Intermediate Staging Base Decision Aid

As Objective Force systems such as Future Combat System (FCS) and Objective Force Warrior (OFW) are fielded, the battlespace will feature increased lethality, reduced numbers of combat systems, reduced decision making cycles, and a shift from traditionallogistics planning/ execution to logistics distribution closely paralleling the Just-In-Time (JIT) logistics used in the commercial workplace. High expenditures of precision munitions in the Objective Force environment, coupled with relatively lowinventories of the munitions will make FCS logistics a critical component of mission success.The ISB decision aid will be an answer to the problem of gaining and maintaining the logistics flexibility required for the Objective Force. It will provide top to bottom logistics visibility for the Objective Force logistics structure, alerting andprediction of logistics problems, planning/replanning for logistics nodes and routes, and interact with other logistics and operations/planning systems for full mission integration of logistics. ISB-DA is designed to dramatically increase throughput atall logistics nodes by decreasing uncertainties associated with logistics decision making due to incomplete information. ISB-DA will be designed as a component which can fit easily into the ARDEC decision aiding reference architecture or GCSS-A, and whichwill be compliant with the Joint Technical Architecture-Army (JTAA).ISB-DA is an answer to the problem of limited visibility of logistics assets at all levels of the force structure. Complete implementation of ISB-DA during Phase I and II of the proposed effort will take place within the context of the ARDEC CombatDecision Aiding System (CDAS) program. The concepts and implementations will serve as a technical base for technology insertion into a number of Army Science and Technology Objective (STO) programs under consideration for Objective Force operations.The decision aid component can also be applied to civilian domains such as transportation, logistics management, and emergency management.