Mixed integer least squares optimization for flight and maintenance planning of mission aircraft

Abstract

We address the problem of generating a joint flight and maintenance plan for a unit of mission aircraft. The objective is to establish a balanced allocation of the flight load and the maintenance capacity to the individual aircraft of the unit, so that its long‐term availability is kept at a high and steady level. We propose a mixed integer nonlinear model to formulate the problem, the objective function of which minimizes a least squares index expressing the total deviation of the individual aircraft flight and maintenance times from their corresponding target values. Using the model's special structure and properties, we develop an exact search algorithm for its solution. We analyze the computational complexity of this algorithm, and we present computational results comparing its performance against that of a commercial optimization package. Besides demonstrating the superiority of the proposed algorithm, these results reveal that the total computational effort required for the solution of the problem depends mainly on two crucial parameters: the size of the unit (i.e., the number of aircraft that comprise it) and the space capacity of the maintenance station. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012

Optimal policies for aircraft fleet management in the presence of unscheduled maintenance

“…The 'goal line' is a visual planning aid that tracks and sorts individual aircraft and their flying hours remaining until their next phased service, to enable a steady flow of aircraft into maintenance. This has been extended (e.g., Kozanidis et al, 2012) by seeking to generate flying and maintenance plans over multiple time horizons (here, a monthly plan for six months) while maximizing aircraft availability (i.e., the total fleet hours remaining until phased maintenance). These authors (Gavranis and Kozanidis, 2015) then exploited the limited number of aircraft combinations that can begin and end phased maintenance to develop an exact solution to this problem.…”

Scheduling a Dynamic Aircraft Repair Shop with Limited Repair Resources

“…Similar to the maintenance scheduling literature, mathematical programming is the common approach to solve the problems of this literature. Kozanidis, Gavranis, and Kostarelou (2012) recently proposed a mixed integer non-linear programming model to optimize the joint flight and maintenance plan of mission aircraft. Safaei et al (2010) modeled the static problem addressed here as an operational level maintenance scheduling problem using MIP.…”

“…We need to decide when each failed aircraft should be repaired to guarantee the availability of aircraft at high and steady level. However, high frequency of unexpected failures in military aircraft (Safaei, Banjevic, & Jardine, 2011) and limited repair resources such as workforce, tools, and space (Kozanidis, Gavranis, & Kostarelou, 2012) constrain consistent aircraft availability.…”

Use of Cost-Adjusted Importance Measures for Aircraft System Maintenance Optimization

“…Existing approaches to aircraft maintenance planning and scheduling are limited in their capacity to deal with contingencies arising out of tasks carried out during the implementation of maintenance projects [1]. At the aircraft system level, recent methods have been proposed [2][3][4] that aim to optimize the outcome of an aircraft maintenance plan with respect to various aircraft operational requirements. These studies are based on deterministic mathematical models describing flight and maintenance procedures, without taking into account failures and corrective maintenance requirements.…”