Equipments support footprint forecast model based on support activity flow

In order to resolve the problems encountered in the process of forecasting the equipments support footprint during the design and development phase, including the difficulty to collect the input data of the forecast models and their imprecise and unauthentic output results, an equipments support footprint forecast model was established based on support activity flow described by functional flow diagrams, which used the data of support system modeling and the results of the equipment-s supportability analysis as input. A bottom-up approach to sum the total quantity of the resources demanded by the support activities with logic relations in the same level of the functional flow diagrams was presented, which considered the characteristics of support resources being consumed or occupied in equipment-s operational and maintenance activities. The equipments support footprint was calculated on the basis of the weight and volume of the support resources and their number allocated in the support site which was calculated by the former approach. The proposed model was demonstrated via a practical case of aircraft, which proved that the model and analysis mythology is effective theory for equipment deployment analysis.