The World Wide Warehouse: Using the World Wide Web to Support United States Air Force Needs

In support of the United States allies, the United States Air Force makes military materiel available to foreign military sales (FMS) customers. It often happens that materiel provided to a country becomes obsolete, or excess, to that country as it upgrades or changes its weapons systems. That same materiel could be useful to one or more other allied countries. However, there has been no appropriate mechanism in place to allow one country to make its surplus materiel available to other countries. This paper provides an architecture for a.system that uses the World Wide Web to provide this capabilit

The Digital Rosetta Stone: A Model for Maintaining Long-term Access to Static Digital Documents

In the past several decades, and at an increasing pace, many records that used to be stored on paper have been stored digitally on computer information systems, instead. As older technologies are replaced by newer generations of hardware and software, new schemes for storing and coding the data are introduced. Because of the rapid evolution of technology, future digital systems may not be able to read and/or interpret the digital records made and stored on these older systems, even if those records are still in good condition. We are losing the knowledge of how the old systems stored and coded information. Increasingly, therefore, when we attempt to access and recover those aging documents, we will find that we no longer have the necessary information to do that. This paper addresses the problem of maintaining long-term access to digital documents and provides a methodology for overcoming access difficulties due to technological obsolescence. We created a model, called the Digital Rosetta Stone, that provides a methodology for maintaining long-term access to digital documents. The underlying principle of the model is that knowledge preserved about different storage devices and file formats can be used to recover data from obsolete media and to reconstruct the digital documents. We describe three processes that are necessary for maintaining long-term access to digital documents in their native formats--knowledge preservation, data recovery, and document reconstruction

Deployed Communications in an Austere Environment: A Delphi Study

The information and communications technology (ICT) field is undergoing a period of tremendous change. The exponential growth rate of ICT capability in recent decades, which has had an undeniable effect on every aspect of our society, will likely have ramifications for military operations in austere environments. 1 The Air Force’s 689th Combat Communications Wing commissioned a study to forecast the future of mobile ICT in such environments. Researchers at the Air Force Institute of Technology chose to employ the Delphi technique as the methodology for executing this task. The following scenario, based on the results of that study, demonstrates how possible changes in ICT might affect military operations. The article then discusses relevant issues that one would need to address before such possibilities become reality

Tanker Acquisition: A Systems Engineering Perspective

A short examination of air refueling, specifically its past, present, and future, offers valuable insight into the developmental needs of this critical capability. This article seeks not only to showcase an appreciation for the roots of air refueling but also to high- light the requirement for sound systems engineering in conjunction with the creativity and willingness to take risks, as exhibited by our forefathers in the field. These attributes are vital to furthering air- refueling technologies and capabilities as well as refining the some- what flawed tanker-procurement process employed today

Assessing a Knowledge Management (KM) Project Selection Framework

Knowledge management (KM) is becoming recognized as a valuable tool for establishing and maintaining competitive advantage. Decision superiority, the ultimate goal of KM, is only possible through the effective and efficient use of knowledge. But, to effectively and efficiently create and use KM, it is important to carefully select KM projects. This research assesses the usefulness of a KM project selection framework that was developed by U.S. Air Force Captain William Bower (2001) and refined by 1st Lt Jeffrey Phillips (2003) referred to here as the Bower-Phillips decision framework. To assess the usability of the framework, a case study was undertaken at an Air Force organization to identify and address potential knowledge management opportunities. The framework was found to be useful in identifying possible KM projects

A Comparative Assessment of knowledge management education across the United States department of defense Summer Bartczak (University of Central Arkansas)

The National Military Strategy (2004), the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (2005), and the Quadrennial Defense Review (2006) specifically highlight a new focus by the Department of Defense (DoD) on knowledge in operations as opposed to traditional weapons platforms. As such, each of the military services have put into place KM programs to varying degrees. According to Stankosky’s (2005) four pillars of KM framework, managing an organization’s knowledge assets can be most effectively accomplished by addressing four key elements--leadership, organization, technology, and learning—the “learning” pillar including KM education. Given that research on KM education is sparse (Ruth et al, 2000) and that organizations that do not address KM education are more likely to fail with KM efforts (Koenig, 2004), this multiple-case study provides a first look at KM education across the DoD. The preliminary results indicate that nature and importance of programs vary across the services, and, despite some leadership support, the resources needed to execute them are not always available

Development of a Strategic Decision Framework for Identifying and Selecting Knowledge Management Projects

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or positio