Customer Airlines Research Articles

An integrated production scheduling and workforce capacity planning model for the maintenance and repair operations in airline industry

Abstract Maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activities for the airline sector are generally subject to some regulations to ensure the safety and the continuity of flights. The critical equipment on aircraft must go through MRO at regulated intervals for the continuing permission of use. Thus, the strict deadlines constraint overhaul activities. Several systems on aircrafts are of so-called rotable module type. These expensive rotable modules are overhauled by MRO companies and used repeatedly. MRO companies usually perform exchange programs with customer airlines regarding the expensive rotable modules. When an airplane comes for an MRO service involving rotable module, a ready-to-use module from the inventory of MRO company is exchanged with the rotable module extracted from the airplane so that the service time for the aircraft is minimized. The extracted module is overhauled in the MRO shop with a limited workforce capacity and the overhauled module is rotated back to the inventory for a future exchange. We tackle the overhaul and exchange scheduling problem together with the workforce planning for MRO companies with an expedited overhaul option. We propose a mixed integer programming formulation of the problem as a finite planning horizon model where we assume that there are multiple types of rotables handled by the MRO company, and we minimize the sum of inventory holding and workforce-related costs. The salient features of the model are that we allow exchanges to be carried out earlier than their due dates, if it makes sense cost wise, up to a certain earliness limit, and we assume that there is an expedited overhaul option. The model uses two types of time buckets, small and big, for overhaul scheduling and workforce planning, respectively. Both the problem and its model are new in the literature. We show that this planning problem is NP-Hard. We provide extensive numerical tests on a set of randomly generated problems and propose some managerial insights based on the results obtained.

Inventory optimization for a customer airline in a Performance Based Contract

The supply of spare parts has a crucial role in the aviation sector, mainly due to the high costs of spare parts and to the strict availability requirements. In a stand-alone scenario, an airline owns the spare parts and manages the maintenance tasks by itself. A new trend consists of not owning the spare parts and delegate the maintenance tasks to an external company, taking advantage of a specific Performance Based Contract (PBC). The PBCs aim to reduce the ownership cost for the customer airline, while ensuring a target system performance. Spare parts become a variable cost for the customer airline and a business income for the maintenance supplier, which is commonly another airline.This paper proposes an innovative model, i.e. the PBC-METRIC, which supports the customer airline manager to minimize the spare parts supply cost, in compliance with the airline availability requirements and with respect to the PBC. In detail, the PBC-METRIC models a multi-echelon, multi-item, single-indenture, multi-transportation network, by an innovative two-steps algorithm, defining the PBC specifications as modelling variables and parameters. A case study on a European airline, with the role of customer in a PBC, illustrates the outcome of the model.

The design of future passenger aircraft – the environmental and fuel price challenges

ABSTRACTThis paper is intended as a general introduction to the requirements for future passenger aircraft design. The needs of the 21stcentury are addressed to meet the important requirements of the customer airlines as well as those of the general public. In particular, the impact on two traditional major requirements are reviewed, the Design Mission and the operating costs. The effect of aircraft on the environment and the increases in the cost of fuel will have a substantial effect on the way future aircraft are optimised. These demands are summarised before moving on to the basic equations affecting how the aircraft design must respond. Very similar targets driving research work have been set in both Europe and the United States, and some of the new technologies that we can expect to be incorporated are outlined. Finally, a glimpse is given of the possible future aircraft configurations we may see in the skies in response to the new demands.

The making of Boeing 777: a case study in concurrent engineering

This is a case study on the concurrent engineering experience of Boeing 777. A new generation of aircraft was designed, developed and inducted in a record time. A variety of new technological and organisational enablers have been used to reduce costs and cycle time: horizontal coordination, clever and innovative use of existing and new designs and technologies, digital product definition, systems integration, and working together teams that included customer airlines and suppliers. Top management provided the necessary support.

Ear‐to‐ground

A full‐scale fuselage and wing mock‐up of the Anglo‐French Concorde has recently been completed at the Filton Division of the British Aircraft Corporation, and it is already in use as an engineering tool to establish details of the interior design in conjunction with the customer airlines and in the development of safety equipment and procedures.