An Allocation Technique of MMH/FH for an Aircraft

Abstract

Maintenance of any item during its life cycle plays vital role in determining the effectiveness of the item to customer and the total life cycle cost associated with it, in the long run, till a decision on discard is accorded. It is imperative to minimize the MDT [Mean Down Time] of any item/system so as to achieve the on-demand availability, as high as possible. Designing for maintainability in coherence with functionality and reliability requirements would eventually determine the operational effectiveness of the item. Especially, in the case of fighter aircraft, where availability is required to be ensured to the maximum possible, which is one of the critical factors in determining the battle strike capability of the armed forces. In other words, Maintenance Man Hour per Flight Hour [MMH/FH] is required to be as low as possible, so as to ensure the on-demand availability of the fighting platform. In this aspect, every stages of the design should cater for the target MMH/FH. The MMH/FH is required to be allocated from the user requirements to the systems, through sub-systems to the LRUs. This paper is aimed at, presenting one of the methodologies to allocate the MMH/FH goal to the systems/sub-systems/LRUs, considering all the applicable factors of influence, during the design stage. The proposed Allocation Model has been validated, using a typical fighter aircraft, ensuring correctness and completeness.