Journal of Advanced Transportation, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 153-182 sadvanced-transportcom ‘izing Fleet Availability. under the Presence of Flight and Maintenance Requirements George Kozanidis Every aireraf, military or ivilian, must be grounded for maintenance after it has completed a certain number of fight hhours since its last maintenance check. In this paper, we address the problem of deciding which available aircraft should fly and for how long, and which grounded aircraft should perform maintenance operations, in a group of airraft that comprise a combat unit. The objective is to achieve maximum availability of the unit over the plannis We develop a multiobjective optimization model for this, problem, and we illustrate its application and sofution on a real life instance drawn from the Hellenic Air Foree, We also propose two heuristic approaches for solving large seale instances of the problem. We eonchide with a discussion that ives insight into the behavior of the model and of the hheurstis, based on the analysis of the results obtained. Keywords: fleet availablity, flight and maintenance planning, ‘multiobjective mixed integer linear program, military arera. 1. Introduction The Air Force and the commercial aitline industry have several similarities, but also exhibit significant differences. Safety is the most important factor in both industries; however, while maximization of profit is naturally the overall objective in the commercial airline industry, ‘maximization of the readiness to respond to external threats is the main objective in the Air Force. Therefore, military aireraft operational problems should generally be treated differently than traditional problems arising in the commercial airline industry. In this paper, We address the problem of the joint flight and ‘maintenance planning (FMP) of military aireraft. The FMP problem poses the question of which available aircraft should fly and for how George Kozanidis, Systems Optimization Laboratory, Department. of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University of Thessaly, Greece Received: April 2007 Accepted: July 2156 G Kozanidis Jong, and which grounded aireraft. should perform maintenance operations, in a group of aireraft that comprise a combat unit. The objective is to achieve maximum availability of the unit over the planning horizon. The FMP problem is a very important decision making problem in the Air Foree. Although it involves both operations and maintenance decisions, we treat it as a unified operational problem. The safety standards used by Air Force organizations of different countries are often similar, due to the fact that they are usually preseribed by the aircraft manufacturer and there are a few such manufacturers worldwide. Each aireraft must be grounded for a routine maintenance check as soon as it completes a certain number of flight hours since its last maintenance check. There are also restrictions regarding calendar (as opposed to flight) time and number of takeoffs, but these are rarely used in practice, because the flight time restrictions usually apply sooner. The FMP problem addressed in this paper was motivated by a case study in the Hellenic Air Force (HAF). The HAF is primarily responsible for Greece’s national air defense. It is split into four Divisions: Division of Tactical Air Foree, Division of Ait Support, Division of Air Training, and a fourth division responsible for other services. All units responsible for air operations and missions belong to the Division of Tactical Ait Force. Further down the organizational structure of the Division of ‘Tactical Air Force, we find the Combat Wings, which are subdivided into squadrons. To address the FMP problem, we formulate it as a multiobjective mixed integer linear program, The objective functions of this model ‘maximize the unit’s readiness to respond to extemal threats. Due to the fact that there is a large number of parameters that increase the complexity of the problem and the time needed to reach an optimal solution, we also propose two heuristic approaches for the solution of large-scale instances. We explore the behavior of the model and of the heuristics, and we illustrate their application on a real life instance drawn from the HAF. ‘The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we describe in detail the FMP problem and we review the related literature. In Section 3, we present the mathematical model that was developed for solution. The application of this model on a real-life instance drawn from the HAF is presented in Section 4. Section 5 presents two heuristic approaches that can be utilized for solving large instances of the problem and Section 6 concludes this work.A Maltiobjective Model 157 2. Problem Description and Background Information ‘The problem that we study arises as a routine operations ‘management problem in a typical Combat Wing of the HAF. This wing consists of three squadrons, each of which serves as the base for several airerafl of various types. At the beginning of each planning horizon, the wing command issues flight requirements for each squadron and period combination. These requirements denote the total time that the aircraft of | the corresponding squadron should fly in each period of the planning horizon. They are expressed as target values, from which only small deviations are permitted. Separate requirements are issued for each aireraft type, since different aircraft types have different light capabilities and maintenance needs. Therefore, the model introduced in this paper was developed for use on a specific aircraft type. Of course, this model can be applied repeatedly until all plans have been issued, if ‘more than one aircraft type is involved. For each specific aircraft, we define its residual flight time as the total remaining time that this aircraft can fly until it has to undergo a ‘maintenance check. This time is also referred to as “bank time” in the related military literature (US DoA, 2000). The residual flight time of an aircraft is positive if and only if this aircraft is available to fly. Similarly, wwe define the residual maintenance time of a non-available aircraft as the total remaining time that this aircraft needs in order to complete its maintenance check. The residual maintenance time of an aircraft is positive if and only if this aircraft is undergoing a maintenance check (and is therefore not available to fly). At any time, the total residual flight time of a squadron is equal to the sum of the residual flight times of all the aircraft that belong to this squadron. The total residual flight time of the wing is equal to the sum of the residual flight times of its squadrons. Clearly, there exist many possible combinations of individual aircraft residual flight times that can result in the same total squadron or wing residual flight time. For the maintenance needs of the wing, there exists a station, responsible for providing service to the aircraft of the wing. This station has certain space (also referred to as “dock space”) and time capacity capabilities. Given the flight requirements for each squadron and period combination, and the physical constraints that stem from the capacity of the maintenance station, the objective is to issue a flight and maintenance plan for each individual aircraft in each squadron of the wing, so that Some appropriate measure of effectiveness is optimized.G Kozanidis Maximizing the readiness to respond to external threats is the most appropriate measure of effectiveness for this application. This readiness is usually defined as the total number of aircraft that are available to fly: however, this number alone gives no information about the way that the total residual flight time of the wing is distributed across the squadrons and the individual aircraft. With this in mind, the objective functions of the proposed model maximize the minimum number of available aircraft of the wing and of each squadron, respectively, and the minimum residual flight time of the wing and of each squadron, respectively, over all periods. ‘The HAF and many other Air Force organizations solve the FMP problem empirically using a 2-dimensional graphical tool called the “aircraft flowchart”, shown in Figure 1. The vertical axis of this flowchart represents residual flight time measured in some appropriate unit, and the horizontal axis represents the indices of the available aircraft in nondecreasing order of their residual flight times, I being the index of the aircraft with the smallest and V being the index of the aircraft with the largest residual flight time, where V’is the total number of available aircraft. Consider the line segment connecting the origin with the point with coordinates (V, ¥), where Y is the maximum time that an aireraft can fly between two consecutive maintenance checks, often referred to as “phase interval” in the related military literature, This line segment is also referred to as “the diagonal”. By mapping the available aircraft of each squadron on an aircraft flowchart, we can visualize the total availability of the unit. To describe the smoothness of the distribution of the total residual flight time among the aircraft, we use a “total deviation index”. This index is equal to the sum of the vertical distances (deviations) of each point mapping a single aircraft from the diagonal. The smaller this sum is, the smoother the distribution of the total residual flight time. Ideally. the total deviation index is equal to zero, when all points lie on the diagonal. When issuing the individual aircraft plans, the intention is to keep each point as close to the diagonal as possible, in order to keep the total deviation index as small as possible, To date, this technique has been used to issue the flight and maintenance plans of individual aireraft in the Combat Wing that we studied. The research literature dealing with airline operations is quite rich. Most of the published research in this area, however, has been directed towards problems in the commercial airline industry, which have 0, the auxiliary binary decision variable Pym inA Maltiobjective Model 165 constraint set (20) is foreed to zero value. Then, constraint set (21) forces Gny= 10 2610 if Ygy ~ Xs Sine this implies that the residual flight time of this aireraft drops to zero during period s. Simitarly, constraint sets (22) and (23) ensure that an aircraft becomes available as soon as its residual maintenance time drops to zero. If gu > 0, the auxiliary decision variable ray: in constraint set (22) is foreed to zero value. Then, constraint set (23) fOrCeS apyes tO LHF gins = Figs Since this implies that the residual maintenance time of this aireraft drops to zero during petiod Z Vane & Yams IM, 1 =LoeeolNals T+ ey Bene S Gadi), Hs Mly 1 =HyoslNo P= Dog (25) Sot SX neo, 1AM, =Dy Nae = Deol 26) Yoana, 11 =T|Mly = Dou P +1 en fant Gaal ~ dns MAM ly lMal t= Zoo + engy St Sts ME {Nght = Ayal 29) Faw Sas Nolet = yon (30) Constraint set (24) states that the residual flight time of an aireraft can not exceed Y, and ensures that it will be zero whenever this aircraft is not available, Similarly, constraint set (25) states that the residual ‘maintenance time of an aircraft can not exceed G, and ensures that it will be zero whenever this aircraft is available. Constraint set (26) imposes an ‘upper bound on the maximum time that an aircraft can fly during a single time period. Such a restriction is usually present due to technical reasons. Constraint set (27) imposes a lower bound on the residual flight time of each available aircraft, and constraint set (28) imposes a lower bound on the residual maintenance time of each non-available aircraft. These constraints are introduced to eliminate the situation in which an aireraft has negligible residual flight or maintenance time. Constraint set 29) ensures that the total time that an aircraft flies during a single period does not exceed its residual flight time at the beginning of the same period Similarly, constraint set (30) ensures that the total time that the ‘maintenance crew works on a particular aircraft during a single period166 G Kozanidis does not exeeed the residual maintenance time of this aireraft at the beginning of the same period. yy, = Alyy, 8 Lye MA, ep Yount = Yue 0 =Lye-AM|, 0 G2) Brat = Fons LM, Nn (33) Constraint sets (31), (32) and (33) are used to initialize the state of the system at the first period of the planning horizon. When an aircraft exits or enters the maintenance station at the first period of the planning horizon, its residual flight and maintenance times are updated directly: therefore, variables dy», and fy are never Used. Nant Hts 205 1 = 1M, 1 =H ys sos|Nile t= Ga) Ves Sime 2 OS (Mj. 11 =LssssolNile Loo + 1 G5) Poivs ns Ge Bitar, me AM, 1 =L..1Nub 6) ys Ayes fone BiNATY, MM =H.) slNs GB) Finally, constraints (34), (35) and (36), (37) are the nonnegativity and integrality constraints, respectively. Having introduced the proposed FMP model, itis useful to illustrate its similarities and differences with the models developed by Sgaslik (1994) and Pippin (1998). Sgaslik (1994) develops two models for the FMP problem which are solved separately. The first is called the Yearly Planning Model and is utilized to provide the maintenance schedule and the flight hour distribution. The second model is called the Short Term Planning Model. It takes as input the maintenance schedule produced by the Yearly Planning Model and it returns the mission assignments of the aireraft The main characteristic of the Yearly Planning Model is that it does not maximize the fleet availability, but it minimizes the cost associated With the violation of some of the problem’s constraints (e.g., those referring to the required flight time, the maintenance capacity and the flight time of each individual aireraft), while also maintaining a givenA Maltiobjective Model 167 lower bound on the fleet availabitity. On the other hand, the FMP model introduced above maximizes the fleet availability, without allowing violation of these constraints. The Short Term Planning Model goes one step further, by assigning aircraft to specitie missions based on the requirements of each mission and the characteristics of each aircraft, \while in the above FMP model, the flight load is expressed in terms of the total light time that must be flown collectively by the aireraft in each period of the planning horizon, Pippin (1998) adopts the aircraft flowchart methodology (US Doa, 2000) and minimizes the cost associated with the deviations of the individual aircraft residual flight times from their diagonal-line target values, but does not incorporate the maintenance aspect of the problem and the apparent difficulties that this introduces. A quadratic formulation similar to the one that we discuss in Section 5.1 is also developed, which does not either take into consideration the constraints imposed by the limited capacity of the maintenance station 4. Application of the Model In this section, we illustrate the application of the model on a problem instance drawn from the Combat Wing that we studied, with 3 squadrons, each squadron having 8 aircraft. The planning horizon is 6 monthly periods. At the beginning of the planning horizon, there are 3 aircraft at the maintenance station, one from each squadron. Table 1 shows the required flight times for each squadron and period combination, Table 2 shows the time capacity of the maintenance station in each period. This capacity may vary from period to period, due to personnel vacations, holidays, etc. Table 3 shows the residual flight and ‘maintenance times of the aircraft in the first period of the planning horizon, In Table 3 (and Table 5 introduced later), bold-style entries denote maintenance times of non-available aircraft and plain-style entries denote flight times of available aircraft. For example, the residual ‘maintenance times of the three non-available aircraft in the first period are gist = 320, gizi = 190 and gss; = 130, respectively. OF course, the ‘maintenance times of an available aircraft and the flight times of a non- available aircraft are always equal to 0, The values of the other problem parameters are G~ 320 hours, Y= 300 hours, C= 3, Xge = 50 hours, Yip = 0.1 hours, Gyuy = 0.1 hours, L = 0.95 and U= 1.05.168 Table 1. Required flight times in hours (S,,) 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 150 165 «14014031 M2 135 165145 160160165, 3 165 145135 150160150. Table 2. Time capacity of the maintenance station in hours B, 425 47560470 46080 ‘Table 3. Initial residual flight and maintenance times in hours nor!) 1203 4 5 6 7 8 320.248 «171 «48 ~«105 «216 292 134 106 199 77° 177-273 «39 «298-210 162 92 «13018-28829 40145 For the solution of the problem, we apply the weighted sums approach (see Steuer, 1986). Although many other alternative approaches exist (see Steuer, 1986 and Ehrgott, 2005), we chose this approach because the solutions that it retums ate guaranteed to be nondominated (Steuer, 1986). Thus, itis a good choice for illustrating the application of the FMP model to the reader, which is our main aim in this work. The user should keep in mind that this approach may only return very few of the existing nondominated solutions, even if the weights are diversified. This could make the complete solution of a multiobjective problem quite hard. With this in mind, we consider strictly po jghts wi, wa, ws and ws such that; + 12 +13 +384 = I. For scaling reasons, we multiply the first objective with ¥/2 = 150, the second objective with [M\(¥/2) = 450, and the fourth objective with [M| = 3. This is because increasing 2, or z; of 2, by | is on the average equivalent to increasing z, by ¥/2,A Maltiobjective Model 169 |M(2/2) and [M|, respectively. This way, we get a single criterion problem with objective Max 150012) + 450w:25 + w3z) + 3yizu. Four different sets of weights were considered, ic., (0.85, 0.05, 0.05, 0.05), (0.6, 0.3, 0.05, 0.05), (0.45, 0.45, 0.085, 0.05) and (0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25). ‘The order of the weight values shown above is not important, sinee every possible combination was tested for each set. Since the number of distinct weight combinations that we can form for each of these sets is 4, 12, 6 and 1, respectively, the total number of distinct weight combinations that was considered is equal to 23. In general, as the number of weight combinations considered increases, the number of nondominated solutions that the approach will find is expected to increase, too, Table 4 shows the nondominated solutions that were obtained from the solution of the problem with these 23 weight combinations. Only three nondominated solutions were obtained, which may be partly due to the fact that the weights are not extensively diversified and the range of their possible values is not very large. The actual number of distinet efficient solutions obtained was greater than three, since efficient solutions that retumed the same objective value combinations were not always identical. This is a main consequence of the fact that a stight change of a given flight and maintenance plan can produce a different solution with the same objective function values. The ideal values (see Ehrgott, 2005) of the four criteria are 23, 7, 3380.25 and 979.5, respectively. The first solution of Table 4 gives the ideal values for criteria 2), 2; and z,. The second solution gives higher value for criterion 2, but lower for criterion 2s, providing this way a tradeoff. The third solution gives the ideal values for eriteria 2, and 2, bbut lower values for zs and 2,, providing a different tradeoff. The user should always keep in mind that alternative nondominated solutions may exist that give better compromise between the four objectives. Although the optimal value of the second objective is 7 in all three solutions, the ‘minimum mumber of available aircraft in each squadron decreases if we do not use z> as an objective function of the model, For example, the weight combination (w1, w:, ws, v3) = (0.333, 0, 0.333, 0.333) returns the solution (2), 23, 2. 24) = (22, 6, 3335.25, 979.5) which is dominated by the second solution of Table 4. This supports the claim that we made in Section 3 regarding the potential omission of one of the model's objective functions. In order to give a sense of the way in which the results are obtained, wwe show in Table 5 the optimal flight and maintenance plan of the first170 G Kozanidis airerafl of the first squadron, for the combination with 1, = 0.25. More specifically, the first row of this table shows the planned flight and maintenance times of this aireraft for each of the six periods, and the second row its corresponding residual flight and maintenance times. We see that this aireraft has residual maintenance time equal to 320 hours at the beginning of the planning horizon. After undergoing maintenance operations for 10S and 215 hours during the first and second petiod, respectively, it completes its maintenance service and exits the maintenance station at the beginning of the third period, with residual flight time equal to 300 hours. After remaining idle during the third and the fourth period and flying for SO hours in each of the next ‘two periods, it is left with residual flight time equal to 200 hours at the end of the planning horizon, All| decision variables take appropriate values to ensure the correctness of the model. For example, aii = diz O and ayys ~ ayy ~ As ~ Ais ~ a7 ~ 1, Since this aireraft is unavailable in the first qwo periods and available in the next five ones. Additionally, dys ~ 1, since this aireraft exits the maintenance station at the beginning of the third period. Table 6 shows the optimal fleet availability of the ‘wing and of each individual squadron, expressed both as number of available aircraft and as total residual flight time. Once the minimum fleet availability over all periods has been maximized, the model can be used to find a solution in which the total availability over all periods is ‘maximized, too. ‘Table 4. Nondominated solutions of the problem, 1 21 7 3389.25 9795 a 2 7 3335.25 979.5 3 B 1 2903 856.75 Table 5. Flight and maintenance plan of an individual aircraft 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 iulhin vig | 320 215 = 300300 300250200A Maltiobjective Model 7 ‘Table 6. Optimal fleet availability a 7 = 7 : T wala 3 7 , 7 ‘ ‘ Teal ae es as TT Mat et | nim sis ues tasras ros2s tise 5. Heuristic Approaches ‘The model of the FMP problem that we introduced in Section 3 is a mixed integer linear program. The problem instance of Section 4 contains 2628 fimetional constraints, $76 continuous and 726 binary decision variables, not counting the decision variables whose values are known at the first period of the planning horizon and decision variables 21, Z, 25 and z,, For the solution of the problem with each weight combination, we used AMPL/CPLEX (see Fourer et al., 2002), version 9.1 with default values, The average time that AMPL/CPLEX needed on a Pentium IV/2.SGHz processor to reach the optimal solution over the 23 weight combinations was approximately 1673 seconds. The minimum time was approximately 5 seconds and the maximum time 11687 seconds, This range of computational times for the solution of the weighted sums problem is quite large. When the same instance was solved using 21, 2, 25 and 2, a8 the unique objective, the computational times were approximately 1, 12, 12 and 6 seconds, respectively. Since the problem instance is always the same and only the objective function weights differ, this implies that certain combinations of weights and objectives seem to make the problem harder. An interesting question for further study is which these combinations are and what their exact influence on the computational time is, The above short computational study reveals that the size of the problem alone is not indicative of the computational effort needed to reach the optimal solution, While it may be possible to reach the optimal2 G Kozanidis solution fast in some cases, a much larger computational effort may be necessary in other ones. This implies that it is necessary to develop alternative intelligent approaches in order to be able to handle such difficulties that may arise. The two heuristic techniques that we developed and used to solve the FMP problem are the Aireraft Flowchart Heuristic and the Horizon Splitting Heuristic, which are described next. 5.1 Aircraft Flowehart Heuristic (AFH) The first heuristic procedure that we propose is based on the aircraft flowchart discussed in Section 2. Besides the fact that it provides a ‘means for the solution of large-scale FMP instances, this heuristic is also worthwhile studying because it enables us to evaluate the procedure ‘which is used at the moment for the production of military aireraft fight and maintenance plans not only in the HAF, but in many other Air Force “organizations, as Well The flowchart is a very simple but effective technique that has been used successfully by maintenance officers. When used properly, it prevents unnecessary backlog of scheduled maintenance inspections under normal conditions, it prevents a corresponding sudden surge in requirements for aireraft parts, it allows the unit maintenance officer a degree of control over individual aircraft hours flown, and it provides a graphical depiction of fire scheduled maintenance requirements, ‘The intuition behind the utilization of the aircraft flowchart is straightforward. By providing a wide range of equally spaced aircraft residual flight times, it establishes a smooth sequence that determines the order in which the aircraft should visit the maintenance station. This in tum prevents bottlenecks in the maintenance station and ensures it smooth utilization. Additionally, it ensures a fairly constant level of aircraft availability, which is also very important. Tn current practice, the aircraft flowchart is at best used as a graphical device by the officer responsible for issuing the flight and ‘maintenance plans. For example, in an aviation maintenance manual of the U.S. Army in which this flowchart is described (US Do, 2000), that officer is simply advised to utilize the flowchart by “flying the aireraft that are above the diagonal to get them down to the line” and “holding the aireraft that are below the diagonal to bring them up to the line”, No particular instructions are given on how to do this in the most effective way. It becomes clear that this procedure is highly subjective andA Maltiobjective Model 173 dependent on numerous minor decisions made by the user. With this motivation in mind, we outline next how this procedure can be implemented mote systematically The application of the AFH requires a number of minor decisions in each period of the planning horizon. The first such decision regards the allocation of the time capacity of the maintenance station to the grounded aircraft. After this decision has been made, the number of maintenance dock spaces that will become available in the next period is determined, as well. This information is important, because the production of the flight plans of the available aircraft depends strongly upon it. For example, an aireraft which should normally be grounded for maintenance in the next period, may have to be held back (fly less), if no empty dock space is available at the maintenance station. At each period of the planning horizon, the AFH makes the relevant decisions by computing a “priority index” for each squadron of the wing, Many different suggestions exist on how this index can be computed; in our study, we used as priority index the flight load of each squadron in period 1, divided by its total residual flight time at the beginning of the same period. A higher index value reveals that the squadron experiences heavier load with respect to its current availability; therefore, higher priority should be given to the grounded aircraft that belong to this squadron. Thus, the maintenance station gives priority to the aircraft that belong to the squadron with the highest priority index first, and so on. In order to free dock space, the maintenance station always works continuously on the same aircraft until its service is completed. Of course, if not enough time capacity exists, this service may be spread out over more than one periods. The priority index of each squadron is updated each time that one of its aircraft completes maintenance, to reflect the fact that this aircraft becomes available. This is done by adding ¥ hours to the total residual flight time of that squadron. Besides determining the order in which the aircraft will receive ‘maintenance service, the squadron priority indices are also used to determine the order in which the squadrons will occupy dock space that is emptied at the maintenance station. In tum, this determines the number of available aircraft in each squadron at the beginning of the next period. Once this information has been determined, the flight time of each available aircraft for the current period, , is determined by solving a simple nonlinear optimization problem, as described next, ‘Assume that the aircraft that will be available in period +1. are arranged in nondecreasing order of their residual flight times. The index174 G Kozanidis of the aireraft with the smallest residual flight time at the beginning of period ris equal to 1. Therefore, i is the slope of the diagonal, then the residual flight time of this aireraft at the end of period f should ideally be equal to s(1) ~ s. Similarly, the index of the aircraft with the next largest residual flight time at the beginning of period ¢ is equal to 2; therefore its residual flight time at the end of period r should ideally be equal to 2s, etc. If Vis the total number of aircraft that will be available in period #1 sis clearly equal to ¥/V. Thus, the problem of deciding the flight time of cach available aireraft reduces to a least squares problem, in which the total deviation index is minimized. The functional constraints of this problem ensure that the sum of flight times of all the aireraft that belong to squadron m lies in the interval [Z5y,, US, that the flight time of each aircraft does not exceed Xo, and that the residual flight time of each available aircraft at the end of period r is at least equal 0 Yn The difference with the traditional least squares problem, solved in a regression problem for example, is that in that case we are trying to fit an ‘unknown line to a set of known points, while here we are trying to fit a set of unknown points to a known line. To illustrate the procedure sketched above, assume that we have determined that J” is the number of available aircraft that will be available in period r+1. In order to produce the flight plans for period 1, we index these aircraft in nondecreasing order of their residual flight times at the beginning of period 1. Let be the index used. Then, the nonlinear optimization problem that arises is the following: Min 1,4. 715 SL Yiu =D Mie F ES_ 5) )% 5 LU (8) uoi,, f=1—F "ver = Yon Vv x, 20, In the above formulation, we have replaced the indices m and n of each aircraft by the index i, for simplicity. In the objective function, the suum of squares of all deviations is minimized. The first set of constraints updates the residual flight time of each aircraft at the beginning of theA Maltiobjective Model 175 next period, based on its residual flight time at the beginning of the current period and the time that it Mies during this period. The second set of constraints ensures that the flight requirements of the squadron are satisfied for the current period. The next two sets of constraints ensure that the lower and upper bounds on the flight times are not violated, and the last set of constraints accounts for the nonnegativity of the flight times. Note that in this formulation, y.1 and x; are decision variables, while yy is a known problem parameter. This is a relatively simple quadratic problem with linear constraints that can be solved rather easily (see for example Pardalos and Kovoor, 1990). The above procedure is repeated successively, until the aircraft maintenance and flight plans for all periods of the planning horizon have been produced. In brief, the AFH that we propose can be sketched as follows: AFH for each period of the planning horizon do 1. compute the squadron priority indices 2. produce the aircraft maintenance plans 3. determine the aircraft that will be available in the next period 4. produce the aircraft flight plans by minimizing the total deviation index end. ‘The heuristic is straightforward and can be implemented quite easily: therefore, it can be used altematively when the size of the instance under consideration prohibits its solution using a commercial optimization software package. The user is provided with the option of applying the above quadratic problem once to each squadron, or once to the whole swing, in each period of the planning horizon. Then, he can compare these ‘two solutions and choose the one that he considers better. It should be emphasized at this point that the aim of the model developed and the AFH do not exactly coincide, since the model ‘maximizes the fleet availability, while the heuristic minimizes the total deviation indices. As a result, even when a solution with higher fleet availability exists, the AFH. will prefer another one with lower deviation index, even if this leads to lower fleet availability. Despite the existence of such extreme peculiarities, the AFH seems to perform quite satisfactorily in general, mainly because it prevents bottlenecks in the ‘maintenance station and ensures a smooth utilization of the maintenance station. This is the main reason that it is currently used by many Air Force organizations worldwide176 G Kozanidis Testing the heuristic procedure on the above instance, We obtain the solutions shown in Tables 7 and 8. The solution of Table 7 was obtained ‘when the quadratic problem was applied onee to the entire wing in each period of the planning horizon (i.c., 6 times in total). ‘The solution of ‘Table 8 was obtained when the quadratic problem was applied once to each squadron in each period of the planning horizon (ic., 18 times in total). Comparing the solutions of Tables 7 and 8, we observe that they are very similar with each other and only exhibit minor differences. ‘The objective function values (21, 22, 25, 24) that they provide are (21, 7, 3192.75, 948,72) and (21, 7, 3195.68, 948.75), respectively: thus, the solution of Table 7 is dominated by the solution of Table 8. Of course, the solution of Table 8 is dominated, too, by each of the first two solutions of Table 4, Nevertheless, it is quite satisfactory, since it provides the ideal value for eriterion z;, and values which are smaller than the ideal by approximately 8.7 %, 5.7 % and 3.1 % for eriteria 2,2. and 2, respectively. Compared to the second nondominated solution of Table 6, which is the one with the most similarities, the heuristic solution provides the same value for criterion z, and values which are smaller by approximately 4.5%, 4.2 % and 3.1 % for criteria 2, 2 and 2, respectively. What is even more important is that each of the two heuristic solutions was obtained in less than a second computational time ‘on the same machine, as opposed to the approximately 690 seconds that ‘were required for the solution of this problem with AMPL/CPLEX. Table 7: Fleet availability of the solution obtained using the AFH (application of the quadratic problem to the wing) poe oa Tet 3A Maltiobjective Model 7 Table 8: Fleet availability of the solution obtained using the AFH (application of the quadratic problem to each squadron) om anras 99S sis 18672 04a S368 5200548926 SSROL TH SERTOS—sIOS As depicted in Tables 7 and 8, the fleet availability of the two heuristic solutions additionally exhibits low variability, since it does not ‘fluctuate significantly from period to period. In general, the AFH seems to produce solutions with satisfactory fleet availability. It is likely that the quality of these solutions can be further improved by considering different rules for the various decisions involved. It should be noted though, that the evidence provided in this work is not sufficient to judge this quality at the moment, This is an open area for future research with lots of potential 5.2 Horizon Splitting Heuristic (HSH) ‘The second heuristic that we propose for the solution of large instances is less sophisticated but more straightforward. It makes use of the simple idea of splitting the initial planning horizon into several consecutive ones, and solving an FMP subproblem for each of them. The ending state of the system for each smaller horizon becomes the beginning state for the next one, and so on. The smaller horizons do not necessarily need to have equal lengths. The quality of the solution obtained this way is expected to be inferior to the one obtained when the problem is solved up front for the entire planning horizon, On the other hand, the total computational time178, G Kozanidis needed in order to reach a solution is expected to deerease, especially as the length of the smaller horizons decreases. This is mainly because the computational time needed for the solution of the problem is expected to gTow faster as the size of the problem increases, as some initial experiments suggest. For the problem with weight combination w; = w3 = ws = wi = 0.25, \we applied this simple technique by splitting the original six-period FMP problem into two three-period subproblems. The solution obtained after the model was applied twice (once to each subproblem) is displayed in Table 9. As already mentioned, the time needed for the solution of the six-period problem was approximately 690 seconds, while the total time needed for the solution of the two three-period ones was approximately 5 seconds, ‘Table 9: Fleet availability of the solution obtained using the HSH 7 z ¥ at Read Ws ae aE fiat : " It becomes clear from the results shown in Table 9 that the HSH exhibits a myopic behavior. The residual flight time availability of the first three periods of the planning horizon is significantly higher than that of the next three ones. This is a consequence of the fact that the heuristic focuses on optimizing fleet availability for the subhorizon first, but when the model is applied to the next subhorizon, the system’s residual flight time availability drops drastically. In general, the number of periods thatA Maltiobjective Model 179 Will be considered in each smaller horizon seems to have a strong effect ‘on the quality of the solution that will be obtained. The objective function values that the solution of Table 9 provides are (23, 7, 2603, 714.25). Thus, the HSH provides the ideal values for criteria’ z) and z:, and values which are smaller than the ideal by approximately 23.2 % and 27 % for criteria z: and zy, respectively. OF course, this solution is dominated by the third solution of Table 4. Compared to that solution, the heuristic solution provides the same values for criteria 2, and 2, and values which are smaller by approximately 10.3 % and 16.6 % for criteria 2: and z,, respectively. Compared to the two solutions provided by the AFH, the solution provided by the HSH gives the same value for 22, a value which is larger by approximately 9.5 % for criterion 2; (which is ideal, too), and values which are smaller by approximately 18.5 % and 24.7 % for eriteria z5 and 2, Tespectively. Of course, the evidence provided in this work is again not sufficient to conclude which of the two heuristics produces solutions of higher quality. Further experimentation is required in order to answer this, In summary, the HSH provides an alternative way of obtaining an acceptable solution when the size of the problem instance prohibits its solution using a commercial optimization software package. Therefore, it can also be considered altematively for the solution of large-scale FMP instances, ‘An interesting observation that arises fiom the myopie behavior of the HSH is that since FMP is an on-going problem that is repeatedly solved in successive horizons, the length of the horizons for which the ‘wing command issues the flight requirements has a strong impact on the long term availability of the unit. As the number of periods over which the command issues the flight requirements increases, the fleet availability of the obtained solutions is expected to increase, too. given, of course, that these requirements are kept the same. Another interesting observation stemming from the fact that the problem must be solved repeatedly in successive horizons is that such a myopic behavior will always be present, independently of what the exact length of each horizon is. Therefore, it seems also very important to try to find the maximum fleet availability that can be Kept constant over time. This can be achieved by also minimizing the variability of the obtained fleet availability between different time periods, besides maximizing its value. Of course, this has the prerequisite that the flight requirements issued by the wing command will not fluctuate significantly trom horizon to horizon180 G Kozanidis 6. Conclusions and Future Research In this work, we introduced a multiobjective mixed integer model for ‘maximizing a combat unit's fleet availability subject to flight and ‘maintenance requirements. Maximizing a unit’s availability increases its readiness to respond fo external threats. The model was developed for use by the HAP and incorporates the various aspects of the problem under consideration. Certain model parameters seem to have a strong influence on its computational requirements. Therefore, the decision of how exactly the model should be utilized in order to solve a specific FMP instance must be made carefully. In order to be able to solve large instances of the FMP problem, we also proposed two heuristic approaches, we illustrated their application on a real-life instance, and we presented a discussion that provides insight into their behavior. The first heuristic tries to ensure a smooth. utilization of the maintenance station and to prevent bottlenecks, by establishing a smooth sequence of aircraft grounded for service, The solutions produced by this heuristic seem to be satisfactory and their fleet availability seems to exhibit low variability, which is also very important for the FMP problem ‘The second heuristic that was developed for the FMP problem exhibits a myopic behavior due to the fact that, by construction, it focuses on consecutive subhorizons and not on the entire planning horizon of a given problem. Nevertheless, the solutions that this heuristic produces for practical applications seem to be acceptable, too. What is even more important is that the computational requirements of both heuristics seem to be considerably smaller than those of the FMP model. A conclusion that should be pointed out based on the findings of this work is that knowing in advance the flight requirements of the wing command for a greater number of periods can increase the fleet availability of the unit. Another interesting conclusion is that, besides ‘maximizing the fleet availability level, it seems also very important to try to minimize its variability, in order to ensure that this level remains relatively constant over time, In summary, the FMP model and the two heuristics provide a set of tools that can be used collectively in order to address this important problem. The final decision on how to utilize these tools in order to get the most effective solution relies upon the user and depends on many parameters, such as the desired compromise between computational time and solution qualityA Maltiobjective Model Ist The proposed model can be easily extended to include additional aspects of the problem that may arise in different situations, such as the rotation of the aircraft that are used to satisfy’ the flight requirements, the incorporation of special maintenance checks and parts removal, the observance of the daily schedule of the pilots, etc, A stochastic model that incorporates the uncertainty that some of the problem’s parameters might exhibit can also be developed and studied, based on the results of this work. We believe that future research should also be directed towards the development and extensive testing of efficient heuristics stich as the ones proposed in Section 5, in order to make the solution of large instances more tractable. In practice, a significant number of military applications are addressed with simple decision rules which are not based on analytical methodologies. We believe that future research should also be directed towards developing analytical tools for such problems, due to the importance of the related issues and the serious impact that the involved decisions can have, Acknowledgements George Kozanidis is a recipient of a research grant from the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece, which partially supported this work, This support is greatly appreciated References Arguello, M.F., Bard, LF. and Yu, G., “Models and Methods for Managing Airline Irregular Operations Aircraft Routing”, Operations Research in the Airline Industry, Ed: Yu, G., pp: 1-45, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, 1997, Barnhart, C., Belobaba, P, and Odoni, A.R., “Applications of Operations Research in the Air Transport Industry”, Transportation Science, 37- 4, pp: 368-391, 2008. 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