Search results
1 – 10 of 167According to regulations, aircraft must be in an airworthy condition before they can be operated. To ensure airworthiness, they must be maintained by an approved component…
Abstract
Purpose
According to regulations, aircraft must be in an airworthy condition before they can be operated. To ensure airworthiness, they must be maintained by an approved component maintenance organisation. This study is aimed to identify potential errors that may arise during the final inspection and certification process of aircraft components, categorise them, determine their consequences and quantify the associated risks. Any removed aircraft components must be sent to an approved aircraft component maintenance organisation for further maintenance and issuance of European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Form 1. Thereafter, a final inspection and certification process must be conducted by certifying staff to receive an EASA Form 1. This process is crucial because any errors during this stage can result in the installation of unsafe components in an aircraft.
Design/methodology/approach
The Systematic Human Error Reduction and Prediction Approach (SHERPA) method was used to identify potential errors. This method involved a review of the procedures of three maintenance organisations, individual interviews with ten subject matter experts and a consensus group of 14 certifying staff from different maintenance organisations to achieve the desired results.
Findings
In this study, 39 potential errors were identified during the final inspection and certification process. Furthermore, analysis revealed that 48.7% of these issues were attributed to checking errors, making it the most common type of error observed.
Originality/value
This study pinpoints the potential errors in the final inspection and certification of aircraft components. It offers maintenance organisations a roadmap to assess procedures, implement preventive measures and reduce the likelihood of these errors.
Details
Keywords
Guihang Liu, Runxia Guo and Jiusheng Chen
Maintenance stands are the most valuable maintenance resources and provide the necessary maintenance space and maintenance facilities for aircraft maintenance. To expand the…
Abstract
Purpose
Maintenance stands are the most valuable maintenance resources and provide the necessary maintenance space and maintenance facilities for aircraft maintenance. To expand the maintenance market, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) urgently need to achieve a reasonable schedule between aircraft maintenance requirements and maintenance stand capability to improve aircraft maintenance continuity and reduce the risk of scratching due to aircraft movement. This study aims to design a maintenance stand scheduling (MSS) model based on spatiotemporal constraints to solve the problem of maintenance stand schedules.
Design/methodology/approach
To address the problem of maintenance stand schedules, this study introduces mixed-integer programming algorithm to design the MSS model on the basis of classical hybrid flow shop structure. When designing the optimization objective function of MSS modeling, the spatiotemporal constraints are mainly considered. Specifically, first, the spatial constraints between maintenance stands are fully considered so that more aircraft can be parked in the workshop. Second, the optimization objective is designed to minimize the number of aircraft movements by defining multiple maintenance capabilities of the stand. Finally, a solution based on spatiotemporal constraints is proposed in the solving process.
Findings
A set of MRO production data from Guangzhou is used as a test data set to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MSS model.
Originality/value
The types of maintenance stands are defined and divided into four categories: fixed stand, temporary stand, half-body stand and engine ground test stand, which facilitates optimal modeling; a new scheduling model is designed considering both temporal constraints and spatial constraints, which can improve both the utilization of maintenance stand and safety (reduce the risk of scratching between aircraft).
Details
Keywords
Hiwa Esmaeilzadeh, Alireza Rashidi Komijan, Hamed Kazemipoor, Mohammad Fallah and Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam
The proposed model aims to consider the flying hours as a criterion to initiate maintenance operation. Based on this condition, aircraft must be checked before flying hours…
Abstract
Purpose
The proposed model aims to consider the flying hours as a criterion to initiate maintenance operation. Based on this condition, aircraft must be checked before flying hours threshold is met. After receiving maintenance service, the model ignores previous flying hours and the aircraft can keep on flying until the threshold value is reached again. Moreover, the model considers aircraft age and efficiency to assign them to flights.
Design/methodology/approach
The aircraft maintenance routing problem (AMRP), as one of the most important problems in the aviation industry, determines the optimal route for each aircraft along with meeting maintenance requirements. This paper presents a bi-objective mixed-integer programming model for AMRP in which several criteria such as aircraft efficiency and ferrying flights are considered.
Findings
As the solution approaches, epsilon-constraint method and a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), including a new initializing algorithm, are used. To verify the efficiency of NSGA-II, 31 test problems in different scales are solved using NSGA-II and GAMS. The results show that the optimality gap in NSGA-II is less than 0.06%. Finally, the model was solved based on real data of American Eagle Airlines extracted from Kaggle datasets.
Originality/value
The authors confirm that it is an original paper, has not been published elsewhere and is not currently under consideration of any other journal.
Details
Keywords
Tahmineh Raoofi and Sahin Yasar
This study aims to elaborate on the existing link between maintenance practices and the digital world while also highlighting any unaddressed potential for digital transformation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to elaborate on the existing link between maintenance practices and the digital world while also highlighting any unaddressed potential for digital transformation in aircraft maintenance. Additionally, explore how digital technologies contribute to optimizing efficiency within the continuing airworthiness management (CAM) processes.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was performed to provide a precise review of the authority regulations on CAM processes and existing literature on digital transformation, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural network and big data in civil aircraft maintenance and continuing airworthiness processes. This method is used to organize, analyze and structure the body of literature to identify research gaps in the selected scope of the study.
Findings
The high position of digital technologies in preventive and predictive maintenance and the need for legislative development for using them in CAM are emphasized. Moreover, it is shown in which area of CAM scientific research has been performed regarding the application of frontier digital technologies. In addition, the gaps between maintenance practices and the digital world, along with the potential scopes of digital transformation which has not been well addressed, are identified. And finally, how digital technologies can effectively increase efficiency in CAM processes is discussed.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, no study comprehensively determined the body of existing knowledge on the aspects of digitalization related to the field of continuing airworthiness management and aircraft maintenance. The results of this study provide a positive contribution to airlines, policymakers, manufacturers and maintenance organizations achieving additional benefits from the implementation of digital technologies in the CAM processes.
Details
Keywords
José Nogueira da Mata Filho, Antonio Celio Pereira de Mesquita, Fernando Teixeira Mendes Abrahão and Guilherme C. Rocha
This paper aims to explore the optimization process involved in the aircraft maintenance allocation and packing problem. The aircraft industry misses a part of the optimization…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the optimization process involved in the aircraft maintenance allocation and packing problem. The aircraft industry misses a part of the optimization potential while developing maintenance plans. This research provides the modeling foundation for the missing part considering the failure behavior of components, costs involved with all maintenance tasks and opportunity costs.
Design/methodology/approach
The study models the cost-effectiveness of support against the availability to come up with an optimization problem. The mathematical problem was solved with an exact algorithm. Experiments were performed with real field and synthetically generated data, to validate the correctness of the model and its potential to provide more accurate and better engineered maintenance plans.
Findings
The solution procedure provided excellent results by enhancing the overall arrangement of the tasks, resulting in higher availability rates and a substantial decrease in total maintenance costs. In terms of situational awareness, it provides the user with the flexibility to better manage resource constraints while still achieving optimal results.
Originality/value
This is an innovative research providing a state-of-the-art mathematical model and an algorithm for efficiently solving a task allocation and packing problem by incorporating components’ due flight time, failure probability, task relationships, smart allocation of common preparation tasks, operational profile and resource limitations.
Details
Keywords
Mahendra Gooroochurn and Riaan Stopforth
Industry 4.0 has been identified as a key cornerstone to modernise economies where man and machines complement each other seamlessly to achieve synergies in decision-making and…
Abstract
Industry 4.0 has been identified as a key cornerstone to modernise economies where man and machines complement each other seamlessly to achieve synergies in decision-making and productivity for contributing to SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. The integration of Industry 4.0 remains a challenge for the developing world, depending on their current status in the industrial revolution journey from its predecessors 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. This chapter reviews reported findings in literature to highlight how robotics and automated systems can pave the way to implementing and applying the principles of Industry 4.0 for developing countries like Mauritius, where data collection, processing and analysis for decision-making and prediction are key components to be integrated or designed into industrial processes centred heavily on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques. Robotics has not yet found its way into the various industrial sectors in Mauritius, although it has been an important driver for Industry 4.0 across the world. The inherent barriers and transformations needed as well as the potential application scenarios are discussed.
Details
Keywords
YiQin Sang, Huang Li, Hongjuan Ge, Cong Gao, Yinxiao Hu and Hui Jin
This study aims to conduct the aircraft electrical wiring interconnection system (EWIS) safety risk assessment process abundantly and hierarchically and establish the assessment…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to conduct the aircraft electrical wiring interconnection system (EWIS) safety risk assessment process abundantly and hierarchically and establish the assessment index system considering the weights and interrelationships of different levels of indices.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the failure of EWIS being multifactorial, hidden and diverse, this paper divides the factors influencing the failure of EWIS into 3 primary indices, 13 secondary indices and 38 tertiary indices. Taking open circuit failure (OCF) and short circuit failure (SCF) as examples, calculate the weights of assessment indices based on the triangular fuzzy number analytic hierarchy process (TFNAHP) and triangular fuzzy number decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (TFNDEMATEL). The cloud model (CM) divides the risk levels and obtains the safety risk assessment results. The comparative analyses of different weight calculation methods, different failure modes and different aircraft EWIS zones verify the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method.
Findings
The results show that the proposed method aligns more with the actual situation than other methods. Also, the results identify key focus objects in EWIS safety risk assessment, such as the surrounding environmental factors among the primary indices having the most significant influence on OCF and SCF, the risk level of SCF being higher than that of OCF, etc.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a safety risk assessment index system for aircraft EWIS based on the cable parameters, surrounding environmental factors, installation and protection methods. The weight assignment is added to the assessment index system, and the safety risk assessment model is constructed by combining TFNAHP, TFNDEMATEL and CM.
Details
Keywords
Hamdi Ercan, Cüneyt Öztürk and Mustafa Akın
This paper aims to assess the impact of electrifying the environmental control system (ECS) and ice protection system (IPS), the primary pneumatic system consumers in a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the impact of electrifying the environmental control system (ECS) and ice protection system (IPS), the primary pneumatic system consumers in a conventional commercial transport aircraft, on aircraft weight, range, and fuel consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
The case study was carried out on Airbus A321-200 aircraft. Design, modelling and analysis processes were carried out on Pacelab SysArc software. Conventional and electrical ECS and IPS architectures were modelled and analysed considering different temperature profiles.
Findings
The simulation results have shown that the aircraft model with ±270 VDC ECS and IPS architecture is lighter, has a more extended range and has less relative fuel consumption. In addition, the simulation results showed that the maximum range and relative fuel economy of all three aircraft models increased slightly as the temperature increased.
Practical implications
Considering the findings in this paper, it is seen that the electrification of the conventional pneumatic system in aircraft has positive contributions in terms of weight, power consumption and fuel consumption.
Social implications
The positive contributions in terms of weight, power consumption and fuel consumption in aircraft will be direct environmental and economic contributions.
Originality/value
Apart from the conventional ECS and IPS of the aircraft, two electrical architectures, 230 VAC and ±270 VDC, were modelled and analysed. To see the effects of the three models created in different temperature profiles, analyses were done for cold day, ISA standard day and hot day temperature profiles.
Details
Keywords
The basis of safe flight is the management of risks. This paper aims to present a new process-based risk assessment model, with an approach to calculate the risk score.
Abstract
Purpose
The basis of safe flight is the management of risks. This paper aims to present a new process-based risk assessment model, with an approach to calculate the risk score.
Design/methodology/approach
Since thousands of minor changes occur within ground operations, it is difficult to calculate how much risk these variations will pose. This paper proposes a risk assessment model fed from analysis of ground operation processes using functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) and fuzzy logic.
Findings
FRAM is used to detect variations in ground operation. Using the FRAM analysis, it has been revealed how much risk the process steps described in the procedures involve. The risk score was calculated by combining the probability value obtained from the airline’s database and the severity assessment of the expert group in fuzzy logic. The risk level can be monitored dynamically with the transfer of events in the airline’s database to the process-based risk assessment model.
Originality/value
FRAM analysis, which is used to detect function variations before undesirable risk occurs, has brought a proactive approach to risk assessment. The process-based risk assessment model allows the creation of new safety parameter indicators to be followed to reduce the risk level of the function with a high-risk level. The proposed approach can be used for other operational areas in aviation as well.
Details
Keywords
Mpho Trinity Manenzhe, Arnesh Telukdarie and Megashnee Munsamy
The purpose of this paper is to propose a system dynamic simulated process model for maintenance work management incorporating the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a system dynamic simulated process model for maintenance work management incorporating the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The extant literature in physical assets maintenance depicts that poor maintenance management is predominantly because of a lack of a clearly defined maintenance work management process model, resulting in poor management of maintenance work. This paper solves this complex phenomenon using a combination of conceptual process modeling and system dynamics simulation incorporating 4IR technologies. A process for maintenance work management and its control actions on scheduled maintenance tasks versus unscheduled maintenance tasks is modeled, replicating real-world scenarios with a digital lens (4IR technologies) for predictive maintenance strategy.
Findings
A process for maintenance work management is thus modeled and simulated as a dynamic system. Post-model validation, this study reveals that the real-world maintenance work management process can be replicated using system dynamics modeling. The impact analysis of 4IR technologies on maintenance work management systems reveals that the implementation of 4IR technologies intensifies asset performance with an overall gain of 27.46%, yielding the best maintenance index. This study further reveals that the benefits of 4IR technologies positively impact equipment defect predictability before failure, thereby yielding a predictive maintenance strategy.
Research limitations/implications
The study focused on maintenance work management system without the consideration of other subsystems such as cost of maintenance, production dynamics, and supply chain management.
Practical implications
The maintenance real-world quantitative data is retrieved from two maintenance departments from company A, for a period of 24 months, representing years 2017 and 2018. The maintenance quantitative data retrieved represent six various types of equipment used at underground Mines. The maintenance management qualitative data (Organizational documents) in maintenance management are retrieved from company A and company B. Company A is a global mining industry, and company B is a global manufacturing industry. The reliability of the data used in the model validation have practical implications on how maintenance work management system behaves with the benefit of 4IR technologies' implementation.
Social implications
This research study yields an overall benefit in asset management, thereby intensifying asset performance. The expected learnings are intended to benefit future research in the physical asset management field of study and most important to the industry practitioners in physical asset management.
Originality/value
This paper provides for a model in which maintenance work and its dynamics is systematically managed. Uncontrollable corrective maintenance work increases the complexity of the overall maintenance work management. The use of a system dynamic model and simulation incorporating 4IR technologies adds value on the maintenance work management effectiveness.
Details