FAA’s roughly 6,100 technicians are part of the agency’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) and are located organizationally within ATO’s Technical Operations Services. (See app. II for ATO’s organization.) Physically, the technicians are located throughout the country at approximately 600 air traffic control facilities, which they are responsible for maintaining, repairing, and certifying, together with the systems and equipment the facilities contain. Currently, FAA operates nearly 60,000 pieces of legacy equipment and has begun to deploy NextGen equipment. Technicians maintain the equipment, certify that it is working properly by conducting periodic performance checks, and repair malfunctioning equipment and return it to service. They conduct maintenance under various approaches depending on the equipment. Those approaches include (1) periodic maintenance (which includes periodic equipment inspections, performance checks, and routine maintenance), (2) condition- based maintenance (which includes proactive maintenance tasks to predict or prevent equipment failures), and (3) run-to-fault maintenance (which means maintenance is performed after the equipment stops functioning—an approach that, according to FAA, is normally applied when other types of maintenance actions will not reduce the probability of failure or extend the lifetime of the equipment). Since 2007, FAA has used reliability-centered maintenance to determine the most appropriate approach and timing for conducting maintenance activities for each type of equipment. Reliability-centered maintenance requires that data on the function and performance of specific equipment be collected and analyzed, including data on the causes and consequences of failure, in order to determine the maintenance approach needed to keep the equipment functioning effectively and prevent future failures. For example, performance data can be analyzed to determine whether a particular component wears out with age or fails randomly; this information is then used to decide the maintenance approach most appropriate for that item. (Fig. 1 shows a technician upgrading lighting on an approach lighting system.) As mentioned previously, FAA’s technicians are responsible for minimizing the frequency, duration, and impact of equipment outages. Over the last 10 years, the frequency and duration of unscheduled outages has generally increased. (See figs. 2 and 3.) Age and the resulting deteriorating condition of equipment and facilities are contributing to the increase in outages and repair time. According to a senior FAA official, the number of outages decreased around 2008 because of changes in reporting practices. FAA is still determining technician responsibilities and maintenance requirements under NextGen. A senior FAA official noted that the agency plans to look at near-term system deployments and new system requirements to see what maintenance requirements are planned for new systems in the short term. The initial systems critical to implementing NextGen—En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) and Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B)—are currently being deployed, and FAA expects that several other systems will come online over the next several years. (See table 1 for FAA’s schedule for deploying NextGen systems.) Initially, FAA planned to decommission legacy equipment as it deployed related NextGen equipment, but it has since decided to retain much of the legacy equipment, according to a senior ATO manager. As a result, the technicians’ workload will increase in the near term. Over the last 11 years, staffing levels for technicians reached a high of 6,721 in fiscal year 2001 and, with some fluctuation, dropped to a low of 6,086 at the end of fiscal year 2008—a decline of about 9 percent. At the end of fiscal year 2009, the number of technicians increased to 6,147, slightly more than the minimum staffing level established in FAA’s contract with PASS. (See table 2.) Over the same period, the number of pieces of equipment increased from 40,360 in 1999 to 63,846 in 2009, while the number of air traffic control facilities decreased from 651 in 1999 to 581 in 2009. The number of technicians declined slightly during fiscal years 2006 through 2008 because separations exceeded hiring, as shown in table 3. During the past 11 years, the number of technician separations—primarily because of retirements—has averaged about 280 per year. The number peaked at 366 separations in fiscal year 2006 and then decreased to 211 separations in fiscal year 2009—a decline of 42 percent. (See table 4.) The number of technicians eligible to retire each year over this period has ranged from about 800 to about 1,000. In 2005 and 2006, the largest numbers of technicians retired—about one-third of those eligible each year. (See table 5.) The relatively low number of technicians retiring in 2009 may be due to the downturn in the economy. ATO’s Technical Operations Training and Development Group (Technical Operations Training) is responsible for training technicians. (See app. II for ATO’s organizational chart.) Through the Technical Operations Training and Personnel Certification Program, FAA grants certification to technicians who have obtained a professional level and are responsible for the operation and performance of air traffic control facilities and equipment. The certification program consists of five types of training: (1) resident training taught in a classroom environment by an instructor; (2) distance learning, such as correspondence study or computer-based instruction; (3) refresher training, which can be provided through resident or distance learning courses, for technicians who hold a certification; (4) on-the-job training (OJT), providing direct experience in the work environment where the employee is required to perform his or her duties; and (5) enhanced hands-on training (EHOT) and demonstration of proficiency (DoP) training. To obtain certification, technicians must satisfactorily complete their training—including theory-of-operations training, OJT in the workplace, or EHOT and DoP—at the training location or pass a performance examination in the workplace. Technicians must also receive an endorsement, first by a manager and then by a second-level manager, that the preceding actions have been properly completed. At the beginning of the year, Technical Operations Training works with FAA’s human resource personnel to obtain an estimate of new hires’ training needs. Technicians are earmarked for a piece of equipment at a particular facility when they are hired; over the course of their careers, they may be trained on many pieces of equipment. All new hires must get one equipment course in their first year, and that training is targeted to the needs of the facility to which they are assigned. Technicians need to pass two types of equipment courses to reach the full-performance level. New hires are at their facility for 30 days for familiarization and then go to the FAA Academy for theory-of-operations training and one equipment course. Afterwards, the technician’s manager determines the additional equipment on which the technician needs training. Training to work on legacy equipment is provided at the academy, where technicians reside during the training. When FAA acquires new air traffic control equipment, it follows an established process for training technicians. Vendor courses are the primary source of training for NextGen systems coming into the FAA inventory. Figure 4 shows how FAA plans and funds technician training. FAA’s workforce planning for technicians partially or mostly incorporates key practices of leading organizations, but no practices are fully incorporated, and FAA has no comprehensive, written strategy to guide its efforts. To the extent that the agency does not incorporate leading practices, it may be limited in its ability to plan effectively for the right number of technicians with the right skill sets, both now and in the near term. Table 6 presents our analysis of the extent to which FAA has incorporated key practices of leading organizations in its workforce planning. FAA is partially following a leading practice for workforce planning in the area of determining current and future critical skills and competencies. (See table 7.) To establish and maintain an inventory of employee skills and competencies, FAA assesses technicians’ skills and competencies at hiring and then biennially. Newly hired and on-board technicians complete competency-based technical training on legacy systems and equipment to establish a baseline level of technical proficiency on these systems and equipment. Additionally, since August 2007, FAA has assessed its technicians’ proficiency every 2 years as part of an Aviation Safety Oversight Credentialing Program to ensure that their skills are current and they remain competent to perform work on the equipment. FAA’s initial and biennial skills assessments evaluate technicians’ readiness to meet the agency’s current maintenance needs, but FAA has not determined whether its technician workforce has the skills and competencies needed to achieve future programmatic results. Such a determination will be critical as the transformation to NextGen proceeds and the agency faces organizational as well as technological changes. FAA’s strategic plan for NextGen—the NextGen Implementation Plan— describes the technology changes planned through 2018 but does not mention workforce planning—including planning for critical skills and competencies—for technicians. FAA officials stated that the agency has started to determine its maintenance requirements for NextGen equipment. This determination will affect the skills and competencies that technicians will need under NextGen. As part of this effort, FAA’s NextGen Integration and Implementation Office is establishing a workgroup with members representing relevant FAA divisions and technician subject matter experts. According to FAA officials, this workgroup will look at changes in FAA’s maintenance philosophy and NextGen equipment acquisitions and needs, both leading up to and during implementation. The officials said FAA will consider these factors as it develops NextGen planning documents that outline, among other things, changes needed in the technician workforce, including changes in skills, competencies, and training. In addition, Technical Operations Training officials have dedicated a staff member to compile technician job descriptions, tasks, and training courses. According to the officials, FAA will use this information to develop a skills and competency model for training purposes (modeling efforts are discussed later in this report). FAA’s workforce planning efforts partially address leading practices in developing strategies to close the gap between needed and actual skills and competencies.