Enhancing readiness of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system via use of simulation modeling and contract incentives

Abstract

The two most important reasons for the inefficiency in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) test system of the Turkish Army Command are the failure to address life cycle cost (LCC) considerations during financial resource allocations and the absence of contract reliability incentives. These problems are not uncommon to newly developed major weapon systems. The objective of this thesis is to develop a life cycle cost based decision support tool and a performance incentive fee contracting model to improve the operational availability of the UAV system. This thesis integrates the spare parts, and repair and replacement cost considerations into life cycle cost calculation of the UAV system and establishes a methodology to determine these costs by exploring the relationship among spare level, service and failure rate in terms of readiness. An increase in the stock level does not improve the UAV system's efficiency in the long run. This thesis also provides a tool for the computation of a performance incentive fee by using modeling and simulation. This study presents a computer aided decision Support tool for more efficient and effective allocation of scarce resources.