Optimization of management of maintenance, repair and overhaul of equipment in a specified time window

• US 7,457,762 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2001
• Issued: 11/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Garrow, Gary R., Newton, Charles P. III, Wetzer, Michael, Weir, Patrick E., West, David P. II, Ashby, Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): BOYCE, ANDRE D
• Application Number:
  US09/946,032
• Publication Number:
  US 20040162811A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,639 Days
• Field of Search: 705/8, 705/9
• US Class Current: 705/7.25
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis

Abstract

A method for planning, scheduling and allocation of maintenance, repair and overhaul resources includes establishing the configuration definition database, establishing a maintenance task database based on the configuration, determining the resource requirements for the maintenance tasks, optimizing the deployment of resources for those maintenance tasks in a specified time window based on resource requirements, resource availability, current maintenance execution status of equipment and activity-based cost models, creating allocation transactions to assign the resources to the specific tasks and initiating the kitting of material.

Claims

1. A method for managing maintenance, repair or overhaul of equipment, the method comprising:

retrieving a desired configuration for the equipment from a configuration definition database;

retrieving an actual configuration for the equipment from the configuration definition database;

identifying a configuration gap for the equipment based on the actual configuration and the desired configuration;

identifying an upgrade requirement driven by the configuration gap;

identifying a planned maintenance requirement for the equipment;

receiving an identification of an unplanned maintenance requirement for the equipment;

determining availability of the equipment for performing a maintenance task, the maintenance task including the upgrade requirement, the planned maintenance requirement, and the unplanned maintenance requirement, the equipment requiring maintenance in a specified time window, determining the availability of the equipment including;

forecasting task completion on the equipment; and

updating a status of the task completion in real time;

performing resource planning for performing the maintenance task in the specified time window based on resource requirements, the availability of the equipment including the status of the task completion, and cost models,

wherein the resource requirements comprise labor, materials, tools, facilities, end item location, and time span for the maintenance task; and

wherein the cost models comprise personnel cost, employment cost, raw material cost, cost of consumable items and facility costs;

constraining the resource planning by a set of rules imposed by a specific business in a selected industry and being unique to operations of the specific business, wherein the set of rules differs for the specific business from other sets of rules for other business in the selected industry;

optimizing with a software tool a deployment of resources for the maintenance task for the equipment;

creating allocation transactions to assign a first material and a second material to the maintenance task to be performed on the equipment in the specified time window, including;

determining whether an existing prior allocation includes a true item designation that indicates a hard allocation of the first material and the second material;

soft allocating the second material into a virtual kit in a data processing system;

soft allocating the first material into the virtual kit in the data processing system; and

removing the first material from the virtual kit when the existing prior allocation includes the true item designation, which indicates that the first material must remain with the existing prior allocation and should be removed from the virtual kit; and

hard allocating the second material into a physical kit that is staged for the maintenance task that cannot be disrupted when the existing prior allocation does not include the true item designation, which indicates that the second material may be freely allocated, and wherein hard allocating the second material prevents the second material from being removed from the virtual kit.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a work order describing the maintenance task and the resources allocated for the maintenance task.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying newly discovered maintenance tasks required to be performed within the specified time window, determining additional resources required for the newly discovered maintenance tasks, updating the optimization of the deployment of resources incorporating the additional resources required, and creating additional allocation transactions to assign the additional resources to the maintenance task.

4. The method of claim 1, where soft allocating the second material further comprises soft allocating a new material which will be available based on a contracted procurement lead-time.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimizing further comprises analyzing a repair cycle time of a rotable component organized into a rotable pool, with a pre-selected pool size, of multiple instances of the rotable component.

6. A resource allocation method comprising:

retrieving a desired configuration for equipment from a configuration definition database;

retrieving an actual configuration for the equipment from the configuration definition database

identifying a configuration gap for the equipment based on the actual configuration and the desired configuration;

identifying a degradation associated with the configuration gap;

identifying a maintenance task for the equipment for addressing the degradation;

identifying an unplanned maintenance task for the equipment for addressing the degradation;

determining a first resource and a second resource for the maintenance task which are available during the maintenance time window;

determining availability of the equipment for performing a maintenance task, the maintenance task including the upgrade requirement, the planned maintenance requirement, and the unplanned maintenance requirement, the equipment requiring maintenance in the maintenance time window, determining the availability of the equipment including;

forecasting task completion on the equipment; and

updating a status of the task completion in real time;

obtaining an activity based cost model for the first and second resources wherein the cost models comprise personnel cost, employment cost, raw material cost, cost of consumable items and facility costs;

performing resource planning for performing the maintenance task in the maintenance time window based on resource requirements, the availability of the equipment including the status of the task completion, and the activity based cost model;

wherein the resource requirements comprise labor, materials, tools, facilities, end item location, and time span for the maintenance task; and

constraining the resource planning by a set of rules imposed by a specific business in a selected industry and being unique to operations of the specific business, wherein the set of rules differs for the specific business from other sets of rules for other businesses in the selected industry;

optimizing, with a software tool in a data processing system, deployment of the first and second resources;

determining whether an existing prior allocation includes a true item designation that indicates a hard allocation of the first resource and the second resource;

creating a first soft allocation transaction to assign the second resource to the maintenance task for the equipment item;

creating a virtual kit in a data processing system in response to creating the first soft allocation;

creating a second soft allocation transaction to assign the first resource into the virtual kit in the data processing system;

removing the first resource from the virtual kit when the existing prior allocation includes the true item designation, which indicates that the first resource must remain with the existing prior allocation and should be removed from the virtual kit; and

creating a hard allocation transaction to assign the second resource to the maintenance task that cannot be disrupted when the existing prior allocation does not include the true item designation, which indicates that the second resource may be freely allocated, and wherein hard allocating the second resource prevents the second resource from being removed from the virtual kit; and

creating a physical kit comprising the second resource in response to creating the hard allocation.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

pooling a rotable component into a rotable pool for the second resource.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

determining a preselected pool size for the rotable pool based on a repair cycle time of the rotable component.