Tracking Logistical Constraints Across Missions and Organizations: A Multipurpose Information Infrastructure

The goal of many enterprises is to develop and execute plans and schedules that achieve stated goals while simultaneously minimizing the cost of logistics management and maximizing resource productivity. This goal is a challenge in space flight environments where just-in-time logistics management can't be supported and large scale planning and scheduling requires collaborations and negotiations that cross many divisions and departments. Although there have been many systems proposed and/or developed that address one or more of these concerns, a key element missing in these systems is the tight coupling that is necessary between maintenance, logistics, and operations. This close relationship is particularly important in space operations where changes to scheduled missions and/or the logistics chain can greatly impact overall operations. Based on previous work on combined maintenance and operations planning/scheduling for Marine Aviation, we propose a software-based infrastructure that coordinates planning, scheduling, and execution across multiple departments and disciplines.