Automation efforts to aid disaster response teams

  • Published
  • By JoAnne Rumple
  • Aeronautical Systems Center Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) --  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. 

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

Last year, Brig. Gen. Roseanne Bailey, then 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 an 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.

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.

Some of the areas his team members have been examining include ways to make a base-level command post operate more efficiently and determining whether functions like civil engineer, finance and public affairs need to report to the battlestaff or just participate from their office computers in a 'virtual battlestaff, said Mr. Hucul.

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

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, he said.

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. 

(Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command Public Affairs)