Authors:
Katie Mortimer
;
Cameron Pike
and
Vivian Nguyen
Affiliation:
Defence Science and Technology Group, 506 Lorimer St, Fishermans Bend, VIC, 3207, Australia
Keyword(s):
Simulation, Modelling, Workforce Planning, Workforce Transition, Defence.
Abstract:
Simulation plays a key role in the workforce planning of defence workforces, with their strictly hierachical nature, and complex interactions and interdependencies. In this paper, the Athena tool suite, containing Athena Lite and Athena Pro, is introduced. The Athena tool suite is the official workforce planning tool of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), and uses Discrete Event Simulation and hybrid Agent-Based Discrete Event Simulation to simulate the highly complex ADF workforce. These are web-based, scalable tools that have been specifically designed to be used by Defence workforce planners. Their use in the analysis of the Australian Army Aviation’s planned transition from the Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter to the Apache helicopter demonstrates their capability in identifying workforce shortfalls and risks, bottlenecks, and potential solutions through optimisation.