Maintenance Metrics to Forecast Resource Demands of Weapon Systems.

Abstract : This report describes the methodology and results of a 15-month effort to develop maintenance metrics to forecast resource demands of weapon systems. Increased concern with the rising cost to support weapon systems currently in operation, as well as those in development, has created the need for more accurate methods of projecting maintenance requirements. The objective of the research was to alleviate this need by identifying, determining, and integrating those measurable weapon systems parameters that are necessary and sufficient to predict and quantify the drivers of maintenance resource demands. The study was accomplished as three separate but similar efforts. The data base was divided into separate data bases for cargo/transport, bomber, and fighter aircraft. Separate sets of metrics were then developed for each of the three classes of aircraft from these separate data bases. This final report is intended to be a summary overview of the study project. Study descriptions and findings include study aircraft/base case selection, critical equipment selection, maintenance impact parameter selection, data base acquisition and integration, maintenance impact analysis, maintenance metric model development, and maintenance demand causal analysis. The most important end products of this study are new maintenance metrics that can increase the accuracy with which the maintenance demand rates of the various aircraft subsystems are predicted.