A NOVEL OPTIMIZATION APPROACH FOR ENHANCING EFFICIENCY IN AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE PLANNING AND SCHEDULING

Abstract

The operational side of aircraft maintenance plays a key role in ensuring smooth workflow and the practiced processes' reliability in aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO). Correct MRO planning effectively reduces downtime and enhances the overall accuracy and dependability of procedures. An optimal schedule of maintenance resources and capacity, which entails using the least amount of ground time and schedule modifications, can be used to ensure that all activities are completed productively and consistently before their deadlines. This paper delves into the creation of an optimization approach that considers the dynamic environment of aircraft maintenance. The approach deals with a constraint programming (CP) model for heavy maintenance resources and capacity scheduling, in which variables such as scheduled maintenance tasks, ground time, workload distribution, and maintenance due dates are bounded by resources and technicians’ availability. The proposed CP model showed a strong ability to satisfy different constraints and conditions that were introduced in the artificial industrial environment within a short solving time of 3.12 seconds. Thus, it showed promising results in the case of further developments.