Concept Engineering

Turning concepts into capabilities for a safer and more efficient NAS

Since its inception in 1995, the core business of Metron Aviation has been conceiving, designing and developing new concepts and capabilities to make the National Airspace System (NAS) operations safer, more efficient, predictable, equitable and flexible. For well over a decade, Metron Aviation has successfully transitioned dozens of significant new ideas off the chalkboard and into operational use.

In the process, Metron Aviation has developed a systematic approach to moving an idea through successive stages of maturity called Concept Engineering (CE). The CE process has been specifically tailored to meet the particular challenges of fielding new capabilities in aviation.

The CE process draws on all of Metron Aviation’s core strengths: operational experience, advanced research activities, specially developed research infrastructure,  an extensive warehouse of archived operational data, scientific and mathematical expertise, and involvement in designing and developing the FAA’s decision support tools. The FAA traffic managers and flight operators have always been a part of the CE process, to ensure development of the right solution for the right problem, so Metron Aviation can always provide solutions that will meet the needs of all parts of the aviation community.

The proof of the effectiveness of the CE approach is the rich stream of operational improvements that it has moved across the challenging barrier between the theoretical and the operational world. These achievements began with the original Flight Schedule Monitor (FSM) and continue through to newly deployed capabilities like Integrated Program Modeling and concepts soon to be operational, such as System Enhancements for Versatile Electronic Negotiation (SEVEN).

The CE process accelerates the deployment of operationally-tested capabilities through an engineering process designed and optimized for maturing new aviation concepts.