978-1-4577-0557-1/12/$26.00 ©2012 IEEE 1 How Aircraft Operators Can Benefit from PHM Techniques Leonardo Ramos Rodrigues EMBRAER S.A. Avenida Brigadeiro Faria Lima, 2170, Putim, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brasil, 12227-901 +55 12 39278245 leonardo.ramos@embraer.com.br Takashi Yoneyama; Cairo Lúcio Nascimento Júnior ITA, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50, Vila das Acácias, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brasil, 12228-900 +55 12 39475996 {takashi, cairo}@ita.br Abstract—Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) techniques can provide a wide range of benefits to aircraft operators. Since the primary goal of PHM systems is to estimate the health state of components and equipments, as well as forecasting their Remaining Useful Life (RUL), they are often closely associated with the reduction in the number of unscheduled maintenance tasks. Indeed, the avoidance of unscheduled maintenance is a very important factor, but this technology may potentially lead to considerable further savings in other fields. Scheduled maintenance planning, improved troubleshooting, inventory management optimization and intelligent aircraft allocation to routes are other examples of how the operators can benefit from PHM techniques. These benefits 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 these benefits in terms of the mentioned competitive advantages to aircraft operators. Although PHM systems can offer benefits to other members of the aeronautical sector such as aircraft manufacturers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), this work will focus on the aircraft operator’s point of view. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................1 2. PHM BASIC CONCEPTS..................................................2 3. REDUCTION OF UNSCHEDULED MAINTENANCE TASKS 3 4. SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE PLANNING ........................3 5. IMPROVED TROUBLESHOOTING ....................................5 6. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT OPTIMIZATION .................5 7. INTELLIGENT AIRCRAFT ALLOCATION TO ROUTES .....6 8. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS ................................................7 REFERENCES ........................................................................7 BIOGRAPHIES .......................................................................8 1. INTRODUCTION Aircraft operators have shown growing interest in Prognostics and Health Monitoring (PHM) systems due to the benefits and the competitive advantages that these systems can provide. The primary goal of a Prognostics and Health Monitoring system is to estimate the health state and forecast when a failure is expected to occur. It comprises a set of techniques which use analysis of measurements to assess the health condition and predict impending failures of monitored equipment or system. In order to demonstrate the applicability of PHM techniques for different aircraft systems, many works have been presented showing the health monitoring of a wide set of components such as hydraulic actuators [1], structural systems [2], auxiliary power units [3], batteries [4], etc. In most of these works, the usage of the PHM system leads to avoidance of unscheduled maintenance. PHM techniques can also provide other opportunities to improve the efficiency of maintenance teams. The scheduled maintenance planning could be positively affected by the information generated by a PHM system [5], [6], [7]. When a failure occurs, identifying the failed component sometimes is not a simple task. If PHM information is available, it can be used as a support tool for a faster and more accurate troubleshooting. It is possible that the benefits provided by the implementation of a PHM system are not restricted to the maintenance issues. Other departments of aircraft operators may convert the information obtained from a PHM system into knowledge in order to promote improvements to their processes. Inventory management is a good example of an aircraft operator activity that is not directly related to maintenance but can potentially be optimized when PHM information is available. 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. PHM information can also be used in order to allocate aircraft to routes. Aircraft that present higher degradation levels – and consequently a higher probability of failure – should be assigned to routes that are closer to the maintenance centers, minimizing the consequences of a failure event. The different benefits that aircraft operators can obtain from a PHM system are illustrated in Figure 1.