I. Program Overview. Organization Name/Program Name: Program Leader Name/ Position/Contact information , Phone.

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1 I. Program Overview Organization Name/Program Name: Program Leader Name/ Position/Contact information , Phone Program Category Program Background: What is this program all about? (No more than one page). Describe: The overarching need for this program History of the program The product that is created by this program Scope of work original & updated Expected deliverables Current status of the program The MITRE Corporation/Equivalent Lateral Spacing Operation Program Leader Name: Dr. Thomas A. Becher Position: Department Head Phone: (Choose One) o Sub-System R&D/SDD program or project o Sub-System Production o Sub-System Sustainment o System level R&D/SDD program or project o o System level Production System level Sustainment Other Need: A major limiting factor for the number of aircraft that can operate in the National Airspace System (NAS) is the minimum separation standards that apply during the departure, arrival, and en route phases of flight. Reducing the separation standards provides the ability for the NAS to handle more aircraft. Developing a standard that incurs no additional cost and leverages existing ground and airborne capabilities while enabling more capacity produces a significant benefit. History: The idea for the new standard concept came from prior MITRE studies that investigated operational benefits associated with diverging RNAV departure operations. These operations became possible in 2005 when RNAV Standard Instrument Departure procedures were first introduced at several of the nation s busiest airports. Implementations of these procedures are part of the FAA s strategy to transition from a conventional ground-based navigation concept to a Performance Based Navigation (PBN) concept that more heavily relies on the U.S. Global Positioning System of satellites for aircraft navigation. Product Created: A concept for a separation standard that enables operational improvements for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), while maintaining an equivalent level of safety. A methodology that ensures that operational benefits can be realized in the near-term. 1

2 I. VALUE CREATION = 20 POINTS Application requirements for the new standard that facilitate the needed regulatory review and approval process. Scope of Work: Enable the FAA to implement a new PBN-based separation standard in the NAS, focusing initially on reduced divergence for departures. Expected Deliverables: Engineering analysis, modeled benefits, measured empirical benefits, socialization materials, project vision, subject matter and operational expertise to inform policy and address needs of safety studies. Current Status: Working with FAA towards national standard. A plan is in place (developed by MITRE and leveraging work done on Closely Spaced Approach Operations at San Francisco). MITRE is responding to additional analysis requests from the FAA to explore generalization of ELSO to base the standard on ensuring divergence, positive course guidance, and controller monitoring. Value: What is the value, competitive positioning, advantage, and return created by this program to your: Customers National interests, war fighter Company Strength, bottom line, and shareholders Scientific/technical value (particularly for R&D programs) Excellence and Uniqueness: What makes this program unique? Why should this program be awarded the Program Excellence Award? Customer Value: At major airports in the NAS: increased departure efficiency; increased departure capacity; increased throughput especially during peak demand periods; reduced departure delay (taxi-out times); reduced fuel burn and emissions; and additional departure procedure design options that improve the ability to address terrain/obstacle and noise sensitivity constraints. Company Value: Demonstration of MITRE s core competencies related to innovation, systems engineering, and technical excellence. Scientific/Technical Value: This work demonstrates how to account for the improved navigational performance of PBN systems to support changing separation standards. This work has been taken to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Separation and Airspace Safety Panel (SASP) which is made up of experts from various aviation-related activities and has helped them in their fundamental role of advising the Air Navigation Commission on technically practical and operationally feasible provisions for implementing reduced divergence internationally. Excellence and Uniqueness: It is having positive, measurable impact on the NAS that is extremely cost effective. It has potential for global 2

3 impact via implementations around the world. III. ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES/BEST PRACTICES: (HOW DO YOU DO THINGS) = 30 POINTS Strategic: Opportunity Management - Describe how your program has identified its operational and business opportunity, and manages this opportunity throughout the program s life cycle. Strategic: Strategic Supply Chain Integration and Cost Effectiveness Management: - Describe how your program is integrating its supply chain to assure visibility and adapting long-term cost effectiveness up and down the supply chain. Strategic: Operational Integration and Systems Engineering Describe the challenges faced by your program in terms of integrating the system into its operational environment and its impact on systems engineering planning and management. MITRE has a history of conducting deep operational analysis for the FAA, establishing trusted working relationships with FAA facilities, and engineering expertise in PBN systems. MITRE also recognized the need for reducing separation standards based upon PBN performance and actively focused research in this area. With our innovative approach and partnerships, MITRE was able to give shape to an operational concept that paves the way for aviation regulators to change separation standards based upon PBN. Here, supply chain is being interpreted as what is next in the research pipeline. MITRE s initial success with reduced divergence separation standards was immediately leveraged by adapting the ideas and methods to the terminal-to-en route transition airspace. An arrival separation standard is being explored based upon reduced divergence from PBN systems to reduce the long final approach distances incurred at busy airports. This partnership is similar to ELSO, with MITRE obtaining operational feasibility feedback from the terminal facility. An ELSO-based separation standard concept is being proposed that aims to reduce the need for controller monitoring positions during triple arrival operations to lower (visual) minimums (ELSO-Established on Approach). This would save the facility significant labor costs, save distance, time, and fuel savings for the airport, and allow for greater participation of currently equipped aircraft. First Challenge: Develop a separation standard that enables operational improvements, while maintaining an equivalent level of safety. Changing a separation standard can require a significant amount of work to demonstrate that the current safety levels are met. This can be very expensive and time consuming, requiring 3-5 years. This influenced our proposed operational concept. Second Challenge: Devise a methodology that ensures that operational benefits can be realized in the near-term. Changing separation standards that do result in operational benefits are of no value to the FAA or airlines. This influenced our choice of focusing on departure routes. Departure routes at metropolitan airports are often 3

4 Operational: Planning, Monitoring, and Controlling - Describe your planning and resource allocation processes. How do you monitor and review your program s progress and make corrections to keep the program on track? How have you worked with your customer to assure Quality and communication without creating non-value reviews and audits that do not fit your program effort? Operational: Supply Chain and Logistics Management -- What processes, tools and relationship-building methods have you used to develop, refine and improve supply chain and stakeholder integration? Please indicate also methods used to analyze/fact-find regarding supplier proposals. This is one of the most imperative needs of our industry please provide specific details and data that assisted you in gauging the effectiveness. constrained by noise sensitive areas. Reducing divergence requirements may permit additional departures routes within designated departure flight corridors, increasing airport departure rates, and reducing delays. We have established methods for measuring these types of changes. Third Challenge: Develop application requirements for the new standard that facilitate the needed regulatory review and approval process. If the FAA was not in a position to conduct a straightforward review and approval, then the standard would get bogged down and sit on the shelf for an indeterminate period. It also means that we could produce the appropriate data analysis and modeling in a timely manner. We felt that if we could meet all of these goals, the chances of success would be much higher. After work definition and budget allocation takes place, resources are assigned based upon the required skills. This may require some balancing, loading, and prioritization across the organization given the demands of other projects. Regular project reviews are conducted (monthly then less frequently) for technical status, type and level of socialization needed (internal and external), issues, schedule, budget, resources, and goals. These are usually done with small groups to keep them flexible and reduce the cost and burden. Intermediate products are assessed for communication value to the customer and sometimes adjusted somewhat to create opportunities for customer input and status. Customer engagement is driven by tangible progress, external socialization, and supporting the customer s business strategy. Processes: Peer review, transparency, multi-level strategy, customer collaboration, and independent review Tools: Data visualization, operational simulation, big data analytic methods, data mining, and signal processing Relationship-Building: Transparency, inclusion, adopting customer perspective, responsiveness, provide messaging and socialization content and means Analyze/Fact-Find Supplier Proposals: This does not directly apply to our work. The analog of the supply chain is the FAA stakeholders and associated business processes. Often it is the case that MITRE is able to help identify the elements/steps in FAA processes, anticipate what is needed, and facilitate moving things through the process. A partnership at several levels is established to create a balance of push/pull which is called a multi-level 4

5 Operational: System Integration, Testing & Reviews - Describe the activities and processes used to succeed in your system integration, and testing. How did you conduct system design and technical reviews? What innovations in processes or tools were used to further evolve this capability? strategy. In the case of ELSO, MITRE worked to get buyin from senior leaders from the FAA Administrator down to the Atlanta facility. A movie, called The PBN Story was created which showed the benefits of PBN but highlighted the value of reduced divergence at Atlanta based upon actual operations. This created pull from the top to move forward and was met with the push from Atlanta and the lead airlines that were very enthusiastic about the operational benefits. MITRE has developed unique simulation and modeling tools that can reproduce key operational characteristics at major airports such as Atlanta. This is the basis for establishing the credibility needed for altering the operations in the model to predict benefits and examine potential operational issues. We are now in the position of comparing predicted results from our models with postoperational data to assess whether assumptions were met, need refinement, or models adjusted. Operational: Risk / Opportunity Management Describe the processes used to identify both risks and opportunity and to assure potential for both is addressed effectively Please indicate any forward-leaning processes to support. Team Leadership: Team Culture and Motivation Describe how you created your team spirit and culture, and accomplished entire team integration and individual team member motivation. Given the economic environment and changes in the global marketplace, how did you assure your team changed swiftly and with agility? Before a research idea can grow legs and be effectively operationally, we spend quality time with a facility like Atlanta to get their input on the proposed operational changes and identify as early as possible any anticipated issues. This extended team is also very valuable for identifying mitigations. We include an adequate set of controllers and managers and encourage them to bring in their airline customers to be part of the dialog and solution. We do this early and often in the process and provide them updates with the analysis as needed, allowing them to influence the analysis where required. Senior experienced and innovative scientists partnered with operational experts and less experienced engineers and analysts. I put in place a first line manager responsible for the project who reported to me. The first line manager was relatively new and was being mentored by me. For the less experienced staff, this was an opportunity to learn from a highly respected and rigorous scientist. For the first line manager, I posed this as a challenge to mentor, expand our modeling capabilities, and have system changing impact. I focused on helping to define effective milestones, setting and messaging strategy, and bringing them in to the socialization process 5

6 Team Leadership: Lessons Learned and Knowledge Management Describe how you collect lessons learned and best practices, and how they are shared with your team and company to improve performance. Also how are you capturing expertise and knowledge to assure availability over the life of the program? Team Leadership: Leadership Development How do you develop team s skills and build future leaders Best (& Next) Practices: Identify your program s specific Best Practices that you believe are unique, and could be shared with others and become industry s Next Practices. as needed: explaining the why and how. I celebrated with them their technical breakthroughs and quality and made sure they got visibility in the organization and with the customer. Lessons Learned: We use a project review checklist to have the technical and management teams who are directly working the project answer questions and rate the project. After independent ratings and review take place, we discuss the differences to highlight any lessons learned and application of best practices. This project is then reviewed by a totally independent senior team with broad experience across the company who review products, timelines, measureable goals, customer engagement, value, and impact. This acts as a check on knowledge management and overall assessment of the sharing across the company. Project pages are created and populated by the team following a corporate template. Systems Engineering Guidance and Evaluation are also appropriately updated related to expertise, references (deliverables from a project), methods applied, and tools (developed and/or used). This capability is set up for quick active mining by anyone in the corporation and provides a life to a project that supersedes the team. Define stretch goals, create opportunities, take an active interest, provide feedback, and empower them. Recognize high performance in appropriate ways: such as awards, direct thanking of staff for work done, and positive comments from sponsors. Also, share sponsor concerns (don t shield staff) and partner with them to move the customer back into the green zone (satisfied/delighted). Best Practice: Post-delivery assessment of the project deliverables to qualitatively and quantitatively measure aspects of the project. Qualitatively measure aspects such as value (external/internal), impact, quality, cost effectiveness, and innovation. Quantitatively measure aspects such as operational benefits, savings to customer, and time and resources to produce. Capture this data on an ongoing basis with an appropriate data model and analyze looking for trends and patterns. IV. ADAPTING TO COMPLEXITY: (HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH YOUR PROGRAM S UNIQUE COMPLEXITIES) = 20 POINTS Identify the Program s Market Uncertainty level The reduced divergence separation standard based upon PBN is new to the world. It is a technical breakthrough that 6

7 How new is your product to your market and users, based on the definitions below. Then describe how you deal and address this specific uncertainty: - Derivative an improvement of an existing product/system. - Platform a new generation in an existing product line. - New to the Market a product or system adopted from another market - New to the World - breakthrough product, never seen before Identify the Program s Technological Uncertainty using the definitions below. Then describe how you deal and address this uncertainty: - Low-tech: application of mature, well-established technology - Medium Technology: existing technology modified to meet new design requirements - High-Technology: recently developed new technology - Super High- Technology: nonexisting technology that needs to be developed during the program. Identify the level of your provides the foundation for providing improved departure capacity at any airport around the world with significant PBN operations. Given that it is a breakthrough, socialization has to take place at many levels and with many stakeholders. Within the FAA, this required that a simple and impactful message was heard and understood by senior leaders. This is an example of the FAA leading the world and Atlanta leading the country on the application of PBN without incurring any additional costs for the agency, taxpayers, and the airlines. It is innovative use of existing investments. Furthermore, since the FAA operates the largest and most complex national airspace system in the world, other states from around world are always looking to the FAA and U.S. to get ideas. The FAA is the world leader for PBN and other countries are now aware of ELSO with the word spreading in Europe, Australia, and Asia. MITRE has an international work program with a focus on solving complex problems. ELSO is an additional cost effective tool that can be applied around the world. The technological uncertainty is low-tech, since this concept takes advantage of aircraft navigation technology that has been used operationally for several decades. The widespread equipage and use of this technology provides the basis for the data needed to satisfy the engineering and safety studies required to enable operational use of this concept. A newer technology, such as improved surveillance provided by ADS- B will also help reduce separation standards in the future. The ELSO concept will provide additional benefits in environments in which ADS-B and PBN are available. Another key aspect to this concept is that current separation standards are applied but are shown to be achievable in an equivalent manner with reduced divergence if PBN systems are being used. Trying out the concept was invaluable for reducing technological uncertainly even more. Until ideas go into production, it is hard to foresee some of the challenges. While conducting this operation at Atlanta, airlines discovered issues with database currency and also the impact of runway construction on conducting ELSO operations. The system complexity that best describes ELSO is a System 7

8 System Complexity using the definitions below. Then explain how you are dealing with this level of complexity: - An Assembly performing a single function. - A Sub-system fitting within a larger system. - A System a collection of subsystems performing multiple functions. - An Array a System of Systems ; a widely dispersed collection of systems serving a common mission. Identify the Pace and Urgency of your team s effort using the definitions below. Then describe how you deal with the program s pace requirements: - Regular timing no specific time pressures. Fast/Competitive time to market is important for competitiveness. - Time Critical there is an absolute and criticalto-success deadline. - Blitz there is a crisis element driving the need for immediate response Other Complexities & Uncertainties - Describe other complexities and unknown factors faced by this program and how you addressed them. of Systems since successful use of ELSO requires many systems to work together in order to achieve the benefits. Examples are multiple airlines, aircraft types, ground systems, airport and terminal facilities, and tower/departure controllers. MITRE has built up a lot of experience and understanding working with these systems and stakeholders over the past 15 years in PBN research and implementation. As a result, MITRE was able to partner with the FAA and industry stakeholders to facilitate moving the waiver process through the system to enable operations at Atlanta. To move ELSO to the national stage, MITRE sought out senior FAA leadership within Flight Standards and Air Traffic to champion the NAS Change Proposal (NCP) process. As a result, an FAA team was set up along with an implementation plan with milestones, schedules, and regular monitoring. This has been an effective tool in managing the complexity and keeping the process moving forward. The FAA set ambitious goals to get ELSO into the system as an NCP. For the FAA to meet this goal, which was put into place October 2012, the pace and urgency of this project is fast (there is really no competitive aspect to this). As we work to meet this goal, especially in the sequestration environment of this past year, it is a challenge to keep the customer focused and on track. There have also been organizational changes at the FAA requires bringing new managers on board and obtaining alignment. We focused on socialization of the capability at all levels of the FAA. Efforts were put in place to enhance the PBN procedure design tool to include the methods and data needed for Air Traffic facilities to apply ELSO and design reduced divergence departure routes at any airport in the NAS. This proactive step will allow field facilities to have the tools they need right away to once the NCP is put into place. V. METRICS (HOW DO YOU MEASURE PROGRAM S PERFORMANCE) = 30 POINTS 8

9 (Note: We are not looking for $ results, but the relative percentage achieved. In particular indicate what specific metrics and data you are using that drive the program beyond standard measures of schedule, budget, and performance, and which have contributed to your program s focus and its success.) Customer - How do you measure the impact of your program on your customer and your customer s satisfaction? Include a description of your metrics, as well as numerical evidence. Performance - How do you measure your program s performance in traditional terms such as schedule, budget, requirements, and business results? Preparing the Future - How do you measure and assess the long-term contribution of your program to the corporation/organization? Team - How do you measure and assess the Impact: Quantitative operational evaluations of the NextGen RNAV ELSO procedures began October 2011 at Atlanta. ELSO benefits have been demonstrated and measured at Atlanta. The annual departure delay benefits are estimated at $20 million dollars annually. Interviews with controllers and airlines at ATL were conducted to obtain their feedback and have been valuable. All feedback has been positive. An example from Jim Allerdice, NextGen Operations Support Specialist, at ATL: The one thing about the ELSO initiative that stands out is, of all the PBN procedures we ve implemented in Atlanta, this is bar-none, been the best one we have done because everybody likes it. The tower likes it because they get a higher throughput. The TRACON likes it because we get to stay in RNAV all the time. The airlines like it because they get higher throughput and stay in RNAV all the time. It has no adverse impact on the Center and has not had adverse impact on the surrounding community as far as noise complaints go. So, it has bar-none been the most successful PBN implementation we have ever had. We have standard project management tools to measure budget and resources. For example, MITRE uses the IBM Corporate Clarity budget and resource management tool. For the milestones and schedule, we use Excel and track in Excel with the customer. For requirements, we track in Word documents and Power Point briefings. Business results are documented in formal reports delivered to the FAA that include context, data, analysis, and results. These are posted on a project tracking web site which the FAA can access. The FAA also grades products and provides feedback through this mechanism and through direct face-to-face feedback. Long-term contribution is measured by the number of airports in the U.S. and around the world that implement ELSO within the next 5 years. Another measure is using ELSO as the foundation for applying reduced divergence to the terminalto-en route transition (EDO) and applying it to arrivals as an intermediate solution that will enable increased participation in NextGen operations that significantly reduce the downwinds at busy airports like Atlanta from miles to 7-10 miles, resulting in significant fuel burn savings and environmental benefits. A major source of employee satisfaction is having the direct connection of the work to being used by the FAA and having 9

10 impact of your program on your team development and employee satisfaction? Unique Metrics - Describe any unique metrics you are using to measure your program s progress and how do you focus it for outstanding success. a positive impact on the NAS. This is reinforced with corporate awards, awards such as this, and recognition from the FAA. If the sponsor calls upon this team to push forward additional reduced divergence separation concepts for additional applications, this would provide more development opportunities for the team. Another capability developed for measuring PBN metrics in the NAS is based upon data fusion and big data analytics. This capability allows this program to monitor and measure metrics associated with ELSO implementation at any airport in the NAS on a continuous daily basis. The types of metrics are not unique but the continuous measurement of them in a semi-automated manner is unique. No other organization has this ability. Furthermore, this positions us to determine ripple-effect metrics from ELSO that are unique. With the implementation of ELSO, Atlanta was able to free up the use of a third runway which could now be used for handling more arrivals. Improving the departure and arrival capacity at Atlanta has ripple effects across the NAS. Quantifying and monitoring ripple effect network metrics and would make the benefits and impact story more powerful. 10