Automation efforts to aid disaster response teams

Published Nov. 2, 2006
By JoAnne Rumple
Aeronautical Systems Center Public Affairs

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Aeronautical System Center's Enterprise Knowledge Management experts may have found a way to help Air Force initial response forces and similar groups respond to disasters faster and more effectively.

Mike Hucul, ASC's EKM program manager, said his team is working to automate some of the functions of Air Force command posts, battlestaffs and disaster control groups to enhance disaster response.

Located in ASC's Capabilities Integration Directorate, this team has undertaken a variety of automation initiatives since its inception here five years ago. Efforts have saved money and man-hours in functions as diverse as compiling mission capable rates for Air Combat Command, economic analyses for Air Force Materiel Command and reports helping ASC's Aging Aircraft Squadron identify where to spend limited resources in upgrading avionics.

Last year, Brig. Gen. Roseanne Bailey -- an ASC alumnus who then was commander of the 435th Air Base Wing at Ramstein AB, Germany -- asked the EKM team to analyze and help automate some of the disaster response functions at Ramstein. The team traveled to the base, analyzed disaster control group and command post activities and made several recommendations. For example, they recommended disaster control group members use pocket personal computers instead of notebooks and checklists.

The commercially available pocket PCs could be networked to allow security forces, medics, firefighters and other responders log in, see what data they were responsible for collecting and upload that information directly to the system. Information such as map coordinates for the accident scene, numbers of dead and injured, identification of hazardous materials and need for a certain number of ambulances could be fed more rapidly to those in the battlestaff and command post. Additionally, situation reports, or SITREPS, could be almost totally automated.

Upon their return to Wright-Patterson, the team has done additional research on disaster control group and command post functions. The team recently received funds to continue work on command post prototype software they'd begun developing at Ramstein.

According to Mr. Hucul, some of the questions they've been examining include: "How do I make a base-level command post operate more efficiently? When responding to a disaster, do initial response forces need to be represented at battlestaff or could they just collect information and have it automatically fed into battlestaff, disaster control group and command post computers?"

Other questions the team wants to pursue include: "Do Civil Engineering, Finance and Public Affairs, for example, even need to report to the battlestaff, or could they participate from their office computers in a 'virtual battlestaff'? Could the team automate battlestaff checklists and interface with external factors? For example, in an aircraft crash, could we automate calls to identify type of aircraft and what hazardous materials were onboard? And then automate interface with weather radar to check wind direction and potential plume patterns? And then, automate calls or computer pop-ups to warn building occupants to evacuate and in which direction?"

Given money and time, Mr. Hucul said the team thinks it could provide valuable help to emergency responders.

He added that customers find the EKM team -- which also can support complex engineering work such as modeling and simulation -- most useful at integrating information from a variety of domains. For example, they can integrate software and data bases from finance, program management and logistics functions. Systems that previously couldn't "talk to each other" now can communicate in real time, helping an organization determine if it's meeting pre-established goals. He estimates that ASC's EKM projects have resulted in 50-90 percent process or cycle time reductions for customers, with the average payback being 16-to-1 in labor or time saved.

He also explained how EKM projects fit right into the Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, or AFSO 21, initiative. By applying technology to automate "low-value" work, Air Force employees can focus on more important and relevant work.