Aircraft non-periodic maintenance scheduling system

• US 10,163,078 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2016
• Issued: 12/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Kesler, Paul A., Kalinowski, Bob, Arrow, Kevin M., Wojczyk, Jr., William E., Hagrman, Dan L., Greene, Scott R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Oh, Harry Y
• Application Number:
  US15/198,601
• Publication Number:
  US 20180005197A1
• Time in Patent Office: 908 Days
• Field of Search: 701 316
• CPC Class Codes: B64F 5/40 Maintaining or repairing aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/006 Indicating maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0004 Transmission of traffic-related information to or from an aircraft airborne radio transmission systems in general H04B7/185; airborne wireless networks H04W84/06

Abstract

A system aggregates data related to a non-conformance system in an aircraft and allocates resources to repairing the non-conformance condition. The system includes a service bus that receives and distributes the non-conformance condition and an optimizer tool that generates repair alternatives. The optimizer tool allows dynamic reconfiguration of rules to activate and deactivate or change a weight of individual rules in a rule set.

Claims

1. A system that allocates resources to repairing a non-conformance condition in an aircraft, the system comprising:

a processor and memory coupled to a service bus that receives and distributes data related to the non-conformance condition;

the service bus further configured to retrieve deferred risk data and technical data for the aircraft;

a service bridge configured to receive operator data from an operator of the aircraft, the operator data including route plans and an inventory of parts;

an optimizing tool coupled to the service bus, the optimizing tool including;

a pre-processor that formats the data received via the service bus;

a plan optimizer that generates repair alternatives to repair the non-conformance condition based at least in part on the deferred risk data, the technical data, and the operator data using a rule set, wherein the rule set is configured to be customized during operation of the optimizing tool; and

a management service configured to cause generation of a work order to allocate resources associated with a selected one of the repair alternatives; and

a simplicity, ambiguity, volatility (SAV) tool coupled to the service bus, the SAV tool receiving historical data for the non-conformance condition and providing a SAV rating for use by the plan optimizer in generating the repair alternatives.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an authentication and security service coupled to the service bus that provides data encryption and authentication services for communications via the service bridge.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an administrative tool that provides for generation of the rule set and for setting the service bridge for communication with the operator to receive the operator data.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user interface that receives instructions to implement a change to the rule set, wherein the change is specific to the non-conformance condition in the aircraft.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the user interface receives instructions to deactivate an individual rule from the rule set.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the user interface receives instructions to change a rule weight of an individual rule in the rule set.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the SAV rating includes a simplicity value having ternary value of +1, 0, or −

1, the +1 assigned when a diagnosis for a non-conformance condition of “

checked okay”

exceeds a threshold value, the 0 assigned when the diagnosis for the non-conformance condition of “

checked okay”

does not meet the threshold value, and the −

1 is assigned when a number of indeterminate diagnoses exceeds a second threshold value.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the SAV rating includes an ambiguity value that is a function of a percentage an average number of repair steps to a total possible number of repair steps required to resolve the non-conformance condition.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the SAV rating includes a volatility value that is a combination of a best case number of steps to resolve the non-conformance condition to a pre-selected confidence level and a worst case number of steps to resolve the non-conformance condition to the pre-selected confidence level.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein an ambiguity value of the SAV rating is calculated as (HFE %+(100/(1+(# of other steps/10))))/2, where HFE is a highest fix effectivity in percent and “

# of other steps”

is a total number of steps in a resolution process less one.

10. A method of determining a maintenance response to a non-conformance condition in an aircraft, the method comprising:

receiving, at a processor with a memory, the non-conformance condition in the aircraft;

receiving, at the processor and the memory, fault and maintenance information including a risk of further failure corresponding to the non-conformance condition specific to the aircraft;

receiving from an operator of the aircraft, at the processor and the memory, a flight schedule for the aircraft, one or more repair locations, and an inventory of parts relevant to the non-conformance condition;

generating a simplicity, ambiguity, volatility (SAV) rating for the non-conformance condition by comparing historical repair records for the non-conformance condition to a repair process for the non-conformance condition, wherein the SAV rating contains a simplicity value, an ambiguity value, and a volatility value for resolving the non-conformance condition;

evaluating, using a rule set stored in the memory executed on the processor, the fault and maintenance information, the risk of further failure, the flight schedule for the aircraft, the one or more repair locations and the SAV rating for the non-conformance condition to produce a location and time for the aircraft to have the non-conformance condition resolved; and

generating a work order to repair the non-conformance condition in the aircraft at the produced location and time.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein using the rule set stored in the memory executed on the processor comprises using rules stored in the memory that, prior to use, are modified by selectively deactivating one or more rules of the rule set.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein using the rule set stored in the memory executed on the processor comprises using rules stored in the memory that, prior to use, are modified by selectively re-weighting one or more rules of the rule set.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the volatility value of the SAV rating is calculated as ((BC+WC)/2)−

1, where BC is a best case number of steps required to resolve the non-conformance condition to a pre-selected confidence level and WC is a worst case number of steps required to resolve the non-conformance condition to the pre-selected confidence level.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the ambiguity value of the SAV rating is calculated as (HFE %+(100/(1+(# of other steps/10))))/2, where HFE is a highest fix effectivity in percent and “

# of other steps”

is a total number of steps in a resolution process less one.

15. A system for aircraft maintenance scheduling comprising:

a processor with a memory that receives an error report from an electronic non-conformance repository in communication with the processor, the error report containing information for a non-conformance condition in an aircraft;

a service bridge coupled to the processor with the memory and configured to receive from an operator of the aircraft;

a flight schedule for the aircraft, one or more repair locations and their respective repair capabilities, and an inventory of parts for each of the one or more repair locations;

a simplicity, ambiguity, volatility (SAV) tool coupled to the service bridge, the SAV tool receiving historical data for the non-conformance condition and providing a SAV rating for use in generating a repair alternative; and

a rule set stored in the memory including a plurality of individual rules for processing the non-conformance condition, the flight schedule, the SAV rating, the one or more repair locations and their respective repair capabilities, and the inventory of parts, wherein the processor is configured to execute the rule set to;

(i) determine whether correcting the non-conformance condition can be deferred, and

ii) responsive to determining that the non-conformance condition can be deferred, selecting a location on the flight schedule and scheduling parts and personnel at the selected location for correcting the non-conformance condition.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising a user interface that receives instructions to activate and deactivate one or more of the plurality of individual rules in the rule set to create a revised rule set for execution by the processor.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising a user interface that receives instructions to reweight an individual rule in the rule set to create a revised rule set for execution by the processor.

18. The system of claim 15, further comprising a user interface that receives instructions to reject the selected location for correcting the non-conformance condition wherein the processor generates another location for correcting the non-conformance condition.

19. The system of claim 15, further comprising an integration adapter that has predetermined protocols for building interfaces to pre-existing data sources accessible via the service bridge.