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The purpose of this paper is to provide some heuristic and meta heuristic tools to aid airline companies in flight planning while taking into account maintenance planning. The objective is to maximize aircraft utilization before the maintenance interventions and to smooth the long‐term flight load of the aircraft so that maintenance checks are regular for all the fleet.

The proposed methods, based on operational research solution technics, build a flight planning for an airline company. The simulation of the proposed methods is observed over 40 weeks and evaluated with different problem instances and maintenance policies.

The longest path based method with increasing priority and the simulated annealing are shown to have the best aircraft utilization results.

Further research could propose some methods which build simultaneous maintenance and flight planning.

The economic value and legal considerations of maintenance activities in the airline industry show the importance of maximizing aircraft utilization. The proposed methods are compared to decide the best maintenance policy. These methods are simple and efficient.

This paper provides a connection between an industrial problem of aircraft maximization under maintenance constraints and operational research. Simple but efficient methods are evaluated in terms of two criteria: aircraft maximization and flight load smoothing.

This paper aims to build a novel model and approach that assist an aircraft MRO procurement and overhaul management problems from the perspective of aircraft maintenance service provider, in order to ensure its smoothness maintenance activities implementation. The mathematical model utilizes the data related to warehouse inventory management, incoming customer service planning as well as risk forecast and control management at the decision-making stage, which facilitates to alleviate the negative impact of the uncertain maintenance demands on the MRO spare parts inventory management operations.

A stochastic model is proposed to formulate the problem to minimize the impact of uncertain maintenance demands, which provides flexible procurement and overhaul strategies. A Benders decomposition algorithm is proposed to solve large-scale problem instances given the structure of the mathematical model.

Compared with the default branch-and-bound algorithm, the computational results suggest that the proposed Benders decomposition algorithm increases convergence speed.

The results among the same group of problem instances suggest the robustness of Benders decomposition in tackling instances with different number of stochastic scenarios involved.

Extending the proposed model and algorithm to a decision support system is possible, which utilizes the databases from enterprise's service planning and management information systems.

A novel decision-making model for the integrated rotable and expendable MRO spare parts planning problem under uncertain environment is developed, which is formulated as a two-stage stochastic programming model.

This study aims to bring a new approach to the existing structure of Cessna 172 type Aircraft Maintenance Manuals (AMM), operational safety, suitability for maintenance operations and human factors. The purpose of this study is to maintain maintenance operations more safely and effectively.

This study tried to develop an approach by using focus group interview and individual interview techniques. At all stages of the study, interviews were made and support was received from the maintenance technicians, technical instructors and students from the aviation industry stakeholders.

According to the answers given by the participants, the new approach could have a positive effect on operational safety (98.71%), could have a positive effect on human performance (95.72%) it is understandable (93.16%), it is proper for maintenance operations (88.74%) with high potential to convert into practice (85.92%) and a high potential for future applications (97.06%).

It can be used in aviation organizations that operate AMM Cessna 172 type aircraft, created with the new approach, in maintenance aircraft maintenance enterprises and maintenance training institutions. Thanks to this approach, aircraft maintenance technicians will be able to perform safely and more effective maintenance activities.

Contrary to the technologies used by organizations that host wide-body aircraft in their fleets, it requires less cost and less workload to create, use and update. Low-cost airline organizations and maintenance training institutions will also be able to achieve this approach.

This paper aims to exemplify the use of project management tools in the scheduling of aircraft maintenance activities. This process is known as maintenance, repair and overhaul and it has gained importance within the aeronautical sector due to its expected growth in the coming years; however, it also faces increasing competitiveness in its market. This fact gives rise to the need of acting in maintenance management and seeking lower costs while maintaining the quality of the service provided. The purpose of this paper is to propose the structuring of a procedure that aims to reduce the total maintenance time (downtime) and guarantee the delivery of the aircraft on time.

The paper, through a case study at a Brazilian aircraft maintenance center, used critical path method and critical chain project management, the latter being derived from the theory of constraints, with the purpose of analyzing resources systematically and synchronizing the activities in the precedence network.

As a result, it is shown that downtime can be reduced from 11 to 5 days and improvements are proposed to achieve greater market competitiveness.

This paper demonstrates the competitive advantage that resulted from the application of project management tools in the aircraft maintenance planning and execution.

The purpose of this paper is to show the current state of methods for information visualization on wearable devices and demonstrate how these devices and methods can be used to support the work of aircraft maintenance engineers. This paper develops a path to make aircraft maintenance tasks more efficient and safe by providing relevant and important information to maintenance personnel matching the task they are currently working on.

The current researchers elaborate prerequisites that wearable computing devices have to meet to use them in aircraft maintenance. Based on these prerequisites the researchers evaluate such existing devices and visualization techniques with regard to how they can be used to visualize information in aircraft maintenance processes.

This paper elaborates a roadmap how wearable devices can be applied in future aircraft maintenance scenarios. It also shows that augmented reality (AR) is a technology that shows great potential to support aircraft maintenance staff. The current researchers develop a scenario, how AR applications on wearable devices support such tasks.

The implementation of the maintenance scenario that is developed in this paper will vastly reduce the possibilities of mistakes by maintenance personnel. This leads to more efficient maintenance processes and further increases the safety of aviation in general.

Although AR today already is used in fields of application like gaming, an application of this technology in a safety-critical environment is not known to the author. This paper provides a step towards extending the application domains of this technology to aircraft maintenance.

The purpose of this paper is to present the prerequisites for a part-out-based spares provisioning (PBSP) programme during the phase-out of an aircraft fleet. Furthermore, associated key decision criteria are identified and a framework for the phase-out management process is presented.

Once a decision has been taken to phase-out an aircraft fleet, a number of routines for operations, maintenance and storage are affected and new tasks and functions must be introduced before initiating the actual parting-out process. A decision-making system and a management framework is needed to manage spares planning during the end-of-life phase to ensure availability at minimum cost and to ensure a manageable risk of backorders.

For PBSP programme during the phase-out of an aircraft fleet to succeed and be cost-effective, a number of linked processes, tasks and decisions are required, e.g., those included in the framework proposed in this paper (see Figure 3). A successful implementation of PBSP also requires that these processes and tasks are carried out in a timely manner and that the communications between the concerned parties are prompt, clear and direct. One experience from the studied case is that close and trustful contacts and cooperation between the operator and maintenance provider(s) will greatly facilitate the process.

Although the PBSP method is fairly commonly applied within both the military and the civilian sector, somewhat surprisingly very literature has been published on the subject. Indeed, remarkably little has been published on any aspects of maintenance during the end-of-life period.

Aircraft maintenance down times together with maintenance activity durations and associated man‐hour expenditure are extremely important factors contributing to two major yardsticks of airline and civil aircraft performance: despatch reliability and direct maintenance costs, and have important cost implications. In maintaining an aircraft there is a need to predict fault diagnosis activities in quantitative terms of time. Traditionally estimating maintenance, in particular fault diagnosis, in terms of time has received scant attention. This paper identifies the need to evaluate all maintenance activity times. In addition, an approach is offered to estimate fault diagnosis activity times using knowledge‐based systems. Finally, the paper offers a vision outline in applying the technology and techniques to provide cost‐effective and timely fault diagnosis.

General aviation aircraft has a wide range of applications, and effective cost management is one of the hot spots in the research of general aviation manufacturers. The purpose of this paper is to build a flexible engineering method to predict maintenance cost of general aviation aircraft.

To establish a reasonable general aviation aircraft maintenance cost prediction model, it is necessary to analyze the influencing factors and extract the main components of maintenance cost. The maintenance cost is divided by engineering method, and the estimation model of each component cost is established. Then, the general aviation aircraft maintenance cost model is obtained. The results show that the relative error of this method is between 13% and 20%, which has a good estimation accuracy and can be effectively used to estimate the maintenance cost of general aviation aircraft.

The maintenance cost plays an important role in the life cycle cost of general aviation aircraft. Accurate cost prediction method is of great significance to the optimal design of general aviation aircraft. However, there are few prediction models suitable for maintenance cost, the proposed approach is meaningful and quite desirable.

To some extent, this method overcomes the shortage of the work on maintenance cost prediction for general aviation aircraft. The model established in this paper has certain generality, which can provide some reference for general aviation aircraft design and operation enterprises.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze parameters that influence direct maintenance cost (DMC) in the civil aircraft operational phase. Reducing direct maintenance cost of civil aircrafts is one of the important ways to improve economy. DMC prediction can provide decision support for the optimization of the design parameters optimization to realize the objection in decreasing the maintenance cost, and it can also improve the aircraft competitiveness.

The paper analyzes some parameters comprehensively, which influence DMC in the civil aircraft’s operational phase. Based on the analysis of the influential parameters and the characteristics of data in the period of civil aircraft’s designing period, the paper presents prediction support method based on fuzzy support vector machine (FSVM) and realizes quantitative forecast of DMC in the aircraft design phase.

The paper presents the process of DMC analysis and model in the aircraft design phase, the DMC prediction model is used in newly developed aircrafts.

The numerical examples using B737NP fleet data in the paper have proved the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The paper establishes the prediction model of civil aircraft DMC based on FSVM. The model can handle fuzzy data and small sample data which contain noise. The results prove that the method can satisfy the demand of the real data in civil aircraft designing.

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review on human factors in aircraft maintenance and to analyze and synthesize the findings in the literature on human factors engineering in aircraft maintenance.

The review adopts a threefold approach: searching and collecting the scientific literature; sorting them on the basis of relevance and applications; and review of the scientific evidences. Broad areas of aircraft maintenance regulations are identified and each area was explored to study the level of scientific growth and publications. Notable theories, models and concepts are being summarized.

Application of human factor principles in aviation spread beyond the technical arena of man-machine interface. The discipline has created a great impact on aircraft design, operations and maintenance. Its applications have percolated into design of aircraft maintenance facilities, task cards and equipment. Human factor concepts are being used for maintenance resource management. The principles are applied to shape the safety behavior and culture in aviation maintenance workplace. Nevertheless, the review unfolds immense potential for future research.

Research outcomes of non-aviation studies are also reviewed and consolidated to extend the applications to the aviation industry.

This review would be a consolidated source of information confining to the physical aspect of human factors engineering in aircraft maintenance. It is intended to serve as a quick reference guide to the researchers and maintenance practitioners.

It brought out the benefits of adopting the principles of human factor engineering in aircraft maintenance. Application of human factor philosophy ensures enhanced safety in air transport, personal safety and well-being of maintenance personnel.

This is a unique review based on aircraft maintenance regulations that are baseline performance standards made mandatory by regulatory authorities. Therefore, the review has been considered to be made on aircraft maintenance regulatory requirements that surpass corporate or competitive strategies in aviation maintenance organization.