How Aircraft Operators Can Benefit from PHM Techniques Big Sky - Montana 2012 IEEE Aerospace Conference Leonardo Ramos Rodrigues EMBRAER S.A., São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil Takashi Yoneyama; Cairo Lúcio Nascimento Júnior ITA, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Contents  Introduction  PHM Basic Concepts  Potential Benefits Unscheduled Maintenance Scheduled Maintenance Troubleshooting Inventory Management Aircraft Allocation to Routes  Final Considerations 2

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Introduction  The application of PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) techniques can potentially provide a wide range of benefits to aircraft operators.  PHM systems are often closely associated with the reduction in the number of unscheduled maintenance tasks, but they may potentially lead to considerable savings in other fields.  Scheduled maintenance, troubleshooting, inventory management and aircraft allocation to routes are examples of how operators can use PHM information in order to optimize their processes. 3

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Introduction  The use of PHM information may lead to important competitive advantages such as reduction in operational cost and increase in fleet reliability.  The purpose of this work is to enumerate and explore qualitatively some of the PHM benefits in terms of the mentioned competitive advantages. 4

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES PHM Basic Concepts 5  The main goal of the research in PHM is to estimate the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) and health state of equipments and systems.  It comprises a set of techniques which use analysis of measurements to assess health and predict impending failure of a monitored equipment.

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Unscheduled Maintenance 6  System failures are preceded by degradation indicators such as wear, corrosion, surface damage, vibration, noise, overheating, leakage, cracking, etc.  PHM algorithms correlate these degradation indicators to failure modes and quantify the resulting damage to the monitored equipment. A degradation index is generated.  RUL estimation can are used by maintenance planners to anticipate maintenance actions and fix the degraded monitored system before a failure occurs.

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Unscheduled Maintenance 7  Increase in Fleet Availability: Unscheduled maintenance actions are replaced by scheduled tasks, planned and performed with minimum impact on the operation (avoid AOG = Aircraft On Ground). Reduction in the number of delays and cancellation events.  Reduction in Operational Cost: A failed equipment tends to require a more expensive repair than a degraded but still functional one. Failed equipments may cause damages to other equipments, increasing the cost required to repair the whole system. Reduction in cost of compensations offered to the delayed or cancelled flight passengers (meals, hotel rooms, phone calls, etc.). Preservation of intanglible assets such as client satisfaction, client loyalty, company reputation.

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Scheduled Maintenance 8  A PHM system is a powerful support tool to support the implementation of a CBM program.  Maintenance planners may use RUL estimation to schedule maintenance interventions.  Full implementation of a CBM program must be supported by a certification process and must follow certifying authority recommendations.

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Scheduled Maintenance 9  Increase in Fleet Availability: Using Condition Based Maintenance strategy, the number of maintenance interventions is the minimum necessary to maintain the system. The aircraft availability is optimized.  Reduction in Operational Cost: Reduction in the number of maintenance interventions reduces the labor cost required to maintain the aircraft during its whole operating life.

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Troubleshooting  Maintenance teams may use PHM information to perform a faster and more accurate troubleshooting process during the turnaround time (time between two consecutive flights).  Degradation level associated to each system component can be used as a rank to establish a priority for functional tests.  A potential benefit that a PHM system can provide to this procedure is the automation or even the elimination of the some of the routine checks and inspections. 10

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Troubleshooting  Increase in Fleet Availability: If troubleshooting process uses PHM information, failure root-cause can be identified faster, and the aircraft will be ready for the next flight in a shorter period of time.  Reduction in Operational Cost: PHM systems allow maintenance teams to accurately identify a faulty component without running a series of functional tests in order to isolate the fault. 11

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Inventory Optimization  Inventory owners must establish an inventory policy that balance the requirements of high levels of service for unscheduled maintenance events and the budget constraints of keeping a high level of inventory at the warehouses.  The number of spare parts to be acquired and the best moment to place a new order can be determined based on the estimated probability of failure of each monitored component. 12

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Inventory Optimization  Increase in Fleet Availability: Aircraft operators are able to strategically distribute spare parts among maintenance centers and guarantee that a spare part will be available in the right place. Reduction in parts transport time.  Reduction in Operational Cost: The ideal number of spare parts to be acquired and the best moment to place new orders can be determined based on the estimated probability of failure given by a PHM system. Reduction in inventory level keeping the required service level. 13

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Aircraft Allocation to Routes  Operators can allocate aircraft presenting lower RUL – and consequently higher probabilities of failure – to routes that pass through or are closer to the maintenance centers location. 14

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Aircraft Allocation to Routes  Increase in Fleet Availability: Probability of a failure event to happen in a location far from the spare parts can be reduced by using PHM information. It reduces the mean time to repair, increasing fleet availability.  Reduction in Operational Cost: Intelligent aircraft allocation to routes potentially reduces the distance between the spare parts and faulty aircraft locations. It represents a reduction in logistic costs. 15

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Final Considerations  This paper presented an overview of some of the benefit opportunities and competitive advantages that a PHM system may provide considering different aircraft operators activities.  It can be noticed that the information generated by a PHM system is valuable itself, but aircraft operators can considerably increase the potential benefits provided by a PHM system when its information is combined with other information sources such as maintenance centers location, equipments lead time and FMECA (Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis) data. 16

HOW AIRCRAFT OPERATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM PHM TECHNIQUES Thank You! 17 Leonardo Ramos Rodrigues Takashi Yoneyama Cairo Lúcio Nascimento Júnior