Digitizing and Automating Standard Operating Procedures

The Air Force relies on standard operating procedures for operating and maintaining complex systems or equipment. Examples include operating constellations of satellites, checking out an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) before flight, or performing maintenance on an aircraft. Industries also operate and maintain complex equipment such as oil rigs and chemical refineries using procedures. In many cases, both government and industry are using paper (or PDF) documents for their procedures. These documents are difficult to update, do not provide a searchable record of compliance, do not catch human errors, and do not allow for easy extraction of key procedure information and data. TRACLabs has developed an electronic procedure platform called PRIDE using both government and industry funding. PRIDE digitizes standard operating procedures and also provides a means to automate those procedures if system connectivity allows. TRACLabs proposes to investigate the application of the PRIDE electronic procedure platform to Air Force operations such as satellite control.