A heuristic method for aircraft maintenance scheduling under various constraints

Steiner, Albert

Publication type:	Conference paper
Type of review:	Not specified
Title:	A heuristic method for aircraft maintenance scheduling under various constraints
Authors:	Steiner, Albert
Conference details:	6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006
Issue Date:	2006
Language:	English
Subjects:	Maintenance scheduling; Transportation; Optimisation
Subject (DDC):	380: Transportation
Abstract:	Aircraft maintenance is a very important aspect of aircraft fleet management since it usually accounts for a substantial part of the overall operational costs and sets constraints on the planning of flight operations. Maintenance scheduling underlies typically a large number of constraints. Among them are capacities of maintenance facilities, capacities, and skills of maintenance staff, fleet-specific maintenance rules as well as inter-maintenance flying hours and quarterly flying hour demands. In this paper, we present a novel heuristic method for preventive aircraft maintenance scheduling which has been developed in a joint project of the Institute of Data Analysis and Process Design (IDP) and the Swiss Air Force (SAF). For two fleets we show some results and findings. The algorithms have shown to work very reliable, fast, and with good optimisation results even with strong constraints, e.g. with various manual settings. One of the major benefits is a significant increase in speed to compute a new maintenance/flight plan (now within 5 to 15 minutes; before: 1.5 to 2 days). This allows for a fast reaction on events like thunderstorms (Bernese Oberland, August 2005), tsunamis (Sumatra mission, January/February 2005) etc. Moreover, investigations of “What-If-Analyses” to compare different maintenance strategies can now be carried out efficiently.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/14139
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Licence according to publishing contract
Departement:	School of Engineering
Organisational Unit:	Institute of Data Analysis and Process Design (IDP)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen School of Engineering

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Steiner, A. (2006). A heuristic method for aircraft maintenance scheduling under various constraints. 6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006.

Steiner, A. (2006) ‘A heuristic method for aircraft maintenance scheduling under various constraints’, in 6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006.

A. Steiner, “A heuristic method for aircraft maintenance scheduling under various constraints,” in 6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006, 2006.

STEINER, Albert, 2006. A heuristic method for aircraft maintenance scheduling under various constraints. In: 6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006. Conference paper. 2006

Steiner, Albert. 2006. “A Heuristic Method for Aircraft Maintenance Scheduling under Various Constraints.” Conference paper. In 6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006.

Steiner, Albert. “A Heuristic Method for Aircraft Maintenance Scheduling under Various Constraints.” 6th Swiss Transport Research Conference, Ascona, 15-17 March 2006, 2006.