. 0 MISSION OPERATIONS AND COMMAND ASSURANCE: AUTOMATING AN OPERATIONS TQM TASK Linda Welz, Sheri Kazz, Mona Witkowski, Kristin Bruno, Sherrill Potts Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Mail Stop 125-233 Pasadena, CA 91109 Phone: (81 8)-354-6681 Fax: (81 8)-393-1 362 email:lwelz@spal .jpl,nasa.gov Mission Operations and Command Assurance (MO&CA) is a Total Quality Management (TQM) task on Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) projects to instill quality into mission operations. The mission operations environment is inherently risky because each decision made is potentially mission critical. The flight operations environment generally requires operators to make rapid, critical decisions and solve problems based on limited information, while closely following standard procedures (Refs. 1-3). MO&CA’s primary goal is to help improve the operational reliability and reduce risk of projects during flight, To achieve this goal, automation of the MO&CA task is required, MO&CA specifically embodies the TQM principle of continuous process improvement (CPI) in which processes are constantly examined and analyzed for opportunities for improvement, Figure 1 shows how MO&CA implements CPJ in two ways. First, within ongoing projects, the flight mission operations environment is established and MO&CA participates as a team member. In day-to-day operations, anomalies are documented as Incident Surprise Anomaly (ISA) reports. The ISAS then serve as data that is analyzed by MO&CA engineers for process improvement opportunities. When these opportunities are identified, MO&CA provides reports and data to support recommendations for improvement to project management. Finally, based on management approval, MO&CA helps the project implement the changes back into the day-to-day mission operations environment. This technique was successfully implemented on the Voyager (VGR), Mage]lan (MGN), TOPEX/POSEIDON, and Mars Observer (MO) projects. New Systems or Upgrades to l?xisltng Systems Ongoing Projects I 1 - Requirements Anomaly (ISA) IJata \ Design ,f’-’l Data Mission Analysis Operations and Environment Recommendations ~ung Rccommcndat ions Figure 1 AIAA Computing in Aerospace 9 Abstract Submission Welz, et al., February 15, 1993