An Integrated Design Approach for Evaluating the Utility and Cost of a Fleet

This work presents a new method for designing and evaluating different fleet paradigms to determine an effective and cost efficient solution. The method requires the user to define a set of functions which must be carried out by the fleet as well as a set of candidate vehicles or systems that can carry out these functions. These function and fleet models are then evaluated to determine their performance. All the data is then fed into a stochastic dynamic fleet operation model to identify the amount of vehicles or systems needed to complete each mission defined on a fixed time horizon. The output of the fleet operation model is then used by cost models to determine the cost of completing each fleet mission. The overall approach is demonstrated on a military fleet composed of two different types of vehicles: a conventional fleet and a fleet composed of modules. The method shows that significant savings can be obtained from using a modular fleet and more work in this area is suggested. Sponsored in part by the Automotive Research Center, Ann Arbor, MI. Prepared in collaboration with the Ohio State Univ, Columbus, the Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Florida State Univ, Tallahassee.