The most impressive military capability is of little use if the equipment that provides it is unavailable when needed. Although modern military equipment is becoming increasingly reliable, this is causing real problems in the maintenance training community as technicians are typically unable to maintain their skills via hands-on experience of diagnosing and fixing faults. When faults eventually do occur, technicians are unable to perform well, leading to prolonged equipment down-time and hence reduced readiness.

This paper presents the results of a detailed study which was carried out in HMS COLLINGWOOD, the Royal Navy's School of Communications and Weapon Engineering. The study compares the effectiveness of traditional laboratory-based training, a maintenance simulation and a state-of-the-art Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) at the micro level. The results indicate that, correctly employed, these approaches can dramatically shorten training time, increase the effectiveness of personnel at their place of work and provide a vehicle to make knowledge management a reality in the military context. The synergistic combination of simulation and EPSS therefore provides a very powerful toolkit to enable personnel to maintain equipment at a high state of readiness without the need for exhaustive training. The paper concludes by presenting a methodology for assessing the suitability of this approach to support the readiness of varying equipment types.