Optimized manpower capacity planning model for aviation industry

Abstract

Aircraft Maintenance is a combination of complicated tasks that ensures the safety of the technicians, airworthiness of the aircraft as well as the safety of the passengers where the workload is subdivide as base and line maintenance. Traditionally, the prearrangement of the maintenance manpower supply in accordance with the scheduled maintenance tasks is been based on staff experience and been performed manually which is time consuming as well as an ineffective criterion. Therefore, formulating an optimized framework with the purpose of allocating the right amount of workforce in the right combination of skills and experience levels to eradicate any shortfalls or surpluses is essential for the continuation of efficient and effective maintenance in any organization. Hence, this research mainly aims at devising of a manpower planning model for the aircraft maintenance industry. Sri Lanka Air Force and Sri Lankan airlines that are the predominant aviation operators of the country reviewed as case studies in identifying the correlation between maintenance manpower requirement with respect to aircraft flying hour demands. In order to ascertain intended outcome, interdependency between an aircraft total maintenance deployment, its operational flying ratio would have identified, and subsequently the maintenance friendliness factor for the individual aircraft type would have determined. The ultimate result of this research would provide a solid framework to eradicate disparities between the current available and the actual required manpower quantities for maintenance events. Moreover, the proposed model would facilitate the aviation industry in solving capacity-planning issues related to manpower scheduling and requirement, and to find feasible roistering and task scheduling of shift workers that minimize peak fatigue while satisfying their days off demands.