Abstract for: Analysing Delays and Disruptions in Aircraft Heavy Maintenance

It is challenging to plan and manage heavy maintenance services in the aviation industry due to large amounts of resources involved and complex interactions between them. Furthermore, during the aircraft heavy maintenance process, unexpected damages and discrepancies may arise that must be solved by programming unscheduled tasks. The dynamism of the process and the uncertainty caused by unscheduled tasks require the adjustment of a maintenance service plan constantly, which might impact on delivery times, process costs and even the quality of the maintenance service. To address this problem, it is proposed to use System Dynamics as a tool to understand and analyse complex and dynamic systems. In this paper the interrelationship of scheduled and unscheduled tasks and its impact on delays and disruptions during aircraft heavy maintenance are explained and analysed designing a causal loop diagram. Additionally, the effect of occurrence and discovery of discrepancies and damages on unscheduled tasks is presented using a system dynamics model, which also highlights the relevance of workforce allocation for the project performance.