research activities at universities like Georgia Tech. The
contributions students make to the projects are obvious, but the
benefits they receive can be equally important.
For Ethan Adler, Georgia Tech's P-3 maintenance project has
meant a chance to develop a real-world Oracle information system
and learn how it works together with a Web interface. The task,
along with Java programming, complements the more theoretical
understanding he's gained in class.
"This will definitely be useful to me," says the College of
Computing undergraduate. "We're doing a real-world project, and we
have the freedom to study the needs and recommend the best way to
approach it. Having this experience is extremely important."
Interviewing technicians at the Metropolitan Atlanta Transit
Authority gave Valerie Lafond-Favieres new insight into the
human-computer interface issues she's studying in class.
"It makes all the difference in knowing what kinds of questions
to ask users, and knowing what kinds of things to look for," she
says. "In some cases, our assumptions were wrong, and the
technicians told us that. Having a real client gave us a good
experience."
–
RH | |
"Maintenance staffs need to know at the end of a flight what systems may
need inspections," Wagner explains. "They also need to collect predetermined
data to apply to their long-term scheduled maintenance."
Georgia Tech and Lockheed Martin hope this initial 18-month project,
launched last summer, will lead to other opportunities to help the company's
customers.
"Lockheed Martin's motivation is to demonstrate our support for education
and research in our community, and at the same time reduce maintenance costs
and improve operational readiness for our customers," says Charlie Levinge,
Lockheed Martin P3/S-3 logistics manager.
Making a Difference in Buses &
Industrial Systems
Older aircraft are just one target for
LandMARC researchers.
"Aircraft, buses, trains and industrial equipment have a lot in common from
a maintenance standpoint," notes Gary O'Neill, a former aerospace engineering
duty officer and also a co-director of LandMARC. "By using open-architecture
existing tools, it's usually straightforward to adapt the data set and
architecture to other applications."
Like aircraft, transit buses and trains have long lives and significant
maintenance costs. The researchers have worked with the Metropolitan Atlanta
Rapid Transit Authority on a proposal to apply advanced technologies to reduce
maintenance costs – and perhaps head off breakdowns before they occur.
"Every day they take the buses to be fueled, and they could easily hook up
a device that draws down diagnostic information from the previous day," says
O'Neill. "That would allow them to track important parameters and discover
systems that might need inspection. They could also develop long-term trends
that would allow identification of emerging issues."
From a telltale vibration, such a monitoring system could warn of a failing
transmission in time to avoid a breakdown. Analysis of repairs could allow a
transit agency to reduce its parts inventory, stocking only those components
likely to be needed.
One study showed that technicians spend as much as 40 percent of their time
walking back and forth between the vehicle they're maintaining and the manuals
housed at the technical center. Putting repair manuals online and making them
accessible through portable computers would eliminate that wasted time and
motion. These systems could also give technicians access to parts inventory
information, and allow real-time consultation with engineering personnel at
equipment manufacturers.
Information systems could also house the collective knowledge of many
skilled technicians, making that expertise available to all and helping new
personnel get up to speed faster.
"We are using the new information and communications technology to fuse
information into a usable form and make it available at the repair point,"
Welch explains. "Improving the efficiency of maintenance and logistics is
really an information technology issue – how information is collected and
distributed."
Even non-mobile equipment could benefit from the application of information
technology. Just-in-time production systems have made the reliability of
industrial process equipment crucial. Shutting down a production line because
of a machine failure can be expensive, especially if it means missing customer
deadlines. Predictive diagnostics would set maintenance schedules and warn of
impending failures in time to avoid them.
Information Technology to Help People Stay
Healthy
Less obvious, but with even more potential impact,
are the parallels between maintaining machines and maintaining human health.
With their sea of records, medical information systems offer similar
opportunities for improvement, Welch says. Giving medical personnel better
electronic access to patient information and diagnostic reference data could
help hold down costs and improve the quality of care.
"The infrastructure and architectures that we are developing apply to the
medical field," she notes. "Right now, we are focused on the maintainer and
technician, trying to get them the information they need. But you could easily
apply that to medical personnel, bringing together different information
systems in a way that would be transparent to the users."
Beyond diagnostics, the information system could reduce paperwork and speed
reimbursement by using intelligent agents to sort through records that must
now be reviewed by medical consultants.
Students, Other Groups Keys to Center's
Work
When Lockheed engineers designed the P-3 during the
1950s, they could never have imagined what would happen on a chilly day in
November 2000. On that day, four Georgia Tech students scaled a ladder at
Lockheed Martin's Marietta plant to walk through a P-3 being analyzed as part
of a program to extend the aircraft's service life.
The students, none of whom had been born when the aircraft was built, are
providing creativity and energy to accomplish LandMARC's mission. But it is a
two-way street.
"I want to make sure these students can function in a real-world
environment and not just be book-smart," says Welch, who holds an academic
appointment in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
"We allow students to gain an understanding of why they're doing what they do.
They see why open architecture is important, why they should document the code
they write, and why they should have regular group meetings. They are the
system designers of tomorrow."
Drawing on resources from throughout Georgia Tech, including students and
other researchers, will be key to the new center's success, Welch says. The
center's small core staff will apply basic research done elsewhere in such
diverse areas as logistics, predictive diagnostics, component re-engineering,
technology insertion and advanced sensors.
Among the Georgia Tech groups involved are The Logistics Institute, the
Center for Integrated Predictive Diagnostics, and five of GTRI's laboratories.
"We want to be a product development team," O'Neill adds. "We find the
needs in the marketplace, bring them into Georgia Tech, assemble a team from
the labs and academic schools, then produce a total solution. We will reach
out wherever necessary to get the talent for the team."
For more information, contact Gisele Welch,
Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research
Institute, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834. (Telephone: 404-894-0155) (E-mail: gisele.welch@gtri.gatech.edu)
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Last updated: Feb. 16, 2001
