National Association of Air Traffic Specialists

Aviation Safety is Our Business

NAATS HEADQUARTERS EMAIL UPDATE

Number 65
April 20, 2001

I attended a meeting this week on the Proposal for Safety Oversight of the Performance-Based Air Traffic Organization. This deals with congressional direction regarding separating the safety and regulatory functions of the FAA. The proposal appears to be mostly transparent to us but we do have a commitment that we will be involved in the development at the pre-decisional stage. At this meeting I talked briefly with NATCA President John Carr and we agreed to meet again in the near future. 

We have finalized the next round of arbitration advocacy training. The session will be held June 11-12 in St. Louis at the conclusion of the FacRep/manager conference and the BOD business meeting. Again, the purpose of this training is to allow our advocates to conduct their own arbitrations thereby allowing us to arbitrate more of our grievances. If you have any questions regarding this please contact your regional representatives. 

For the past several weeks we've been trying to get the dual traffic count stopped. As you know, the management pay team has no intentions of entertaining any form of true reclassification so NAATS changed its pay proposal to retain the current architecture. Since both teams agree on that point, it makes no sense to continue to dual count. Although we have heard that Air Traffic agrees with us, the matter seems to be temporarily stuck in ATX. I've asked our ATX Liaison Kate Breen to give a priority to moving this along. If you have any questions or comments regarding this please contact Kate directly at 202-267-8028. 

I meet with Deputy Administrator Monte Belger next week to attempt to get the pay negotiations jump-started. Secretary Mineta has requested a meeting and this is the number one issue I'll talk with him about. 

NAATS lost 59 members during the drop period this year. Historically, this is about half the number we usually see. Your support of our union during these challenging times is essential and very much appreciated. Of particular note is the fact that SW Region only lost two members. Congratulations to that region and to Regional Director Ron Dawson. 

I've received invitations to visit both MIA and BDR. I plan to make both those trips as soon as possible. A special pat on the back to BDR AFSS and the NE Region for their contributions to the PAC fund drive. Thanks also to NE Regional Director Kurt Comisky for all his work on this. 

I've attached an OASIS status report from NAATS National OASIS Representative Jeff Barnes. Jeff can be reached at 703-582-6616.

Wally Pike

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OASIS Status Report

Jeff Barnes 

April 20, 2001 � I completed a couple meetings with Harris Corporation on OASIS this week. Next week we will be testing the software upgrade due to be loaded at Seattle on June 1. The following week the OASIS Human Factors Team will be meeting at Harris to continue our work of identifying solutions to problems with the system. 

For the May newsletter Guylan Roberts and I will be writing an article about the human factors team, but a brief overview is that the OASIS Human Factors Team was chartered by NAATS and the FAA for the purpose of resolving issues that arise during the development of OASIS. This team does not work only in classical human factors areas, but also resolves issues in any area of OASIS that are brought to it. That team is composed of members from the union and management representing the controllers in the field and the interests of the headquarters lines of business that are involved in OASIS.

The members of the Team and who they represent are: 

•  
• Jeff Barnes, BNA AFSS � Co-lead and NAATS OASIS National Rep
• Dave Hoover, GNV AFSS � Alternate Co-lead and NAATS Southern Region Coordinator
• Dennis Detrow, ABQ AFSS � Team member and ABQ FacRep
• Alice Haines, SEA AFSS � Team member and SEA FacRep
• Arnie Holmes, IPT AFSS � Team member and IPT Alternate FacRep
• Guylan Roberts, JNU AFSS � Team member and NAATS Acting Alaskan Region Director
• Cindy Moran, ARU-300 � Co-lead and Acting Integrated Requirements Team Lead
• Scott Chapman, ARU-300 � Alternate Co-lead
• Tim Trudgeon, RDU AFSS � Team member, RDU Supervisor, SUPCOM Rep
• Tess Gilliam, AOS-540 � Team member and AF issues focal
• Barbara Jackson, ATP-420 � Team member
• Dino Piccione, AUA-400 � Team member and Human Factors expert
• Alfred Moosakhanian, AUA-400 � Team member

This Team has faced a great challenge to turn a system that was basically unusable into something that will not only meet our needs today, but also into our future. Their work has been excellent and they have much more to do before they get to rest. Lately they have been faced with two telcons per week and a face-to-face meeting each month grappling with OASIS issues. They have made considerable personal sacrifices to see this through, and I for one owe them a big debt of gratitude for what they have meant in making my job manageable. 

The OASIS system has changed hugely over the last two years that I have been the Rep. It has been a troubled program from the time I took the position, but it improves continually. With continued commitment from the Agency it will be a great success for us. If you saw OASIS two years ago much of it would be unrecognizable. In a lot of areas it has undergone a complete redesign to make it comply with the needs of controllers, not the perceptions of programmers. At the same time, continued interaction between the human factors team and the Harris programmers has led to a better understanding of our needs so that the time needed to resolve problems has decreased. 

In his testimony to Congress Wally stated that we considered the Seattle prototype system a success. However, the Independent Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E. Performed by a team led by ATQ, the FAA�s independent test organization.) Early Operational Assessment (EOA) labeled the OASIS a failure. I have been asked how can those two statements be resolved. 

There are two elements to this. First, we agreed to the Seattle installation under an MOU with strictly defined contingencies in case our controllers there encountered difficulties. This MOU enabled us to unilaterally halt the operation of OASIS if we had to, without agreement by management. These protections and the desire of the controllers in Seattle to work on this system gave us the comfort level needed to go forward with an operational prototype at Seattle. Some in management don�t like the term prototype, but that is what the Seattle system is. Out there to prove that the system can be used operationally. Not well on some positions, and missing some key parts, but usable with workarounds and backups to cover the deficient areas. One of our key goals of this was to develop good information on problems in the system. Sure it can do the job in most areas, but it has impediments to efficiency in it that we can correct if we find them. Well, it�s hard to find much more than the glaring errors in a two-week test even by people fresh from the field. Seattle controllers using the OASIS system day in and day out were able to identify the more subtle issues that the standard testing overlooked. These were written up and forwarded to the human factors team. I could not put a number to it, but I am confident that the human factors team through its life has evaluated well over a thousand problems with the system. These range from obvious personal preferences to problems so significant they held up the program in the first place. 

The second part is what the failure on the EOA report meant. We knew that the IOT&E Team would find problems sufficient to label this system a failure. If they hadn�t it would have meant that the system WAS operationally suitable which could be interpreted to mean that full installation could begin (with some exceptions). Say hello to Model One all over again in that case. Instead the report identified critical problem areas. Areas that could be worked around on the prototype, but would have to be fixed in some cases before summer traffic increased at Seattle, much less before another system could be installed. I was surprised by the priority placed on some of the items, but not surprised by the items themselves. The EOA Report has been a valuable tool in making sure that we take care of the big issues first and not get too lost in the weeds with the smaller stuff to the detriment of critical problems. 

That is how the Seattle prototype can be a failure and a success at the same time. 

When an FAA procurement overruns either cost or schedule by more than fifty percent it is slated for automatic termination by law. The OASIS program overran both. The law says that this can only be disregarded if the FAA Administrator defends the program to the Congress. In mid-December Jane Garvey sent a letter to Congress defending the OASIS program, saving it from termination, so the program has been defended at the highest level. However, time and money have been set for this year�s budget. We are working to develop an MOU with the Agency that will allow the program to go forward and stay within that time and budget constraint, shifting some of the program activities out to later years. There is a lot involved in this MOU and we have not yet begun to work it with the Agency. To accommodate their goals we anticipate that we will benefit from this MOU. I will not speculate further on it other than to say that the NAATS members of the human factors team will have input into it. We had a rough start with that due to communications disconnects mainly on my part, but we are working on the framework by which the human factors team members will contribute to the development. Their OASIS expertise will be critical to addressing the operational aspects of the MOU. 

I will be at Harris corporation next week to observe testing of the software upgrade scheduled for Seattle in June. In addition to this new software overtime money has been provided, and two controllers from MMV will be TDY�d to SEA to work through the increased summertime traffic. Not an ideal situation for reducing the per controller workload through the summer, but it will hopefully work. We will watch this closely. 

Also there is a planned software upgrade for Seattle in September. Between these two upgrades the most critical areas identified in the EOA Report will have been addressed with the possible exception of a portion of the Search And Rescue function which is undergoing further redesign right now. Mixed in with this is continued enhancement of the weather graphics capabilities and improved functionality and performance of the system. 

I intend to have the OASIS on display by remote workstations at least twice this year. The system with the June software upgrade will be available at the Manager-FacRep Conference and GA Summit in June, and with the September software upgrade at the NAATS National Meeting in October. There are still some details to work out, so these are not yet set in concrete, but I am confident they will be resolved for both events. I want to get more exposure for the system, but I�m not sure how much money will be available to get it out there. 

I would like to thank the NAATS members who participated in the OASIS ICAO assessment in Seattle a couple weeks ago. Their input regarding OASIS ICAO functionality will be forwarded to the Human Factors Team for disposition. The NAATS members on the assessment were 

• Guylan Roberts � JNU AFSS
• Tom Forte � MIA AFSS
• Mike Salimbene � ISP AFSS
• Major Miller � SJU AFSS
• Dominic Cunningham � HNL AFSS

As I always seem to say, there are still plenty of issues to work. The Human Factors Team is going to remain very active for a while, and it is our intent that it remain in existence throughout the life cycle of OASIS so that there will be an established forum for addressing system issues. I thank the Human Factors Team and the controllers of Seattle AFSS for their hard work and dedication to reshaping OASIS into a tool that we can be proud of. As long as the Agency continues to support the work we are doing and continues to understand the dedication and seriousness with which we are doing it we have a good future with OASIS. 

Jeff Barnes 

NAATS National OASIS Representative

Walter W. Pike, President

This page was last updated on 20 April 2001