The paper presents highlights of a doctoral research addressed to model and solve the problem of preventive maintenance scheduling of fleets of vehicles. The problem is formulated and several Ant Colony based approaches were proposed and tested considering different instances of the maintenance scheduling problem, including applications related to the preventive maintenance of an aircraft fleet belonging to the Brazilian Air Force. The most successful approach has shown to be the one based on ACS with a specific local search procedure and inspired on the application of ACO to the timetabling problem. Details on the problem formulation, on the proposed approaches, and on the performed tests and applications are presented.
PurposeA framework is being developed to help Integrated Electronic Technical Publications (IETP) consultation inside and outside the aviation maintenance hangar. The expected results are the reduction in time to access the desired IETP and to assist mechanics while performing maintenance tasks using voice recognition.Design/methodology/approachThe work is being conducted based on literature review and consultation with mechanics from the aviation industry, through questionnaires. The development will be made through study cases by building a core search engine and mobile applications to support the mechanics during the maintenance activities.FindingsThe identified problem in small maintenance shops and defence organizations suggests that IETP are not entirely accessible before and during the maintenance activity. Such organizations suffer from information and communications technology (ICT) low infrastructure capability and demand access to multiple IETP databases as they usually support different aircraft. To have access to the IETP through voice assistant application will help mechanics to access the IETP, including when they would be with dirty hands and having difficulty in using mobile devices with touch displays.Originality/valueThe framework being developed will give mechanics the ability to quickly find any existing IETP to support its maintenance task at any time and in any place with low demanding for ICT infrastructure. The architecture will support different applications, and the identified priority is for IETP viewers to the most demanding functionality of specification ASD S1000D. This approach could also help in troubleshooting activities since COVID-19 brought new demands for the social distancing for mechanics.
PurposeThe objective of this work is to provide a novel aircraft allocation model for fractional business aviation. This model may provide decision-makers with alternative routing solutions that take into consideration preventive maintenance and failure prognostics information. The expected results are more efficient routing solutions when compared to conventional planning models, to help decision-makers improve operations and maintenance planning.Design/methodology/approachThe model is a mixed integer linear problem formulation addressing and considering preventive maintenance and failure prognostics for optimal operations. Numerical experiments were performed using both field and synthetic data to validate the proposed method. All instances are solved using branch, price and cut algorithms from open-source software.FindingsThe results obtained in this study show that the use of failure prognostics information in aircraft routing can provide improvements in overall planning. By choosing slightly longer flight legs, the flight cost will increase, but putting an aircraft with a higher risk of failure on a leg inbound to a maintenance base can reduce maintenance and overall operating cost.Originality/valueThe model and method provide decision-makers with routing solutions that consider new aspects of planning, not used in previous works, such as failure. Most of the literature focuses on solving routing problems for large commercial airlines. Considering that, few solutions are found in literature for fractional business operators, which have their own operational particularities, such as a company managing a fleet of aircraft belonging to multiple shareowners. In such operation, clients may not always fly in the aircraft that they are shareowners, but an aircraft from the fractional fleet of the same category. Here, the company managing the aircraft guarantees that an aircraft will be ready to attend client demands in minimum time. One of the major differences from other models of operation is the dynamic nature of its flight demands, thus requiring flexible and agile planning limiting the available time to find a routing solution.
The demand for increased efficiency of production processes, while maintaining quality and safety in the operating environment, are permanent requirements of industrial revolutions. In the information age, data acquisition and its use to affect business strategies are being carried out by sensing production lines, tracking processes, and the product itself throughout its life cycle. Industry 4.0 requires an organizational transformation in terms of culture, process, and technology for the organization to be able to harness the potential of information. This chapter seeks to establish the difficulties and challenges of organizational transformation from the analysis of an aviation MRO company in light of integrated logistics support (ILS). The discussion will lead to the points to be taken into account from all elements of the ILS that will produce a roadmap for decision-makers to follow.
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