Managing changes in aircraft maintenance data

• US 20070294278A1
• Filed: 06/20/2006
• Published: 12/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Vandermolen, Kurt J., Nelson, Peter R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,356,244 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Airline operator-customers manage aircraft maintenance data for fleets of commercial aircraft using a suite of electronic maintenance tools that are delivered to the customers over the Internet and viewed with a web browser. The maintenance tool suite includes an authoring module that allows customers to create, edit and manage both OEM originated aircraft maintenance data and the customers'"'"' own data within a fully integrated environment running as a web application over the Internet. The authoring module combines workflow, XML authoring and editing, import/export of the data, change reconciliation, and publishing of airline customer authored documents, airline customer authored changes, OEM Temporary Revisions, and OEM aircraft maintenance documents into a single integrated web application using XML as the maintenance document format. The use of XML as the native format of the aircraft maintenance data allows the customers to reuse the data in a variety of ways.

Claims

1. A method for managing maintenance data for equipment, comprising the steps of:

(A) authoring original maintenance data relating to the equipment;

(B) delivering a web application to an editing site over a network;

(C) delivering the original maintenance data to the editing site in XML format using the web application delivered in step (B); and

,

(D) peforming XML editing of the original maintenance data at the editing site.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein step (C) is performed using a web browser.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein step (B) is performed by transmitting the web application over the Internet.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

(E) storing the maintenance data edited in step (D).

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising the step of:

(F) reusing the edited maintenance data stored in step (E).

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

(E) importing data relating to the equipment using the web application delivered in step (B), and

wherein step (D) includes using the imported data to perform the editing of the original maintenance data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

(E) reconciling the edits made to the original maintenance data, using the web application delivered in step (B); and

(F) publishing the edited maintenance data using the web application delivered in step (B).

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

(E) using the web application delivered in step (B) to notify users of edits to the original maintenance data made in step (D).

9. A method for creating and managing documents containing maintenance data for aircraft, comprising the steps of:

(A) creating original maintenance documents for the aircraft;

(B) delivering a web application to a user site over the Internet;

(C) delivering the original maintenance documents to the user site using the web application provided in step (B); and

,

(D) editing the original maintenance documents at the user'"'"'s site.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein step (D) includes appending data to the maintenance documents.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein step (D) includes changing existing data in the maintenance documents.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of:

(E) reusing the maintenance documents edited in step (D).

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

(E) scheduling the maintenance documents edited in step (D) to be published at a preselected time; and

,

(F) publishing the edited maintenance documents at the time scheduled in step (E)

14. The method of claim 9, wherein:

step (C) includes delivering the maintenance documents in XML format, and

step (E) is performed using XML.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein step (C) is performed using a web browser.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of:

(E) importing data relating to the aircraft using the web application delivered in step (B), and

wherein step (D) includes using the imported data to perform editing of the original maintenance documents.

17. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

(E) reconciling the edits made to the original maintenance documents using the web application delivered in step (B); and

(F) publishing the edited maintenance documents using the web application delivered in step (B).

18. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of:

(E) using the web application delivered in step (B) to notify users of edits to the original maintenance documents made in step (D).

19. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of:

(E) reconciling the edits made in step (D).

20. A system for managing changes in maintenance data for aircraft, comprising:

a host website;

aircraft maintenance data accessible at the host website in XML format;

a user site connected to the host site by a network;

a web application for editing the original maintenance data using XML; and

,

a web browser at the user site for viewing the web application over the network and making changes to the maintenance data.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising file storage for storing the maintenance data, and wherein the maintenance data includes data describing maintenance tasks, and documents describing parts used in the maintenance of the aircraft.

22. The system of claim 20, further comprising a scheduler for scheduling the publishing of the edited maintenance data at a preselected time.

23. The system of claim 20, wherein the web application includes Spring web application framework.

24. The system of claim 20, wherein the web application includes a workflow engine for specifying a process for reviewing and approving the edited maintenance data.

25. The system of claim 20, wherein the web application includes an embedded editor for editing the maintenance data.

26. The system of claim 20, wherein the network comprises the Internet.

27. The system of claim 20, wherein the web application is hosted at the host site and is delivered to the user site over the network.