Interim Report on Air Force Base Level Automation Environment Report to the Department of the Air Force (1986) / Chapter Skim
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III. Discussion of Findings
III. Discussion of Findings
Pages 13-26
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From page 13... ...
Tt decided there was a fundamental advantage in providing a standard data processing facility to each Air Force base, and that most common support systems would operate using that facility. This decision was reaffirmed and strengthened when the Air Force decided to enter into the Phase IV program to reequip the standard base facility while consolidating a number of different functional systems into a single ADP facility.
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From page 14... ...
~-directed efforts are needed to bring it to an orderly conclusion. The original strategy for Phase IV was: o To rigidly control the software functional baseline of the standard base-level applications as of 1980; o To replace obsolete UNIVAC and Burroughs hardware with the new Phase IV environment; 0 To convert the software functional baseline to run within the Phase IV environment and apply limited updates as necessary; o To do all this without loss of functional capability or degradation of response time.
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From page 15... ...
Even though the Air Force was directed to buy, rather than lease, the Phase IV equipment, it appears to the Committee that there are possibilities for using the flexibility of the Phase IV contract's "technical replenishment clause" to update and expand the Phase IV portion of the standard base configuration, and the Air Force is encouraged to use this flexibility. The Air Force's efforts are almost certainly constrained by the fact that it does not have an announced policy for base-level automation spelled out in a declaratory document.
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From page 16... ...
O To provide an after-the-fact technical architecture to conceptually tie together the varied processors, terminals, work stations and data bases into a de facto network with distributed processing qualities. Having built this network and converted old functionalities, the major unintegrated single-function support systems (such as supply, maintenance, personnel, finance)
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From page 17... ...
Briefings by Sperry Corporation representatives indicated that a 50-fo1d increase in the capacity of a Phase IV system might be achieved by aggressively exploiting the "technical replenishment clause" of the Phase IV contract. But it must be noted that an annual work load growth rate of only 22-30 percent can easily consume a capacity growth factor of 50 in less than the permissible 20-year duration of the Phase IV contract.
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From page 18... ...
Unless the base-level automation system configuration is standardized, with strict controls over the number of different hardware and software options that can be employed, the future development and maintenance of hardware and software will become a nightmare and hardware backup prohibitively expensive. The Air Force can procure the elements of the "standard configuration" referred to above under current and planned contracts: under the "technical replenishment clause" of the Phase IV contract for the improvements that Sperry is offering or planning in the near future; under the Air Force microcomputer requirements contract; under the planned mu]
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From page 19... ...
But the Air Force recognizes that some interfaces cannot be identified in advance, such as those required to provide management information in response to as yet unspecified and probably presently unknown queries by a Wing Commander or an operations officer. Therefore, the Air Force is developing an architecture that it is hoped will allow all work stations to access the various computers on a base and communicate with each other and support inquiries and report requests which extract and combine data from more than one functional data base.
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From page 20... ...
Such automation produced significant benefits, just as independent automation of the Air Force supply and maintenance functions has provided significant benefits. But these companies now realize there are limits to the available benefits from piece-wise automation; they realize they were in error apply ing the most modern technology without re-thinking the underlying processes they were automating.
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From page 21... ...
system could result from a new functional analysis of mission support requirement on a MACCOM-by-MAdCOM basis. _ o Little of the Air Force's current base-level documentation and design effort appears to be devoted to operations, as such, and of that, the greatest part is directed at peacetime activities such as scheduling of personnel and aircraft for training flights.
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From page 22... ...
Evidence of the need for automation support for wing and base commanders is provided in the effort introducing ADP through the Advanced Concepts Base Program, which seeks to: o validate the effectiveness and applicability of new technology in an operational environment; o demonstrate practical improvements in support to functional users; o evaluate new processes and strategies; and o avoid wasteful duplication of effort associated with uncoordinated prototyping. This small effort has succeeded in marshalling operations and combat support personnel to increase their effectiveness through the use of ADP.
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From page 23... ...
Yet, evidence abounds that this observation is not reflected in current systems design, in equipment selection, and in practice: o Neither the deployable hardware nor software for the Combat Support System (CSSJ "formerly Deployable Combat Supply System (DOSS)
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From page 24... ...
of modern software development tools such as fourth generation languages, relational data bases, screen-driven program generators, application Prototyping, and the like. New applications software development and maintenance technology is available in the commercial sector, but its wholesale transfer to the Air Force tease-1 eye]
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From page 25... ...
The increasingly specialized needs of military aircraft and electronics made it difficult for the Air Force to order off-the-shelf subsystems and integrate these directly into weapons systems. In response, the Air Force shifted to a process in which it spent more time and effort specifying complex weapon systems required to support its missions.
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From page 26... ...
A further consideration is that various system actions will be in different stages of system life and will require close engineering, management, configuration control, performance review, and budget controls to insure the Air Force receives acceptable results. If the Air Force were to consider base automation as it does weapon systems, we suggest it would decide such an approach requires the designation of a SPO and the use of a prime contractor.
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