Advanced Distributed Learning – Maintenance Mentoring System (MMS) – Phase I Deployment

DoD Participant:  U.S. Marine Corps MCAS Camp Pendleton

The deployed fleet within DoD has little access to training, electronic technical manuals, and troubleshooting aids required to repair and maintain active weapons systems in support of the war fighter. The loss of productivity due to off-site training and education, using schoolhouse facilities and live instructors, is estimated to cost the U.S. automotive industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually. A similar situation exists in the DoD, based on its historical investments in training and education required for ongoing maintenance and sustaining activities. This seriously affects the military capability for maintaining an affordable Readiness profile.

Both DoD and the commercial industrial sector have an immediate need for diagnostics and repair tools, based on logical thought processes and utilizing fully interactive information retrieval technologies, that allow skilled technicians with diverse experience, training, and expertise levels, to effectively trouble-shoot and repair systems efficiently and at significantly lower costs.

A number of factors impact the ability to achieve affordable readiness:

·        Repair costs – Parts and equipment for complex, high-tech machines and accurate diagnosis are increasingly more expensive.

·        Reduction in workforce – Fewer and fewer personnel are available/assigned.

·        Complex, superior technology – Machinery and equipment continues to grow progressively more complicated.

·        Higher-quality equipment – Equipment does not break down as frequently, resulting in longer times between individual workers encountering the same failure.

·        High cost of training – Traditional instruction necessitates lost productivity, travel expenses, and re-training.

·        Information overload – The vast, comprehensive amount of detailed technical information now required for daily tasks can overwhelm even the best and brightest workers.

Objectives

The goal of MMS Phase I was to:

·        Restructure the content – Determine the adaptability and adoptability of the General Motors Strategy Based Diagnostics^Ó for use by the military. The SBD menu system was designed to improve the accuracy and speed of workers and thereby reduce cost of maintenance. This whole category of performance improvement related to the restructuring of technical content.

·        Provide COTS technology to deliver the content during-the-job – Use leading edge COTS hardware and software in maintenance areas to deliver the information solution. The hardware and software were pushed to the leading edge (at that time) to enable the content to be tested in the real-world environment. This would allow the MMS to keep current with emerging commercial technologies instead of coming out with a product that is two years behind what is now available.

The goal of the hardware and software used during Phase I was to help aim the content to be ready for emerging COTS technologies. Speech recognition, noise cancellation, portability, battery life, tablet form and other issues were understood to be lacking in full functionality. These technologies were heavily researched and invested in by the commercial marketplace and appeared to have near-term commercialization.

The Maintenance Mentoring System (MMS) has been designed to increase the accuracy, cost effectiveness, and efficiency of the maintainer by changing two areas. First, the existing technical information was reengineered. The disparate information was restructured into a knowledge tool that matched the information to the users task and workflow, since existing reference information and resources were not organized or designed for on-the-job usability. Second, the MMS provided during-the-job delivery. For deployment technology, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software was utilized to implement the information solution directly at the worksite.

Benefits/Outcomes

The implementation of the MMS during Phase I resulted in:

·        Accessible and usable information – Dramatically improved worker ability to access existing information. It only took 15-20 minutes to train Marines on how to navigate the MMS.

·        Increased comprehension and retention – The MMS implemented techniques for conveying information to promote increased understanding, such as the use of text-to-speech technology and animated schematics. Animated schematics replaced the brief clips (such as talking head instructors, text, and certain graphics) that illustrate visually how something works.

·        Widespread acceptance – Technicians embraced the use of this tool in the workplace and are now using large amounts of information as they work.

·        Improved Readiness Rates - Occurs when concurrent information, available on demand, shortens the repair cycle time and improves accuracy of the actual repair. The ability to provide “just-in-time” procedures and training to any level of expertise will significantly enhance learning retention and workforce flexibility.

This pilot program enhanced the fielding of the AH-1Z and UH-1Y upgraded helicopters. The Marine Corps is planning to conduct testing to develop more accurate data related to readiness issues.

·        Increased learning through Computer Aided Instructions (CAI) - while also substantially shortening the training time requirements and costs. Instructor requirements, travel costs, and printing production costs are reduced using this type of mentoring system across a broad spectrum of services and geographic dispersions. Both DoD and commercial industry will benefit from improved metrics, remediation capabilities, testing by doing, and administrative functionality.

·        A commercially obtainable COTS-based system with ready-made components -These components may perform generic functions that are independent of the system's application domain and are part of the infrastructure of the system. The components include the operating system, the database system, web browser, voice system, and displays. Intelliworxx, in their selection of COTS products, has relied on proven manufacturers such as Intel^™ and Microsoft^™ that provide natural integration and limit the interface design for the COTS components.

The MMS project is highlighted on the Pentagon’s Advanced Distributed Learning website. See www.adlnet.org.

Recommendations

The need for workplace-delivered knowledge along with the complexity of associated technology systems continues to increase, while the portability and cost of delivering that information continues to decrease. Available technology now allows for easy and cost-effective implementation of mentoring using COTS products.

Selection criteria for future mentoring projects include systems with these characteristics:

·        Extremely high cost for downtime

·        Strict requirements for procedures to be carefully followed

·        High incidence of operator or maintainer error.