Advanced MRO Multi-Echelon Planning and Scheduling

The objective of this proposal is to identify and integrate multi-echelon constraints in Manufacturing Repair Overhaul (MRO) process planning and scheduling. The OC-ALC depot operates in a multi-echelon MRO environment that is highly constrained regarding its capacities, resources, deadlines, and other physical limitations. The representation, capture, satisfaction and relaxation of these constraints are essential to the process design, analysis, planning and simulation. Depot MRO environment has its own features that distinguish it from the traditional manufacturing and logistic management Furthermore, the multi-echelon constraints in MRO process planning have not been fully addressed. To address the need of capturing depot domain dynamics, we propose to design a platform-independent optimization software package that will model the multi-echelon environment of depot MRO with emphasis on the operational constraint capture, representation, satisfaction and relaxation in the planning and scheduling process. The model will be established using Workflow and Petri net technology. A Genetic Algorithm module will be developed to discover the optimal solution that satisfies the maximum number of constraints.