MAINTENANCE SYSTEM FOR AIRCRAFT FLEET AND METHOD FOR PLANNING MAINTENANCE

• US 20140121885A1
• Filed: 11/01/2012
• Published: 05/01/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GE Aviation Systems LLC (GE Aerospace)
• Original Assignee: GE Aviation Systems LLC (GE Aerospace)
• Inventors: Schoonveld, Steve John
• Granted Patent: US 9,251,502 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/29.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A maintenance system for a fleet of aircraft and a method of planning maintenance for a fleet of aircraft that includes identifying a maintenance schedule having at least one routine maintenance action for an aircraft to be maintained, generating a non-routine maintenance task schedule comprising non-routine maintenance tasks, and generating a combined schedule comprising a combination of the maintenance schedule and the non-routine maintenance task schedule.

Claims

1. A maintenance system for a fleet of aircraft, the system comprising:

a maintenance database comprising at least one maintenance schedule comprising a list of routine maintenance actions for the aircraft;

a non-routine maintenance database comprising at least non-routine maintenance historical data for the aircraft;

a health database comprising operation data for the aircraft; and

a planning module configured to query the maintenance database, non- routine maintenance database, and the health database and identify anticipated non-routine maintenance tasks having a correlation with at least one of the routine maintenance actions.

2. The maintenance system of claim 1 wherein the planning module determines the correlation by permutating over the database a maintenance algorithm that determines anticipated non-routine maintenance tasks to be included during at least one of the routine maintenance actions.

3. The maintenance system of claim 2 wherein the health database further comprises prognostic aircraft health data.

4. The maintenance system of claim 3 wherein the routine maintenance actions include timing and duration of the routine maintenance actions.

5. The maintenance system of claim 4 wherein the algorithm incorporates the prognostic aircraft health data in identifying anticipated non-routine maintenance tasks having a correlation with at least one of the routine maintenance actions.

6. The maintenance system of claim 1 wherein the maintenance database, non-routine maintenance database, and health database comprise a single database.

7. The maintenance system of claim 6 wherein the planning module is executed on a computer configured to access the single database.

8. The maintenance system of claim 1 wherein the planning module comprises a probability module, a correlation module, and a business rules module.

9. The maintenance system of claim 8 wherein the probability module identifies anticipated non-routine maintenance tasks having a threshold probability of occurring.

10. The maintenance system of claim 8 wherein the correlation module identifies at least one of the routine maintenance actions that at least one of the anticipated non-routine maintenance tasks can be completed with.

11. The maintenance system of claim 10, further comprising a generation module that generates a task schedule that is a combination of the maintenance schedule and at least one of the identified non-routine maintenance tasks.

12. The maintenance system of claim 8 wherein the business rules module identifies which of the anticipated non-routine maintenance tasks can be completed to meet operational objectives.

13. A method of planning maintenance for a fleet of aircraft, the method comprising:

identifying a maintenance schedule having at least one routine maintenance action for an aircraft to be maintained;

generating a non-routine maintenance schedule comprising non-routine maintenance having a predetermined probability of occurrence based on historical data for the fleet and aircraft health data and having a correlation to the at least one routine maintenance action; and

generating a task schedule comprising a combination of the maintenance schedule and the non-routine maintenance schedule.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the generating a non-routine maintenance task schedule comprises determining an amount of predetermined probability of occurrence.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the maintenance schedule includes timing and duration of the routine maintenance action.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the generating of the non-routine maintenance schedule takes into consideration the timing and duration of the routine maintenance action and the amount of the predetermined probability of the non-routine maintenance.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the predetermined probability of the non-routine maintenance is determined by determining a potential failure in at least one component of the aircraft.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein determining a potential failure in the at least one component comprises evaluating at least one of multiple constraints including a predicted life of the component and a failure rate of the component.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the determining a failure rate comprises at least one of an actual failure rate or an artificial failure rate.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the artificial failure rate including a time to failure is determined from prognostic health data.