NextGen Implementation Plan
Program Reference Sheet for SWIM
System Wide Information Management (SWIM)
FAA Strategic Goal: Organization Excellence - Improve financial management while delivering quality customer service.
The FAA has identified SWIM as a “Transformational” program for Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen).
Description of Problem:
Today’s hard-wired infrastructure and systems cannot readily support the addition of new data, systems, data users, and decision makers as NextGen requires. In general, they are connected directly to support yesterday’s decision making needs. Each of these interfaces is custom designed, developed, managed, and maintained individually at a significant cost to FAA. NextGen relies upon a new decision construct that brings more data, systems, customers, and service providers into the process. Today’s point-to-point architecture does not support these goals. This situation represents a performance gap that must be bridged for NextGen to be successful.
Description of Solution:
The SWIM Program is an integral part of the National Airspace System (NAS) Enterprise Architecture roadmap and will close the performance gap by promoting the development of a secure NAS-wide information web to connect FAA systems. SWIM will provide policies and standards to support data management, along with the mechanisms (i.e., commercial software) for the core services needed to publish data to the network, retrieve it, secure its integrity, and control its access and use. SWIM will leverage existing systems and networks to the extent practicable, and be based on technologies that have been proven in both operational and demonstration environments to reduce cost and risk. SWIM will be developed incrementally based upon the needs of various data communities, maturity of concepts of use, and segments that are sized to fit reasonable cost, schedule, and risk thresholds.
Specifically, the current FAA system architecture is overly expensive, needed modifications are extremely costly and time consuming, and does not provide network-enabled operational capabilities needed to meet future capacity demands are not feasible. SWIM represents the steps that FAA is taking to reduce costs while providing better service to:
- Move systems off point-to-point interfaces and onto Internet Protocols;
- Change system interfaces to support network messaging, reducing the cost of testing and maintaining each individual interface (currently a major cost driver and resource load for NAS systems);
- Provide the flexibility to provide the information to new systems and locations without adding custom interfaces. This will significantly reduce the marginal cost of adding new system interfaces; and
- Provide common interfaces that facilitate spontaneously adding new users and applications, for purposes of continuity of operations.
In July 2006, the initial investment decision was approved, and a final investment decision for the first operational segment is slated for FY 2007.
For FY 2009, $42,690,000 is requested for the development of Segment 1. Efforts in FY 2009 include design and development of initial Segment 1 capabilities, preparing for a Joint Resources Council (JRC) to baseline FY 2010-2013 funding, and conducting systems engineering analysis and investment analysis for Segment 2. For FY 2009, SWIM will:
- Select SWIM Segment 1 core services;
- Procure the SWIM Service Oriented Architecture software that will be provided to the implementing programs;
- Code and test of initial Segment 1 capabilities;
- Prepare for JRC to baseline FY 2011-2013 funding; and
- Conduct analyses and prepare documentation for Final Investment Decision (JRC 2b) for Segment 2.
Benefits:
SWIM is vital to the achievement of National, DOT, and FAA strategic plans and the future evolution of air transportation management in the nation. The current FAA systems and operations cannot support this vision as they are not network-enabled, and are characterized by rigidly configured systems (communications lines, computers, and software applications). SWIM contributes to meeting the following NextGen objectives:
a. Expand System Capacity - The projected increase of demand on the air traffic system exceeds current or projected growth in FAA resources. Information management is a key to providing increased capacity and efficiency in the NAS. SWIM will enable information to be readily shared and used by all NAS participants. With more widespread use of better data, SWIM will improve strategic planning and trajectory management to allow better use of existing capacity en route.
b. Increase Predictability - SWIM will improve coordination to allow transition from tactical conflict management to strategic trajectory-based operations. SWIM will also provide the potential to increase machine to machine interchange supporting and disseminating decisions rather than the current man to man interactions. SWIM increases the likelihood that similar decisions will be consistent by enabling them to be based on the same data.
c. Reduce Costs for Aviation - SWIM will help to reduce infrastructure costs by reducing the number and types of interfaces, systems, and potentially, facilities. Initially, SWIM will provide a common network capability, reducing operation and maintenance costs of the hundreds of current interfaces. New systems will interface with SWIM, saving future development costs. Ultimately, redundant sources of data will no longer be needed and can be decommissioned.
d. Shared Situational Awareness - SWIM will help to provide shared situational awareness so that all appropriate parties are privy to the same complete set of information.
e. Collaborative Decision Making - SWIM will help to enable collaborative decision-making which means that once all parties have access to the same information, they can efficiently make real-time decisions and quickly reach agreements.
SWIM will also provide benefit to the FAA resulting from new SWIM AIM functionality resulting in a reduction of staff time through automated processes.
NAS users will realize the benefits from the Weather Community of Interest’s new capabilities, in which weather data are published to Airline Operating Centers (AOCs) as well as to the National Weather Service. Data will also be provided to airlines to improve efficiency in planning airport departures and arrivals, based on changes in runway visibility.
