Military downsizing and budget reductions compel Department of Defense agencies to seek effective training interventions, which have great applicability at reduced costs. The Navy Advancement Center's Reusability Architecture is one such technology-based intervention. The architecture features a reengineering of the design and development processes associated with training products. Two very important principles, reusability and maintainability, become an integral part of the philosophy and processes used to develop these products. The use of databases and electronic performance support tools allow the warehousing of the lowest common knowledge structures (text or media) which may be manipulated by the training need or training requirement. This architecture is designed to provide increased efficiencies and could reduce much of the redundancy efforts in training materials production costs.

The first product, currently under development, is the Navy Engineering Training Series (NETS). It is a multifaceted, multi-media interactive training product. When completed, NETS will contain 18 books designed to present basic Navy occupational standards (OCCSTD) related engineering knowledge common to the mechanical engineering ratings. NETS will eliminate the redundancy of content presentation across ratings and will incorporate the information into a single product delivered primarily by CD-ROM with updates via the Internet. Results of the NETS prototype evaluation will be shared with the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) audience.