Do Stryker Brigade Combat Teams Need Forward Support ...

previous diagnoses and provides the statistically most
likely disease (fault) and treatment (repair).
The medical profession has done well to embrace
evidence-based medicine; the Army maintenance community
also might do well to embrace evidence-based
maintenance. Not only would such a system speed
troubleshooting and proper fault diagnosis, it would
also perform the same function as prognostics by supporting
the building of better authorized stockage lists.
It would also provide a better grasp of whole-life and
life-cycle costs. A system like this for Army maintenance
could limit misdiagnosis of vehicle faults. An
evidence-based maintenance system would reduce the
multicapable maintainer’s reliance on his intuition to
make sound repair decisions and allow him to diagnose
problems and correct them. His data then could
be included in later regressions to ensure that faults
were categorized correctly.
The program should be able to determine the result
statistically. For instance, if the maintainers normally say
that a certain fault is found during testing, we could probably
determine what the true fault usually is (and more
importantly, what the fix is) or if the “how found” data
mean nothing to the outcome. I would say, at this point,
that we do not really know if these data mean anything,
because we have “intuitively” said they mean nothing.
The most intriguing benefit of intelligent fault diagnosis
is that it eliminates the need for the intuition of
the maintainer. A maintainer’s intuition results from his
general maintenance experience, training, and experience
with the given piece of equipment. We need to
find a way to capture the shop data and fault data from
the Standard Army Maintenance System Enhanced or
from a Department of the Army Form 2407, Maintenance
Request, database that captures the “how found”
data and ties them directly to the “how repaired” data.
Collecting Data
With the advances in controller area network bus
technology over the past 10 years, several large commercial
truckers have developed evidence-based service
regimens based on what they have learned from
their electronic monitoring systems. The Army needs
similar systems that will support “fight with what you
brought” because new prognostic-laden equipment and
smart vehicle systems will not be widely used for years
to come, but evidence-based maintenance is available
today. It also would be free because the data are
already there—just not being used. Worse yet, we are
losing the information by not properly archiving it.
We have all the tools needed to use evidence-based
maintenance without adding anything to the vehicle
systems in current inventory. The type of bus used
on virtually all heavy vehicle systems has the data we
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need and stores them quite accurately, but we rarely
interrogate it.
Onboard Sensors
One might do well to study exactly what commercial,
even consumer, products provide. OnStar
offers a level of condition-based maintenance to the
consumer. My truck lets me know, based on my driving
habits over the past few months, that it will need
an oil change soon. The onboard computer sends a
message that generates an email telling me I am down
to a percentage of oil life remaining. Lo and behold,
a few days later my service engine light illuminates.
Granted, all of this is done with the assistance of a few
sensors, but I think more weight is given to the “profile”
of miles driven (such as revolutions per minute
duration) than to the oil condition itself.
Time and time again, I read on LOGNet about the
need for simpler vehicles that align with the workload
and skill set of the Army maintainer. Perhaps the greatest
single issue that comes up is the complexity of maintaining
a central tire inflation system (CTIS). Soldiers
in the field seem to be content with vehicles that do not
have CTIS or that have disabled CTIS systems. CTIS is
a complex system, and many fleets still do not have it. I
am not privy to the results of the surveys that take place,
but I think units in the field have overwhelmingly said
they do not want CTIS systems since any prognostics
undoubtedly will increase the cost of the vehicles and
make them inherently more difficult to maintain. Maintainers
do not want to have more complicated vehicles
unless they have the proper tools and adequate knowledge
and understanding of the vehicle system. A proper
tool, in this case, would be a diagnostic system that has
the information needed to diagnose a fault properly with
a high degree of accuracy.
Anything less than having a high degree of accuracy
in troubleshooting diagnoses equates to simply changing
parts. If we know more about the predicted actual
fault, we can eliminate some of the practice of “changing
parts until the fault goes away.” More importantly,
we might be able to use the data to redesign our resupply
operations. To shrink the logistics footprint, we need to
do several things. If we are not going to make vehicles
simple, we need to make diagnosis simpler. We can do
it without adding anything to the ground fleet.
Staff Se r G e a n t MichaeL wi n K L e r iS a Senior e D i t o r
a n D c o u r S e w r i t e r f o r t h e LeaDerShip DeveLopMent
Directorate, 84th ar M y reServe reaDineSS tr a i n i n G
co M M a n D, at fo r t Mcco y, wiSconSin. he h o L D S
a bacheLor o f buSineSS aDMiniStration D e G r e e f r o M
Marian coLLeGe a n D a MaSter o f buSineSS a D M i n i Stration
D e G r e e f r o M in D i a n a weSLeyan univerSity.
JULY–AUGUST 2008