An optimization algorithm inspired by propagation of yeast for fleet maintenance decision making problem involving fatigue structures

To minimize airline maintenance costs and maximize fleet availability, we developed a fleet maintenance decision-making model based on CBM with collaborative optimization (CO) for fatigue structures. The model is divided into two levels: a system level and a subsystem level. Different optimization routines are used at these two levels. The system level focuses on maximizing fleet availability and the subsystem level focuses on minimizing aircraft maintenance costs. Moreover, we proposed an optimization algorithm inspired by the propagation of yeast (OA/PY) to handle the situation where optimal solution is not unique. Finally, a case study regarding a fleet of 10 aircrafts is conducted, and the results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. In the case study, aircraft maintenance planning (subsystem level) was obtained, and then it was adjusted with OA/PY to obtain optimal fleet maintenance plan (system level). Total incremental maintenance cost caused by the adjustment in the proposed method was reduced by 70.65%.