Collaborative Product–Service Approach to Aviation Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul. Part I: Quantitative Model

Abstract

This two-part paper proposes a new collaborative approach to airframe maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO). A quantitative model is introduced in Part I to represent the business relationships between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and MRO enterprises. In Part II, the presented model is used to assess potential financial benefits obtained by each of these stakeholders as a result of the collaboration. The quantitative model is built to capture the main dependencies between an independent MRO enterprise operating in South America and its interactions with three major airframe OEMs. Interviews were conducted with MRO and OEM professionals to identify the most impactful operational resources on MRO activities. Stakeholders with different characteristics in terms of production capacity, annual revenue, fleet size, and age are considered in numerical studies to quantify the viability of the proposed collaborative business model in different scenarios. The obtained results show that optimal investment levels must be determined for each stakeholder to ensure the viability of the proposed collaborative business model, confirming the need for a quantitative method to aid service designers making decisions. The novel collaborative model contributes to the relatively scarce literature on the topic, and promotes effective and structured collaboration between OEMs and MRO enterprises aiming at delivering higher added value to end customers (operators).