Best practices in aircraft engine MRO : a study of commercial and military systems

Maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) is a key activity in the lifecycle of an aircraft and its engines. Because of the typically long operational lifetimes expected from these costly assets, MRO is necessary to maintain these systems in a safe and functional condition, so that they can fulfill the operational role that they were designed for. The MRO system can be understood as a complex socio-technical system organized and operated to achieve aircraft availability and operation safety at minimal cost. As a complex socio-technical system, it consists of various layers: The environmental context, organizational structure, management, infrastructure, workers and the technical core. Focusing primarily on infrastructure, management, and manpower, this thesis seeks to identify best practices found within each layer by examining current practices in both commercial and military aircraft engine MRO, as well as surveying potentially useful concepts from related fields to propose how they can be applied to aircraft engine MRO. Among the issues presented are outsourcing, transportation, maintenance scheduling, inventory management, organization culture and human factors.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Choo, Boon Seh, 1979-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Charles P. Coleman.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17761

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/17761