Benefits of IVHM: an analytical approach

Support requirements and health management are significant operational drivers on large military weapons systems and large commercial aircraft. The integration of health management into the up-front design of these systems should include a detailed benefit analysis that includes all of the benefactors of operational performance that a truly integrated health management system can bring. These benefactors are the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), the mission operators, command/control elements, fleet management, and maintenance operations. Each of these functional areas has unique processes that can be identified and measured. The performance improvement on a system can be evaluated before design dollars are ever committed or contracts signed. By identifying the processes, measures of effectiveness (MOE), and input drivers, a discrete event simulation can be applied to assess the first order requirements for Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) implementation on systems. Some of the basic input approaches are discussed, as well as an example of a performance improvement illustrated from a simulation run using notional system and scenario data. This type of analysis enables a larger business case to be developed to aid designers and planners in their decisions of how to implement IVHM. This paper describes some of the initial approaches to modeling the above problems as part of the on going effort to develop a simulation to assess IVHM