Maintenance interval determination and optimization tool and method

• US 20080021604A1
• Filed: 07/20/2006
• Published: 01/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Fredgren, Brian C., Bouvier, Ken D., Scholz, Fritz, Song, Shuguang, Altschul, Roberto E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,401,726 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/006 Indicating maintenance

Abstract

A Maintenance Interval Determination and Optimization Tool (MIDOT) provides optimized maintenance schedules for performing maintenance tasks on one or more components or systems based on component survival functions and economic analysis of non-safety tasks associated with maintenance schedules. MIDOT is used for specified platforms such as aircrafts. The MIDOT filters maintenance history data, uses a statistical analysis to predict likely maintenance needs, and performs an economic analysis to optimize aircraft maintenance schedules. Specifically, the MIDOT calculates component survival probability, based on the specific usage of one or more related components within the platform and determines an optimal maintenance task interval to perform a maintenance task associated with the one or more related components.

Claims

1. A method of using a maintenance interval determination and optimization tool (MIDOT) comprising the steps of:

utilizing historical data from one or more components within a platform;

associating a maintenance task with the one or more related components; and

determining an optimal maintenance task interval to perform the associated maintenance task on the one or more related components.

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

determining a survivability threshold of time within a specific survival function percentage of the one or more related components based on usage of the one or more related components within the platform.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more related components define an electro-mechanical system of components.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the platform is an aircraft.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of associating a maintenance task comprises the step of:

selecting the maintenance task from either a safety task or a non-safety task.

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

performing an economic analysis to whether costs associated with performing the associated maintenance task for the one or more related components is feasible, wherein the associated maintenance task is a non-safety task.

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

extracting component maintenance data associated with the one or more components from a component maintenance database;

cleaning the component maintenance data to remove data that is not relevant to the associated maintenance task; and

analyzing the component maintenance data to determine a suggested maintenance task interval for performing a maintenance task associated with the one or more related components that meets a specific survival function percentage.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of analyzing the component maintenance data comprises the step of:

identifying the suggested maintenance task interval based on a specified component survival function percentage.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of cleaning the maintenance data further comprises the steps of:

removing non event data from the component maintenance data, wherein the non-event data includes data relating to events where removal of one or more related components that did not fix complaint associated with the one or more related components or was not relevant to the associated complaint.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of:

performing an economic analysis to evaluate associated costs and benefits with the determined maintenance interval.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of extracting the component data comprises the step of:

querying a component maintenance database to extract component maintenance data including removal data associated with removal events of the one or more components; and

exporting the extracted query results to a clean component maintenance database.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of cleaning the component data comprises the step of:

using the exported extracted query results to form a clean data set;

identifying data related to removal of each of the one or more components to service another platform; and

identifying data related to removal of components that are removed due to non-maintenance related schedules such as service directives.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of analyzing the data comprises the steps of:

determining associated component lifetimes for each of the one or more components from the clean data set;

plotting the associated component lifetimes in a Weibull distribution of the clean data set to form plotted component lifetime data points;

performing a Weibull analysis on the plotted component lifetime data points; and

determining a suggested maintenance interval for each maintenance task to be performed on the one or more related components.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

comparing the suggested maintenance interval with an existing maintenance interval to determine if use of the suggested maintenance interval is economically feasible for a non-safety task.

15. A method of using a maintenance interval determination and optimization tool comprising the steps of:

selecting a maintenance task associated with one or more components associated with a platform;

performing a statistical analysis on one or more related components to determine a suggested maintenance task interval associated with the maintenance task; and

performing an economic analysis if the maintenance task is a non-safety task.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of performing a statistical analysis on one or more related components to determine a suggested maintenance task interval associated with the maintenance task comprises:

determining if the one or more related components have similar tasks or components existing on another platform having a same associated failure cause.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of performing a statistical analysis on one or more related components to determine a suggested maintenance task interval associated with the maintenance task comprises the steps of:

extracting component maintenance data from a component maintenance database;

cleaning the extracted data; and

analyzing the data to produce a component survival function.

18. A maintenance interval determination and optimization tool comprising:

a maintenance task selection module that operates to associate one or more components associated with a platform with a maintenance task; and

a statistical calculation module capable of performing a statistical analysis on one or more related components if similar tasks or components exist on another platform having a same associated failure cause to determine a suggested maintenance task interval associated with the maintenance task.

19. The maintenance interval determination and optimization tool of claim 18, further comprising:

an economic analysis module capable of performing an economic analysis if the maintenance task is a non-safety task.