NASA scientists recently developed a software framework that unites
normally incompatible computer data management systems to improve
performance and increase efficiency.
Before the Program Management Tool (PMT) was developed, NASA
researchers had to gather and merge information from multiple
computer systems based on different hardware and operating systems,
which was often time-consuming. These mismatches also complicated
data exchange among new and old systems common in both government and
industry.
“The Program Management Tool is slicing red tape and barriers that
block information exchange among government agencies in the post-9/11
world,” said David Maluf, the PMT principal investigator and a
scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, located in California’s
Silicon Valley. “PMT provides seamless, automated, Web-based
government-to-government updates among different kinds of computer
systems,” Maluf explained.
As a result of PMT use at NASA, workloads and error rates are
reduced, which is helping the agency achieve efficiency goals
established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Maluf
believes that managers could use PMT to improve International Space
Station and space shuttle operations by providing real-time
information.
“The architecture that we have developed facilitates data
synchronization between large, complex data management systems,”
Maluf asserted. “This is the same challenge that faces many
commercial organizations today – how do we develop new tools to meet
current and future organizational challenges while maintaining
connectivity with current systems?”
Another new NASA software product, a database system called Erasmus,
displays management performance and accountability measurements. This
software sorts NASA project and program data by ‘enterprise,’
project, type and other classes. In addition, Erasmus updates
information monthly, and it also includes key successes, issues,
risks, quality measures, performance rate, milestones, schedule and
human capital figures. Erasmus can help scientists visualize an
entire mission or program in detail.
Using PMT, NASA computer scientists linked Erasmus with other NASA
computer systems to provide detailed information about projects.
“Erasmus is a very good strategic management tool for the agency, but
we developed the Program Management Tool to provide a finer level of
granularity to our management processes,” Maluf said.
Maluf and three colleagues, Jason Duley, Brett Lewinski and Ken’yon
West, used advanced Internet technology and Extensible Markup
Language (XML) to integrate the Program Management Tool and Erasmus
over the Internet.
NASA scientists believe that the Program Management Tool potentially
could have commercial uses and ‘spin off’ to private industry, which
often struggles with the same problems as government does – combining
data from various incompatible computer systems.
Engineering for Complex Systems, a part of the new Office of
Exploration Systems at NASA Headquarters, Washington, funded the
development of PMT.
