The NASA Space Network (SN), which consists of the geosynchronous Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) constellation and its associated ground elements, is a critical national space asset that provides near-continuous, high-bandwidth telemetry, command, and communications services for numerous spacecraft and launch vehicles. The Space Network includes several key ground system elements, one of which is the White Sands Complex Data Interface Service Capability (WDISC). The WDISC has undergone multiple cycles of modification and technology refresh over its lifetime, making test automation an attractive option for reducing system verification and validation cost. This paper considers the implementation of automated testing for the WDISC as a case study in technology sustainment, discusses the principal benefits and challenges of implementing test automation for a legacy system, and presents findings that demonstrate the effectiveness of such automation models.

One of the overarching goals for military aircraft sustainment is to keep a high proportion of aircraft available despite the need for maintenance. Traditional solutions to this problem require conservative resource estimates, but this is costly. In recent years an overall paradigm shift towards affordability has created pressure to find other options for achieving high values of fleet level metrics. Past efforts at increasing affordability have had mixed success, and as a result such strategies need to be tested early on in the lifetime of a product, ideally before the product is ever fielded. In order to provide the ability to evaluate the effects of sustainment decisions such as different maintenance paradigms and cost goals, this thesis develops a sustainment modeling environment, known as Sustain-ME, to facilitate open analysis based on the best information available. The goal of creating Sustain-ME is to allow decision makers to define a sustainment scenario and compare different decisions of interest on a common basis. Sustain-ME is a discrete event simulation, which means it efficiently provides a reasonable prediction of operational behavior. This thesis describes the information used to construct Sutain-ME, including the assumptions made for many of the parameters of the modeled sustainment process. It next verifies the behavior of the different elements that make up the sustainment model including operations, maintenance, maintenance paradigms, and the supply chain. Finally a methodology for using SustainME is defined and a demonstration of the types of studies Sustain-ME was built to perform is shown. The demonstration compares three different maintenance paradigms: reactive maintenance, condition based maintenance, and a novel CBM paradigm known as CBM-MiMOSA.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Tactical training ranges provide an opportunity for all of the armed forces to assess operational readiness. To perform this task the various training ranges have deployed numerous telemetry systems. The current design efforts in place to upgrade the capabilities and unify the ranges under one telemetry system do not address the training ranges' need to maintain their training capability with the legacy systems that have been deployed until the new systems are ready. Two systems that have recently undergone sustainment efforts are the Player and Event Tracking System (TAPETS) and the Large Area Tracking Range (LATR). TAPETS is a telemetry system operated by the U.S. Army Operational Test Command. The TAPETS system is comprised of the ground mobile station Standard Range Unit (SRU) and the aircraft Inertial Global Positioning System (GPS) Integration (IGI) Pod. Both systems require a transponder for the wireless communications link. LATR is an over the horizon telemetry system operated by the U.S. Navy at various test ranges to track ground based, ship based, and airborne participants in training exercises. The LATR system is comprised of Rotary Wing (RW), Fixed Wing (FW) Pods, Fixed Wing Internal (FWI), Ship, and Ground Participant Instrumentation Packages (PIPs) as well as Ground Interrogation Station (GIS) and relay stations. Like the TAPETS system, each of these packages and stations also require a transponder for the wireless communications link. Both telemetry systems have developed additional capabilities in order to better support and train the Armed Forces, which consequently requires more transponders. In addition, some areas were experiencing failures in their transponders that have been deployed for many years. The available spare components of some systems had been depleted and the sustainment requirements along with the increased demand for assets were beginning to impact the ability of the systems to successfully monitor the training ranges during exercises. The path to maintaining operational capability chosen for the TAPETS system was a mixed approach that consisted of identifying a depot level repair facility for their transponders and funding the development of new transponder printed circuit boards (PCB's) where obsolescence prevented a sufficient number of repairable units. In the case of LATR, the decision was made to create new transponders to take advantage of cost effective state-of-the-art RF design and manufacturing processes. The result of this effort is a new transponder that is operationally indistinguishable from the legacy transponder in all installation environments. The purpose of this paper is to present two successful system sustainment efforts with different approaches to serve as models for preserving the current level of training range capabilities until the next generation of telemetry systems are deployed. While the two programs illustrated here deal primarily with the transponder components of the systems, these same methods can be applied to the other aspects of legacy telemetry system sustainment efforts.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper describes the status of the Edwards Digital Switch (EDS) [1] and the success of the Digital Switch Sustainment Program (DSSP); a multi-service program aimed at cost-effective means for providing maintenance and development of an advanced digital switching system. This digital communications switching system is deployed at the mission control centers of Edwards AFB, Eglin AFB, and China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC). Each system provides the test ranges with mission-critical voice communications and Time Space Position Information (TSPI) switching. Through user-friendly Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), the switch provides exceptional resource management of radios, telephones, user positions, secure communications, radars, trackers, 4-wire Ear & Mouth (E&M) devices, subscriber services, and other equipment. Developed using commercial equipment, such as the Lucent Technologies Digital Access and Cross-Connect System (DACS) II, the digital switch can integrate and interface with the technologies of other test ranges and customers. The DSSP sustaining engineering contract, a $10M contract awarded in 1997, is a multi-service effort in supporting cost effective maintenance and enhancement for the systems’ software and hardware. Eglin and China Lake have agreed to participate in a Digital Switch Working Group (DSWG) to ensure that this configuration management is in place and that all players follow the same system migration path. These ranges and other interested ranges that agree to purchase systems off the contract and participate in the working group will continue to derive benefits by reducing overhead and eliminating the duplication of effort involved in separate endeavors.

Shifting payment models from fee for service (FFS) to pay for performance (P4P) have fundamentally changed the environment of healthcare administration in the United States (Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), 2011). Due to this shift, there has been an increase in demand for tracking and improving quality measures to ensure not only patient safety, but optimization of utilization. Constraints on resources and capacity, coupled with increasing safety measures has developed a new study of patient flow (Miró, Sánchez, Espinosa, et al., 2003). Decreasing patient room turnover times has the potential to maximize utilization while ensuring patient safety and quality (Dyrda, 2012). LEAN and A3 Methodology were applied to create a process improvement initiative at a 500-bed regional medical center (RMC). Using a Rapid Improvement Event (RIE), efforts were made to identify gaps and improve processes to address issues which prevented patients from being in the right place, for the appropriate amount of time, and patient rooms cleaned in a timely manner. These gaps prevented adequate patient flow in the RMC. After tracking the implemented improvements for a year, the RMC ceased following the newly designed process. This study examines the original RIE, factors that changed since the event, and additional process improvements made two years post-RIE.

No description available.

U.S. Small Business Administration reports that small businesses are one of the pillars of the U.S. economy, providing employment, innovation, and productivity. However, these businesses are constantly faced with challenges resulting from limited resources and continuous technological advances. This qualitative multiple-case study was performed to explore the strategies that small business owners (SBOs) in Maryland use to acquire capital to sustain their businesses financially for more than 5 years. The study's framework, the strategic management theory, was applied to determine the most effective approaches for the small businesses. Face-to-face interviews with 6 recruited SBOs were performed. A qualitative thematic analysis was then used to analyze the interviews. The main strategies to sustain capital were to create a business plan focusing on long-term goals and invest in employee knowledge and skills. In the process of measuring success, participants mostly determined their success by their ability to acquire customers based on feedback and good service. The interviewees managed their cash by minimizing debt, maximizing the use of technology, and keeping track of cash flows. The SBOs also shared that the challenges in business were endured by staying debt-free, adjusting their strategies with the market changes, and conserving cash and expenses. Contributions to social change include helping small businesses sustain by leveraging strategic planning, management, and implementation in their businesses, thereby providing jobs and contributing to the overall economic vitality of the community.

There are over 615,000 women military spouses and 1,786 known military spouse business owners who relocate every 2 to 3 years to follow their active duty spouse. The research problem addressed was the lack of strategies military spouse small business owners used to sustain their business during a mandatory military relocation. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that 5 women military spouse small business owners, located near Shaw Air Force Base or Fort Jackson, South Carolina, used to sustain their businesses during a relocation. The sampling method used was census sampling. The systems theory was the conceptual framework of this research supported by sustainability theory, strategic management theory, and event system theory. In-depth semistructured interviews and archival documentations (e.g., pamphlets, flyers, websites) were the chosen methods of data collection. A CADQAS software program was used to organize the data and content analysis method was to analyze the data gathered from the interviews and documents. The emergent themes were small businesses, work-life balance, business finance, barrier to business ownership, initiatives to support military spouses, and personal finances quality of life. For the military spouse small business owners or other potential business owners, a simple and accessible method to obtain information and access to government grants could assist the implication for positive social change to create new employment opportunities, growth, and innovation in communities and the economy. Additionally, the results from the study may provide insight and strategies to assist other military spouse business owners or other business owners in sustaining their business when relocating.

Dr. Christenson determined that the current project critical success factors identified in the literature are necessary but not sufficient to explain all project success. He explored the construct of 'project vision' as a critical success factor impacting project success. The findings of the multiple case studies strongly suggest that a project's 'vision' is a critical success factor to successful project outcomes. As such, the projects examined represented a continuum of change projects from changes to business practices to holistic cultural change (where the desired end state was not fully known). The project vision was found to be instrumental in signalling change to all stakeholders. Similarly, the project vision was found to be critical in knowledge management projects where the purpose is to share new, best or next best practices. The research also shows that the maintenance of a project vision has significant impacts on the successful completion of the project, especially on its timeliness for completion due to enhanced decision making. A project vision needs to be a shared vision of all stakeholders and the project champion, sponsor, and manager all have a role in communicating and maintaining the project vision throughout the lifecycle of the project. A multiple case study method was conducted within a public service organization. The study's findings provide a significant contribution to the practice of project management.

This research addresses the problem of creating surrogate models of high-level operations and sustainment (O&S) simulations with time sequential (TS) outputs. O&S is a continuous process of using and maintaining assets such as a fleet of aircraft, and the infrastructure to support this process is the O&S system. To track the performance of the O&S system, metrics such as operational availability are recorded and reported as a time history. Modeling and simulation (M&S) is often used as a preliminary tool to study the impact of implementing changes to O&S systems such as investing in new technologies and changing the inventory policies. A visual analytics (VA) interface is useful to navigate the data from the M&S process so that these options can be compared, and surrogate modeling enables some key features of the VA interface such as interpolation and interactivity. Fitting a surrogate model is difficult to TS data because of its size and nonlinear behavior. The Surrogate Modeling and Regression of Time Sequences (SMARTS) methodology was proposed to address this problem. An intermediate domain Z was calculated from the simulation output data in a way that a point in Z corresponds to a unique TS shape or pattern. A regression was then fit to capture the entire range of possible TS shapes using Z as the inputs, and a separate regression was fit to transform the inputs into the Z. The method was tested on output data from an O&S simulation model and compared against other regression methods for statistical accuracy and visual consistency. The proposed methodology was shown to be conditionally better than the other methodologies.