Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A framework for maintenance and combat readiness management of a jet fighter aircraft

  • Case Study
  • Published:
International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The study is focused on the application of maintainability analysis in a jet fighter aircraft in order to point out weaknesses of maintenance operations. Descriptive statistics of the repair data were carried out and both maintainability and repair rate modes for the entire aircraft were calculated. Maintainability for different time periods for aircraft’s principal subsystems has been estimated on the basis of fitted distribution models. Quality function deployment (QFD) method was applied to link customer requirements and maintenance characteristics in military squadron, revealing the relationship among the prevailing factors affecting maintenance operations. The QFD is proposed as a quality planning methodology to reduce aircraft repair time increasing at the same time squadron’s combat readiness. The highest maintainabilities were associated with the engine, the communication/navigation and the fuel subsystems, whereas the airplane general, the flight control and the structure subsystems bottomed out in maintainability performance. Furthermore, top management involvement, resources availability, maintenance procedures, maintenance planning as well as technical experience were the main factors responsible for the current maintainability level of this aircraft. The paper is based on practical actions being undertaken in an Airforce and therefore, is demonstrated to be practical in an aviation environment. This study may be used for long‐term, strategic assessment and planning decisions in order to sustain unit availability and overall air force combat readiness at a high level.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahmadi A, Kumar U, Söderholm P (2010) On aircraft scheduled maintenance program development. J Qual Maint Eng 16(3):229–255. doi:10.1108/13552511011072899

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bazargan M, McGrath RN (2003) Discrete event simulation to improve aircraft availability and maintainability. In: Reliability and maintainability symposium, annual. IEEE, pp 63–67. doi:10.1109/RAMS.2003.1181903

  • Block J, Ahmadi A, Tyrberg T, Söderholm P (2014) Part-out-based spares provisioning management: a military aviation maintenance case study. J Qual Maint Eng 20(1):76–95. doi:10.1108/JQME-09-2013-0060

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dhillon BS (2006) Maintainability, maintenance and reliability for engineers. Taylor & Francis, New York

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Ebeling C (2008) An introduction to reliability and maintainability engineering, 10th edn. Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi

    Google Scholar 

  • Francois P, Noyes D (2003) Evaluation of a maintenance strategy by the analysis of the rate of repair. Qual Reliab Eng Int 19(2):129–148. doi:10.1002/qre.515

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freeze DE, Aaron HB (1988) Customer requirements planning process CRPII (beyond QFD). In: Proceedings of the SME international conference, Detroit, Michigan, USA

  • Haiqiao W, Yi L, Yunliang D, Jia L (2004) Methods to reduce direct maintenance costs for commercial aircraft. Aircr Eng Aerosp Technol 76(1):15–18. doi:10.1108/00022660410514964

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hauser JR, Clausing D (1988) The house of quality. Harv Bus Rev 66(3):63–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumar UD (1999) New trends in aircraft reliability and maintenance measures. J Qual Maint Eng 5(4):287–295. doi:10.1108/13552519910298046

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Madu NC (2005) Strategic value of reliability and maintainability management. Int J Qual Reliab Manag 22(3):317–328. doi:10.1108/02656710510582516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Makrygianni M, Besseris G, Stergiou K (2011) Reliability analysis and TQM problem solving tools for improving the maintenance operations in modern jet fighters. In: Proceedings of the international conference of quality and reliability, 14–17 Sept, Bangkok, Thailand, pp 413–420. doi:10.1109/ICQR.2011.6031752

  • Meeker W, Escobar L (1998) Statistical methods for reliability data. Wiley, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Middleton DH (1993) Aircraft maintenance management part 3. Aircr Eng Aerosp Technol 65(2):6–9. doi:10.1108/eb037340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MIL-HDBK-189 (1981) Relibility growth management. Headquartes, US Army Communication Research and Development Command, ATTN: DRDCO-PT, Fort Monmouth, NJ, USA

  • Pettersen KA, Ase K (2008) Explaining safe work practices in aviation line maintenance. Saf Sci 46(3):510–519. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2007.06.020

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryor WE (1964) Reliability and performance of aircraft transparencies in military service. Aircr Eng Aerosp Technol 36(12):386–402. doi:10.1108/eb033958

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rajpal PS, Shishodia KS, Sekhon GS (2006) An artificial neural network for modeling reliability, availability and maintainability of a repairable system. Reliab Eng Syst Saf 91(7):809–819. doi:10.1016/j.ress.2005.08.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz-Torres JA, Zhang J, Zapata E, Pennathur A, Rhode R, McCleskey C, Cowen M (2010) A reliability, maintainability, and safety model to support the assessment of space vehicles. Int J Qual Reliab Manag 27(4):486–504. doi:10.1108/02656711011035165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen A, Guo J, Li J (2014) Research on system level maintenance operation sample allocation method validation. In: Wang J (ed) Proceedings of the first symposium on aviation maintenance and management-volume II. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 117–124. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-54233-6_12

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sikos L, Kleme J (2010) Evaluation and assessment of reliability and availability software for securing an uninterrupted energy supply. Clean Technol Environ Policy 12(2):137–146. doi:10.1007/s10098-009-0243-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Srinivasan NK (2012) Availability estimation using simulation for military systems. Int J Qual Reliab Manag 29(8):937–952. doi:10.1108/02656711211270360

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sukhwinder SJ, Bikram JS (2014) An approach to enhance availability of repairable systems: a case study of SPMs. Int J Qual Reliab Manag 31(9):1031–1051. doi:10.1108/IJQRM-02-2014-0016

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thornton J (2001) Maintainability drives Fort Worth’s joint strike fighter design: blending simulation and ingenuity, Lockheed Martin up-ends design methods in $320 billion program. Assem Autom 21(3):204–209. doi:10.1108/EUM0000000005617

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsarouhas HP (2014) Maintainability analysis in the yogurt industry. Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag 6(2):119–128. doi:10.1007/s13198-014-0254-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsarouhas PH, Fourlas G (2015a) Reliability and maintainability analysis of a robotic system for industrial applications: a case study. Int J Perform Eng 11(5):453–462

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsarouhas PH, Fourlas G (2015b) Maintainability analysis of the mobile robot. In: 16th IEEE International symposium on computational intelligence and informatics, 19–21 November, Budapest, Hungary, pp 47–52. doi:10.1109/CINTI.2015.7382951

  • Tsarouhas PH, Fourlas G (2015c) Mission reliability estimation of mobile robot system. Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag 7(2):220–228

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Upadhya KS, Srinivasan NK (2003) Availability of weapon systems with multiple failures and logistic delays. Int J Qual Reliab Manag 20(7):836–846. doi:10.1108/02656710310491249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vassilakis E, Besseris G (2009) An application of TQM tools at a maintenance division of a large aerospace company. J Qual Maint Eng 15(1):31–46. doi:10.1108/13552510910943877

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wan Mohd SWH (2012) Maintainability prediction for aircraft mechanical components utilizing aircraft feedback information. Appl Mech Mater 225(8):528–533. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.225.528

    Google Scholar 

  • Wani MF, Gandhi OP (1999) Development of maintainability index for mechanical systems. Reliab Eng Syst Saf 65(3):259–270. doi:10.1016/S0951-8320(99)00004-6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiaodong T, Jing Q, Guanjun L, Kehong L (2013) Health-state evaluation for aerospace systems. Aircr Eng Aerosp Technol 85(2):115–125. doi:10.1108/00022661311302724

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Younus B, Iqbal A (2011) Leveraging quality function deployment to enhance the productivity of an aviation maintenance repair and overhaul organization. In: Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE ICQR, pp 115–119. doi:10.1109/ICQR.2011.6031692

  • Zhou D, Kang L, Chuan L (2013) A virtual reality-based maintenance time measurement methodology for complex products. Assem Autom 33(3):221–230. doi:10.1108/AA-12-2013-048

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge financial support provided by the research committee of the Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia under Grant SMF/DL/200116-1/01.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Supply Chain Management and Logistics, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Kanellopoulou 2, 60100, Katerini, Hellas, Greece

    Panagiotis Tsarouhas

  2. Department of Aircraft Maintenance Engineering, Hellenic Airforce, Ministry of Defence, Athens, Greece

    Maria Makrygianni

Authors
  1. Panagiotis Tsarouhas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maria Makrygianni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Panagiotis Tsarouhas.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tsarouhas, P., Makrygianni, M. A framework for maintenance and combat readiness management of a jet fighter aircraft. Int J Syst Assur Eng Manag 8 (Suppl 2), 1895–1909 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13198-016-0481-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13198-016-0481-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation