RIDGETOP GROUP INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: AF093-208

Description

ABSTRACT:The ETRS technology developed under the Phase II SBIR program exploits Lean Depot Management System (LDMS) historical data and CCA analysis to enhance the effrciency and effrcacy of the Versatile Depot Automatic Test System (VDATS). Prioritized diagnostic and repair actions achieve cost-avoidance through reduced mean time to repair (MTTR), reduced frequency of no fault found (NFF) codes, increased mean time between maintenance events (MTBE), and increased utilization effrciency of the VDATS platform. The net result is higher asset availability at reduced cost. Examples of relevant beneficiaries include Electronic V/arfare (EV/), communications, and navigation systems where conventional diagnostic methods are not sufficient to ensure cost-effective operational readiness of the aircraft to perform its mission.BENEFIT:The potential cost-avoidance enabled by the Expert Troubleshooting Repair System (ETRS) is conservatively estimated at $2 million per yeff per "bad actor" Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) part number in direct maintenance costs. There are additional savings from reduced indirect logistic and inventory management and increased asset availability. This is based on a very conservative estimate of 100 instances of "bad actor" CCAs, each incurring an average of two unnecessary maintenance actions at a round-trip cost of $10,000 in FY2014 dollars. The costavoidance for just three types of bad actor ALQ-172 CCAs over the next five years is over $30 million (3 CCA x $2Miyear x 5 years). Extending the ETRS technology to other Air Force aircraft and subsystems assets will fuither enhance cost-avoidance.