Analysis of changes to Tobyhanna Army Depot maintenance cycle

Abstract

As part of a year-long study for the Department of Systems Engineering at West Point, our Capstone project seeks to provide Tobyhanna Army Depot with a decision support tool that will quantify how changes in Depot Maintenance programs, to include the exploration of reset and recap maintenance for the AN/TPQ 37 Firefinder will affect the readiness, time, cost, reliability, and support costs of the Firefinder. The AN/TPQ 37 Firefinder is a mobile radar system that provides detection of incoming artillery and rocket fire and tracks its movement in order to provide a location for counter-battery fire. This study is important because it incorporates an interdisciplinary approach to solving a complex problem using elements of industrial engineering, systems thinking, as well as modeling in producing a decision support tool that will allow Tobyhanna to make changes to their resources and service times in order to analyze these effects on turnaround times. The problem will be solved in two phases. The first phase will be to model the current operations at Tobyhanna Army Depot by using the AnyLogic simulation tool. This will be done by analyzing maintenance data and using the AnyLogic simulation tool in order to model their current system turnaround of 180 days. Once this is complete and approved by Tobyhanna Army Depot, inputs in AnyLogic will be altered in order to show how these changes will impact service turnaround times. So far, we have achieved an average turnaround time of 6 months with our current model. We have also succeeded in providing a decision support tool to Tobyhanna Army Depot that will allow them to alter their resource and labor constraints in order to accurately model what its impact on turnaround time will be.