Future MRO Concepts and Strategies
Manching/DLR
The research area Future MRO Concepts and Strategies develops and assesses new maintenance approaches and evaluates their implications for novel vehicle design concepts. Here, a special focus is on the introduction of condition-based maintenance philosophies (with emphasis on post-prognosis planning techniques). Our vision is to enable automated maintenance tasks through remote condition monitoring and to incorporate maintenance information in early-stage vehicle design processes.
A central capability in this research area is a discrete-event simulation that allows us to incorporate different maintenance-related stakeholder perspectives (e.g. operations, maintenance servicing, and spare parts management) for a comparative analysis of different maintenance regimes. This simulation allows us to identify minimum performance criteria for automated diagnosis/prognosis solutions and to estimate the impact for involved stakeholders.
Furthermore, through our methodologies and established industry procedures, we are able to determine maintenance requirements for novel vehicle designs with limited information. These insights can then be used to improve maintainability factors for defined design solutions.
Lastly, we strive to spread our knowledge beyond the aviation industry into other transport domains, e.g. the railway sector. As these industries face similar challenges in their pursuit to reduce maintenance burdens, we believe our aviation expertise can be a vital contributor for their success.
Key Topics
Maintenance Strategy Design and Evaluation
- Design of simulation environments for maintenance planning optimisation
- Development and evaluation of post-prognostic maintenance strategies
- guidance and support for implementing advanced maintenance philosophies
Maintenance Implications for New Technologies
- Reliability-centered maintenance concepts applied to next-generation systems
- Maintenance considerations for early-stage aircraft system designs
- Analysis of current maintenance practices and the development of improved methods
Regulatory and Certifiability Pathways for Novel MRO Systems
- Investigation of novel maintenance concepts and technological prerequisites
- Definition of regulatory requirements for automated health management techniques
- Development and evaluation of new and certifiable maintenance programs