Insights into the Health of Defence Simulated Workforce Systems Using Data Farming and Analytics

© 2019 IEEE. This work is motivated by the need for the Australian Defence Force to produce the right number of trained aircrew in the right place at the right time. It is critical to understand the impact of structural/resourcing policies on the ability to maintain squadron capability, both for individual squadrons and jointly across the Force. By combining techniques in experimental design, simulation, data analysis and optimization, we have created an automated system to efficiently identify significant relationships between simulation parameters and squadron capability, as well as propose optimal parameter ranges for each individual squadron. The interplay of competing demands between squadrons was then analysed in the context of the entire Force and the stability of these extrapolations over sampling noise was also evaluated. Finally, we present compact summaries and visualisations of the most important insights about the most significant contributors to the health of the whole system.