Maintenance, Repair And Overhaul Research Articles

Henkel strengthens its Adhesive Technologies business by buying US firm

Henkel AG & Co KgaA has further strengthened its Adhesive Technologies business by acquiring a supplier of protective coating and sealing technology based in the USA. The move follows its recent acquisition of another US firm that specialises in maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) composite technology.

A Novel Rolling Horizon Based Solution Framework for Scheduling Airplane Maintenance

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) activities on aircraft and systems in aviation is a service sector that relies heavily on skilled workforce. The output of MRO activities is basically bringing the system reliability values, which decrease because of the use of aircraft and systems in certain flight times and landing and take-off numbers, to the default levels determined during the design phase. MRO companies are accountable to the civil aviation authorities who directly authorize them to ensure the required levels of reliability of their products. Airline companies request MRO services at the most convenient time and cost. However, the maintenance of an aircraft is a process that can take up to five weeks, includes plenty of jobs some of which may have stochastic durations, and many over-costed qualified technicians spend thousands of man-hours. In addition, each MRO company is involved in the maintenance of several airplanes arriving at different time intervals. In the study such a problem faced by an MRO company is addressed. The company’s aim is to schedule several incoming airplane maintenance projects. A framework that employs an integer programming (IP) model working on a rolling horizon (RH) setting is used.

Poster] Identifying Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Events based on ADS-B Data

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) plays a big role in aviation schedules and operational costs. In this work service difficulty reports are combined with aircraft ADS-B data to identify MRO activity based on an aircraft's layover information. The ``Inspection/Maintenance'' stage of operation and date of service difficulty reports allow to label layovers from ADS-B with the presence of MRO activity. Using a support vector machine this work classifies layovers based on their duration and time of day, achieving an 86% overall accuracy and 78% balanced accuracy. These results reflect the difficulty of working with this sparse and incomplete dataset, however, they allow us to study MRO schedules. The combination of these data sources offers new opportunities to find relations between aircraft trajectory information and MRO, which will be further investigated in future work.

Visualising dynamics in innovation ecosystems: A new method and demonstration in the commercial aircraft MRO ecosystem

A review and evaluation of 34 visual methods for ecosystem research revealed that there was no method to visually capture the dynamics of innovation ecosystems. To fill this gap, we develop and demonstrate a new visual method, the ecosystem dynamics mapping (EDM) language, for capturing and analysing (i) structural elements, (ii) structural changes and (iii) dynamic forces in evolving innovation ecosystems over time.To develop the EDM language we applied the design science research methodology (DSRM), conducting a demonstration case in the commercial aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector. The sector's innovation ecosystem is currently experiencing profound dynamics, with a focus in this paper specifically on dynamics that result from servitizing manufacturers. For the demonstration case, we conducted 18 in-depth semi-structured interviews with 10 decision-makers at a large incumbent service provider, producing a total of 13 ecosystem dynamics maps.This study attempts to make three contributions. First, it identifies, summarises and evaluates the existing ecosystem visualisation methods. Second, we introduce the new EDM language for visualising the dynamics of innovation ecosystems. Third, we present an EDM demonstration case validating its applicability. The EDM language can be used by researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to better understand how innovation ecosystems are changing, thereby supporting strategic decision-making or policy interventions.

RE-DESIGN TANGGA PESAWAT UNTUK LOADING DAN UNLOADING KURSI PADA PESAWAT AIRBUS 320 NEO DI PT BAT

PT. Batam Aero Technic which is a subsidiary of Lion Air airline that focuses on Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) or maintenance of aircraft. One of the maintenance in the BAT hangar is the maintenance of the aircraft cabin section which is commonly called the Cabin Base Maintenance (CBM) Division. The CBM Division is responsible for the interior of the aircraft, starting from small to large scale repairs. In the initial observation, there was the biggest complaint of work posture of 66.67%, pain in the upper neck when lifting airplane seats manually and using stairs that did not fit properly. So it is important to design a tool to reduce musculoskeletal complaints. The aim of the research is to design ergonomic stairs using the EFD method to determine design specifications and meet user needs and anthropometric measurements with NBM. Then, a survey by distributing questionnaires to obtain the design parameters of the transportation equipment developed with the results of the unloading size with Dimension Platform 4,14 m x 404 m, Height Min 1 m | Max 4,5 m, Structure Materials Body and Frame : Structure Steel with Coating, Electrical Control Panel Specification Remote Control / Wireless, Control panel box, Motor 1.5 HP 380 volt 3 phase, Flow Rate 3.2 LPM/210 bar. Others Specification Included, Hydraulic Jack Mounting, Tire Wheel c/w steering towing, Aluminum platform layer Railing, Rubber Bumper, Manual Box, Safety Locking Devices, 2 sets of Rack Gear with Electric Solenoid Release. The design developed is valid according to user needs and according to the 5% significance level and is better than the prefix design due to a more ergonomic ladder position and faster loading/unloading seats.

The Influence of Repair Quality on Aircraft Spare Part Demand Variability

Accurate estimation of spare part demand is challenging in the case of intermittent or lumpy demand, characterised by infrequent demand occurrence and variability in demand size. While prior research has considered the effect of exogenous variables on spare part demand, there is a lack of research considering the effects of repair quality and aggregated spare part demand behaviour across fleets of assets under the influence of multiple simultaneously acting drivers of failure. This research provides new insights towards the problem of estimating variable spare part demand through modelling and simulation of the effects of multiple, simultaneously considered spare part demand drivers. In particular, a contribution to the state of the art is introduced by the use of a Branching Poisson Process (BPP) to model repair quality effects for spare part demand generation in conjunction with several demand drivers. The approach is applied in a numerical study which involves component failure characteristics based on real-life data from an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) provider. It is shown that repair quality improvements drive down the variance in the demand and the total number of failures over time, and outperform the effect of environmental drivers of failure in terms of demand generation.

Opportunities for Civil Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul in India

The Indian airline industry is expected to see double digit growth over the next decade as the economy grows between 8-10% GDP, as structural weaknesses are removed, infrastructure strengthened and much needed capital (domestic and foreign) becomes available. It is now perceived that there is already lack of adequate infrastructure for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO). Much of the engine, airframe and component MRO are presently being carried out abroad. As of now, there are no major independent MROs that can cater for this large fragmented market. It was felt by the Aeronautical Society of India to set up a Committee to study opportunities for MRO in India. The Committee report [1] details the different types of airframe MRO that are required including aircraft C and higher checks, engines and other equipment. The report encompasses a detailed study of manpower requirements, structure of the MRO organisation, training opportunities apart from providing a basic cost and revenue structure for any MRO. This article provides a brief overview of the report.

Acoustic non-destructive testing of UAS´s propellers during predeparture and post-flight checks

Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) activities have increased steeply in the last years, market research forecasts a continuous increase in the near future. The rapid growth of this industry, however, has outpaced the development of rules and systems to govern their use, as well as those to ensure a safe operation before, during and after flight. Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) aspects will gain relevance as more and more UAS take to the sky. Rotary-wing UAS have 2 or more propellers, which are easily damaged during normal operation of the vehicle. The reduced thrust and increased vibration imply losing performance and setting the UAS structure under stress. With the propellers being the main source of sound of the propulsion system, we propose the use of acoustics to identify damaged propellers. Microphones placed off-board do neither disrupt UAS operation nor reduce the payload capacity. Furthermore, this method does not depend on a particular manufacturer or software. In this paper, we present a concept for the non-destructive testing of multi-copter propellers. The fault diagnosis aims at recognizing the difference in sound between damaged and undamaged propellers. This evaluation takes place before the UAS takes off the ground and after it lands, thus allowing to interrupt a possible dangerous mission or identifying damage occurred during operation. The vehicle is on the ground in an “idle state” where the propellers already spin, but not fast enough to lift it. This state is used for a first analysis of the sound of a single propeller and several propellers, as well as for the generation of data. Next, two approaches for the detection of damage are developed and their performance is evaluated: an analytical approach and a machine learning algorithm based on an autoencoder neural network....

A scheduling model of civil aircraft maintenance stand based on spatiotemporal constraints

PurposeMaintenance 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/approachTo 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.FindingsA set of MRO production data from Guangzhou is used as a test data set to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MSS model.Originality/valueThe 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).

PERANCANGAN SISTEM INFORMASI PENGARSIPAN BUKTI TRANSAKSI PEMBAYARAN BERBASIS WEB DI PT NUSANTARA TURBIN DAN PROPULSI

PT Nusantara Turbine and Propulsion is a company engaged in the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of gas turbines on an airplane engine. The research conducted to design Payment Transaction Proof Filing Information System at PT Nusantara Turbine and Propulsion with the aim of producing a web-based application that plays a role in digitally collecting documents that were previously done manually. The research method for developing these applications uses SDLC (Problem identification, Data analysis, Design, Testing, Implementation, and Maintenance) & UML. This web application uses MYSQL & APACHE as a local server and is created using PHPRAD. UML plays a role in representing the workflow of a system. The result of this research is a web-based proof of payment transaction archiving application that aims to make it easier for workers when archiving, such as searching and storing documents so that it can be done digitally.

Handling, inspection and repair of aircraft composites: a pilot study on the awareness of maintenance personnel

AbstractComposite materials are enjoying an increasing use in aircraft structures. As more fleets transition from metal to more composite aircraft, the practice of maintenance is also adjusting. Handling, inspection and repair of aircraft composites following non-visible or barely visible damage are among the areas of concern, due to associated cost and safety implications. A pilot study was performed to explore the level of awareness and understanding of aviation maintenance practitioners around these issues. In addition, this research project sought to identify factors related to the technical/engineering judgement capacity of the personnel working with composites and to gauge the need for specialised education and training. A questionnaire survey was administered to a group of 40 professionals working for an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) organisation. Descriptive statistics in conjunction with analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyse the results. The sources of impact and common areas affected on the aircraft have been identified, with situational awareness suggested as the most important mitigator against impact damage. Over 70% of the participants would refer to their engineering manager for instructions on how to handle composite damage. The need for higher standardisation for composites’ maintenance, repair and handling issues emerged as a common theme across different sections of the survey. Almost all respondents agree on the need for specialised knowledge and training for the handling, repair and inspection of composites.

Analysing the impact of collaborations between airlines and maintenance service company under MRO outsourcing mode: Perspective from airline's operations

The practice of Aircraft Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) outsourcing has changed airline companies' decision-making processes in both operational and tactical levels. Specifically, the aircraft heavy maintenance service provided by an independent maintenance service company alleviates airlines' fixed-asset investments and daily operations regarding maintenance. On the other hand, the fluctuations in MROs service capability, availability and service level also affect airlines' fleet management and daily operations if their maintenance demands cannot be met in a timely manner. In this regard, the impact of the collaborations between airlines and maintenance service company is investigated from the perspective of airline's operations, by studying the maintenance planning problem at operational level. Afterwards, to examine and investigate the impact of collaborations between the two parties have on airline's operational performance, aircraft maintenance routing problems under ‘airlines-service company’ non-collaborative and collaborative contexts are investigated and formulated. The computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of the MRO collaboration under outsourcing mode, in view of airline company's overall operational revenue and flexibility while carrying out maintenance routing for individual aircraft in its fleet.

Aircraft maintenance and repair using “Mobile complex of unified aircraft repair facilities”

This paper presents a projected model of aircraft Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) using “Mobile Complex of Unified Aircraft Repair Facilities” (MCARF). MRO using MCARF is part of the “Before Failure Detection” and “As Conditioned” MRO strategies. The MRO project with MCSM allows building a concept of control of the aircraft life cycle stage - operation in conditions of rapid response to current aircraft repair needs, in the presence of limitations in the required maintenance and repair facilities and the possibility of their rapid delivery.

Implementation of Fuel Cells in Aviation from a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Perspective

Hydrogen is one of the most promising power sources for meeting the aviation sector’s long-term decarbonization goals. Although on-board hydrogen systems, namely, fuel cells, are extensively researched, the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) perspective remains mostly unaddressed. This paper analyzes fuel cells from an MRO standpoint, based on a literature review and comparison with the automotive sector. It also examines how well the business models and key resources of MRO providers are currently suited to provide future MRO services. It is shown that fuel cells require extensive MRO activities and that these are needed to meet the aviation sector’s requirements for price, safety and, especially, durability. To some extent, experience from the automotive sector can be built upon, particularly with respect to facility requirements and qualification of personnel. Yet, MRO providers’ existing resources only partially allow them to provide these services. MRO providers’ underlying business models must adapt to the implementation of fuel cells in the aviation sector. MRO providers and services should, therefore, be considered and act as enablers for the introduction of fuel cells in the aviation industry.

An integer programming mathematical model with line balancing and scheduling for standard work optimization: A realistic application to aircraft engines assembly lines

Aircraft Engine Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) companies face intense global competition that requires effective management of maintenance costs, TAT (turnaround time), and accurate job standards. These indicators can be improved through methodologies such as line balancing and scheduling of assembly tasks. The main objective of this article is to propose models for standard work definition that can optimize companies’ indicators – TAT, the number of operators, training costs, and load balancing – considering the specificities of the aircraft engine assembly lines. First, a literature review identified features of line balancing and scheduling integrated problems relevant to aircraft engine assembly and highlighted the integer programming mathematical models already proposed. Second, four new MILP models were developed in order to combine some of the features identified during the literature review and include new relevant ones: the multi-skilled operators can work in more than one engine per takt time, and each task may start in one takt time, and finish in the next. Lastly, the models were implemented in the AIMMS system and hierarchically solved by the CPLEX on data of two different assembly lines from a Brazilian MRO company. The results were considerably better than those obtained empirically by the firm. They include a 14.3% reduction in TAT for one assembly line and a 15.4% reduction in the number of operators for another, confirming a suitable decision support tool for the company, which can also help other firms.

Health Index Framework for Condition Monitoring and Health Prediction

In the field of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO), stakeholders such as operators or service providers have to keep track of the health status of fleets of complex systems. The ability to estimate the future health status of these systems and their components becomes more pivotal when seeking to efficiently operate and maintain these systems. Today, these stakeholders have access to a lot of different data sources regarding fleet, operation schedule, ambient condition, system and component information. Many different prognostic methods from different disciplines are available and will further improve henceforward. In many cases these data sources and methods function as isolated methods in their own field. This fragmentation makes a holistic prognosis very challenging in many cases. Therefore, stakeholders need information integrating methods and tools to gain an exhaustive insight into the health status development of the complex assets they are operating or maintaining, in order to make well-founded decisions regarding operation or maintenance planning. In this paper, a Python-based health index framework is presented. It enables users to integrate operation schedules of different detail levels with enriching data sources such as ambient condition data. Furthermore, it provides methods to design complex asset systems which are linked via their construction, function or degradation mechanisms/ health indices via transfer relations. It allows to monitor the asset’s condition based on operation data and to simulate different operation scenarios regarding the health index development.

An Intelligent Product Service System for Adaptive Maintenance of Engineered-to-Order Manufacturing Equipment Assisted by Augmented Reality

Under the framework of Industry 4.0, machines and machine tools have evolved to smart and connected things, comprising the Internet of Things (IoT) and leading to the Mass Personalization (MP) paradigm, which enables the production of uniquely made products at scale. MP, fueled by individualization trends and enabled by increasing digitalization, has the potential to go beyond current mass customization. Although this evolution has enabled engineers to gain useful insight for the production, the machine status, the quality of products, etc., machines have become more complex. Thus, Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) operations should be undertaken by specialized personnel. Additionally, Augmented Reality (AR) can support remote maintenance assistance to handle unexpected malfunctions. Moreover, due to advances regarding Product Service Systems (PSS), manufacturing companies are offering many services to improve user experience. Consequently, in this manuscript the design and development of a method based on the principles of servitization for the provision of an intelligent and adaptable maintenance service assisted by AR are presented. The contribution of the manuscript extends to the provision of an optimization algorithm for adapting the schedules of the stakeholders based on the energy supplier predictions. The developed method was tested and validated on an industrial case study of injection mold maintenance, achieving 11% energy reduction, 50% less time for mold inspection, and a 20% rise in on-time mold deliveries.

Negotiation for service contracting: incentives, bargaining power, and customer risk aversion

AbstractIn this paper, we analyze negotiation of service contracts when an equipment user (customer) outsources product failure repair service to an MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) supplier. The customer is risk averse due to serious consequences of system disruption. The two parties negotiate pricing terms and repair rate. We model the bilateral negotiations under three types of service contract: (i) fixed‐fee contract under which the customer pays a lump sum, (ii) pay‐per‐repair contract under which the customer pays for each repair incident, and (iii) uptime‐based contract under which the customer pays for product uptime. We investigate how different incentives under each contract interact with agents' bargaining power and customer risk aversion in the negotiation process, both theoretically and numerically. Despite that previous studies have shown that fixed‐fee contract generally does not provide incentives for suppliers to invest in repair capacity while uptime‐based contract does, we find that under a bargaining framework fixed‐fee contract can result in the highest (yet suboptimal) repair rate. Furthermore, consensus on contract types may not be achieved between the two parties. For the supplier, uptime‐based contract can result in the highest payoff while pay‐per‐repair contract leads to the lowest. For the customer, it may prefer to choose pay‐per‐repair contract when it is less risk averse and when the supplier has more bargaining power. Our results show some unexplored merits of other types of contracts when the advantages of uptime‐based contract have been highly cited.

An Exploratory Research on Blockchain in Aviation: The Case of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Organizations

The aircraft maintenance sector has high complexity with many intermediaries, multiple actors sharing data and needs to ensure high data security. The implementation of Blockchain technology can significantly contribute to the aforementioned characteristics. This research explores the implementation of Blockchain technology in Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO). For this research, a mixed-method approach was followed to obtain a holistic view of the adoption of Blockchain technology in an aircraft maintenance facility. Semi-structured interviews and a case study were used. The interview findings related to the current status of maintenance records management. The findings also highlighted the value of data storage within MRO’s and the benefits of Blockchain. The paper also discusses the readiness/willingness of aircraft maintenance facilities to implement Blockchain and the barriers to implementation. Recommendations and areas for further research are identified.

Technology Roadmap for Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul

Nowadays, the demand for aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) is constantly growing. The market size of the European MRO segment is estimated to be USD 206.13 billion in 2022, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 2.8% between 2022 and 2030 [1]. This forecast is a good indication of the growth in the number of incoming assignments. As a result, airlines and aircraft operators will increasingly rely on companies with experience in the MRO field to perform maintenance and repair work. Furthermore, as many airlines now choose to outsource maintenance and repair, this will further increase the load on MRO companies. As the number of incoming jobs increases, the companies concerned are constantly looking for and implementing new and better methods and technologies, with another aim of gaining a larger market share. Moreover, as there is still scope for the development and introduction of new technologies and processes in this area, a significant number of research and development projects are underway or in the pipeline. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to use the available information to present a generalised technology roadmap for the companies involved in MRO activities and, on this basis, to collect, present and categorise the state-of-the-art developments in the MRO sector, highlighting what the future will hold for companies that incorporate these revolutionary innovations into their daily work processes.