AN OFF-LINE DUAL MAXIMUM RESOURCE BIN PACKING MODEL FOR SOLVING THE MAINTENANCE PROBLEM IN THE AVIATION INDUSTRY

Abstract

In the aviation industry, propeller motor engines have a lifecycle of several thousand hours of flight and the maintenance is an important part of their lifecycle. The present article considers a multi-resource, priority-based case scheduling problem, which is applied in a Romanian manufacturing company, that repairs and maintains helicopter and airplane engines at a certain quality level imposed by the aviation standards. Given a reduced budget constraint, the management’s goal is to maximize the utilization of their resources (financial, material, space, workers), by maintaining a prior known priority rule. An Off-Line Dual Maximum Resource Bin Packing model, based on a Mixed Integer Programing model is thus presented. The obtained results show an increase with approx. 25% of the Just in Time shipping of the engines to the customers and approx. 12,5% increase in the utilization of the working area.

Keywords

• bin packing
• maximization
• resources
• scheduling