Multi-skill manpower planning in aircraft hangar maintenance scheduling problem

This paper addresses the problem of maintenance scheduling and staffing at an aircraft heavy maintenance service company. The objective is to establish an integrated aircraft maintenance schedule and maintenance technicians’ rosters to fulfil different maintenance requests while minimizing the overall tardiness cost and labor cost. Upon receiving the maintenance requests, the hangar planner has to determine if the maintenance company is capable to serve the aircraft within the planning period, then allocate the parking stands and staying time of each aircraft in the hangar for the subsequent maintenance operations. The overall maintenance task of each incoming aircraft is divided into multiple sub-tasks with precedence relations due to the complexity. Each sub-task of the incoming aircraft requires specific maintenance skills, and a team of sufficient qualified technicians. To tackle the proposed problem, we present a mixed-integer linear programming formulation, which incorporates the geometric factors, blockage of movement within hangar as week as the multi-skilled manpower planning in the model. Afterwards, the computational studies reveal the managerial insights regarding the impact of having more technicians to fulfil the demanding maintenance requests and heavy maintenance tasks.