Benefits of Aurora to Air Mobility Command’s Global Air Mobility Support System

Introduction to Mission-Critical Planning Tools Like Aurora

In the operational environment (OE), Air Mobility Command’s (AMC) Global Air Mobility Support System (GAMSS) personnel, mission planners, and aircrew need to make critical decisions on the movement of aircraft and supplies while reacting and adapting to a dynamic threat environment and the effects of aggressive adversary actions. In response, AMC is moving toward distributed operations to complicate the enemy’s ability to target Mobility Air Force (MAF) assets. This move, while critical, comes at a cost. Moreover, the scale and complexity of planning, scheduling, and task management in such environments can overwhelm human decision-making and degrade mission effectiveness.

In complex environments, personnel augmented by intelligent decision-support software can accomplish 20-50% more tasks while dynamically reacting to changes when compared to the same number of personnel without intelligence automated support and under the same time constraints. Mission-critical planning tools like Stottler Henke’s Aurora attack this challenge by augmenting the Mobility Air Force airmen and speeding time-sensitive decisions across the distributed battle space of the future.

Aurora has proved its value repeatedly while deployed into complex task environments in the real world. For example, Boeing currently leverages Aurora for the parallel widebody assembly of multiple aircraft simultaneously. This includes managing tens of thousands of tasks requiring both human and equipment resources. Many require non-ergonomic operations requiring Aurora to schedule personnel to maximize throughput while limiting exposure to musculoskeletal injuries. The tailored ergonomic constraints capability helps Boeing prevent such injuries. Aurora has consistently delivered over 20% greater throughput utilizing the same resources than previous solutions while at the same time preventing common musculoskeletal injuries.

Solution

The Aurora framework manages and optimizes the resource utilization in complex domains. Teams have been applied Aurora to domains ranging from limited resource projects, such as aircraft and submarine production, to satellite downlink scheduling for the Space Force. Aurora serves as a framework because no single solution can manage the full range of resource-constrained domains. As a result, its architecture makes it is easy to modify and expand all the decision points required for resource scheduling.

We designed Aurora for rapid adaption to tactical scheduling problems, enabling it to generate highly effective resource assignments and schedules quickly. In some domains, it near-optimally schedules more than 30,000 tasks in under 120 seconds. This fast turnaround not only saves significant expert scheduler person-hours, but also improves reaction time to unforeseen events by several orders of magnitudes. Teams can now generate new schedules and plans in seconds or minutes instead of days or weeks.

Technical

The goal of Aurora is to maximize the throughput of tasks given a set of resources, which can include human and equipment as well as other types of resources such as physical space, while satisfying a myriad of other constraints that define the overall problem. Therefore, Aurora provides AMC with a Performance Enhancer. Aurora will provide:

• the ability to rapidly create optimized schedules that complete cargo transport tasks as soon as possible while respecting real-world constraints
• maximize utilization of limited personnel and equipment required to complete tasks,
• perform on-demand or automatic updates during the execution of the schedule to adapt to unforeseen events, changing priorities, and emerging threats, while
• minimizing changes to the near-term schedule during execution, to provide the time required to complete the prep work needed to support transport activities.

The size and complexity of Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data (TPFDD) present significant challenges. Routing and scheduling under complex constraints are especially difficult. Aurora addresses this as a resource-constrained scheduler. It represents flights as tasks, while aircraft and airfield ground slots serve as resources. Aurora also models unloading, loading, and ground operations as dependent tasks. It also captures inter-task relationships as constraints – all with the goal of real-time development of a schedule with a minimum overall duration.

Aurora is Designed for Mission-Critical Environments

Aurora is designed so that it can be run anywhere and at any time. There are versions of Aurora that run on PC’s, the cloud, and tablets. There is no need to have an Internet connection to run Aurora, so it can be run in austere locations. In every deployment, Aurora integrates with the client’s existing systems. Aurora pulls data from an existing system of record, generates a schedule, and then pushes the schedule (sometimes after review) back out to the system of record.

Stottler Henke has spent decades developing software that optimizes resource use and deploying it across diverse client systems. This is a complex challenge. Over the years, we have delivered solutions to industry leaders such as General Dynamics Electric Boat, and Boeing. We have also supported organizations NASA, the United States Air Force (USAF), and Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL).

Conclusion

Aurora is proven effective in many complex domains. Mission-critical planning tools like Aurora can benefit AMC’s future operations in the Indo-Pacific.

Aurora models complex goals and adapts to changes during execution. It continuously identifies the best path forward based on the latest status, including personnel, equipment, and performance-enhancing technologies. By maximizing the use of limited resources, Aurora improves efficiency and predictability in distributed operations. This enables AMC to maintain the speed and focus needed to support the warfighter!