“Logistics win wars” may be an old adage, but the U.S. Defense Department is looking for innovative new ways to apply it. MITRE and the Air Force collaborated to develop one such solution—an improved capability to ensure mission-ready aircraft.
U.S. Air Force photo
Unlike decades past, today’s global conflict areas, from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific, bring a host of unchartered challenges: mounting supply chain issues, decreased mobility, rising resource constraints, and more.
Advanced weapon systems are certainly critical to warfighting advantage. But that sophisticated new aircraft won’t do any good if it’s down for maintenance. Building additional assets could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Or, for a fraction of that, the services could find ways to achieve more with their current inventory.
“In any conflict, we need to have ready assets to get to the fight,” explains Debbie Naguy, MITRE outcome lead for logistics in contested environments. “And that means optimizing your logistics.”
Enter FLASH, the Field-Level Aircraft Scheduler MITRE created in partnership with the Air Force. The capability certainly lives up to its name, automatically generating an initial flying and maintenance schedule in minutes (versus hours). FLASH provides airmen a crucial baseline to build on—cutting the time to create a complete schedule by more than 50%.
The human-machine teaming tool transitioned from MITRE prototype to the Air Force’s preferred system for scheduling aircraft. Aptly renamed to reflect its function, Aircraft Scheduling now sits within the service’s advanced Torque platform. Deployed to over 22,000 airmen, across dozens of bases and several aircraft types, Torque helps schedulers ensure assets are maintenance-ready where they're needed, when they're needed.
Air Force Deputy Director of Logistics Kim Brown says, “Our collaboration with the FLASH team and in concert with the 309th Software Engineering Group resulted in a fleet management capability never before realized for our airmen.
“This capability is critical to our logistics community and to enhance readiness. Our partner agencies continue to be key strategic teammates for the Air Force.”
Our collaboration with the FLASH team and in concert with the 309th Software Engineering Group resulted in a fleet management capability never before realized for our airmen.
Beyond technical innovation, the success of FLASH’s three-year development journey came down to a critical soft skill: collaboration.
MITRE engineers developed a mathematical model to optimize planning for a large range of aircraft types and scheduling variables. They then worked hand in hand with Air Force schedulers to incorporate their expert insights and feedback—and ensure a high-level of usability.
“We didn’t just hand over algorithms,” explains Paul Bartholomew, one of our modeling experts. “We worked closely with the airmen at the 309th to come up with the user interface and the best way to incorporate the solution into their software system. We built it together.”
“Our team also conducted training with the 309th staff and provided a playbook for them to continue development and integration at their own pace,” adds Bartholomew’s colleague, Chief Engineer Doug Altner.
The result? A game-changing capability to enable the Air Force to rapidly adapt “on the fly.” As new information comes in about aircraft availability, maintenance plans, and shifts in resources, the tool helps planners continually reoptimize and adapt their system.
The optimization model also decreases work production slippage and improves communication within operational units. And planners retain the flexibility to control the schedule and adjust as needed.
A capability like FLASH means potentially improving our ability to get to the fight—and stay in it. But improving aircraft readiness is one small piece of the bigger battle plan.
“We could explore developing a FLASH-like system for every major form of operational planning and logistics across DoD, from ground-based systems and seaborne platforms to managing crews and pilots and air attack planning,” Altner says.
MITRE’s role as an objective, trusted adviser allows us to engage in such R&D without conflict of interest and transfer technology at no cost to our government sponsors.
“We need to continue asking the question: How can we find ways to accomplish more with the precious limited resources we have?” Naguy adds.
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