A new glide path: re-architecting the Flight School XXI Enterprise at the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence

Abstract

This thesis utilizes eight Enterprise Architecture views to analyze the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence's Flight School XXI Enterprise and provides recommendations to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of training aviators. The Enterprise Strategic Analysis and Transformation tool provides a guide for understanding the current state of the enterprise and identifying potential areas for improvement. Surveys of the enterprise stakeholders provided an analysis of the stakeholder values and the current enterprise value delivery. Historical data from the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence provided the remaining data for the analysis. A System Dynamics model applied the research to understand the dynamics of the AH-64 training process and conducted an analysis of potential courses of action to stabilize the process. By adding weather days to the Program of Instruction and increasing the daily flight window from 3 to 3.5 hours the enterprise can stabilize the training process. The principles of lean thinking provided a guide for the remaining recommended actions to improve the performance of the enterprise. These recommendations included reducing the batch size of students per course, achieving continuous flow by canceling initial course, and achieving customer pull by aligning aviator production to the aviation force structure. The thesis provides the leadership of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence with a glide path to transform Flight School XXI into a lean enterprise and achieve the Army's current and future training requirements for aviators.