140 results about "Maintenance planning" patented technology

Turnkey maintenance of a customer's aircraft fleet is managed by a single management service provider (MSP) controlling integrated maintenance and materials services from a central operations site. The MSP converts data received directly from on-board aircraft systems into information it uses to manage maintenance service providers and parts suppliers. The MSP contracts with and manages maintenance, repair and overhaul organizations (MROs) who perform the maintenance on the customers' aircraft at line and base stations. The MSP either remotely manages part inventories at the customer's site, or manages suppliers who deliver the parts to the MROs. Maintenance planning, scheduling and execution information is exchanged between the MSP, MROs, part suppliers and the customers through a shared data communication network controlled by the MSP. The MSP charges the customer for the maintenance services based on a flat rate per unit of aircraft flying time.

In one embodiment, a method is provided for planning repairs in response to demand in a multi-level repair network of locations at which parts may be repaired. Modeled for a location are: (1) an unserviceable buffer for parts inspected at the location and repairable at the location, and (2) a serviceable buffer for parts inspected at the location and serviceable without repair. A forecasted demand, for a quantity of serviceable parts at a future time at the location, is accessed. In a push planning phase, for each inspected part in the unserviceable buffer, the earliest time at which repair can begin for the part at the location is estimated. In a pull planning phase, if the forecasted demand cannot be satisfied using parts in the serviceable buffer: (1) a quantity of parts in the unserviceable buffer repairable at the location and available to help satisfy the forecasted demand is estimated; (2) the latest time at which repair can begin with respect to these parts at the location to help satisfy the forecasted demand is estimated; and (3) repair for these parts is planned at the estimated latest time to pull these parts from the unserviceable buffer, from which they cannot be put to service to help satisfy the forecasted demand, into the serviceable buffer, from which they can be put to service to help satisfy the forecasted demand.