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Notes, in recent years, an increase of interest in the field of service parts inventory ‐ particularly in the computer industry. Explains that the computer industry is a highly competitive industry; products have to be repaired as quickly as possible, since slow repair can lead to loss of future business to competitors with better service reputations. Maintains that a good reputation is therefore closely linked to the availability of spare parts on the market. Using a real‐life case study, elaborates on the management and control of service‐parts inventory and gives a brief overview of the contemporary literature on the subject. Presents the solution approach adopted and the results of the study, which indicate that significant savings can be realized through good management of service‐parts inventory.

Spare parts have become ubiquitous in modern societies and managing their requirements is an important and challenging task with tremendous cost implications for the organisations that are holding relevant inventories. An important operational issue involved in the management of spare parts is that of categorising the relevant stock keeping units (SKUs) in order to facilitate decision‐making with respect to forecasting and stock control and to enable managers to focus their attention on the most “important” SKUs. This issue has been overlooked in the academic literature although it constitutes a significant opportunity for increasing spare parts availability and/or reducing inventory costs. Moreover, and despite the huge literature developed since the 1970s on issues related to stock control for spare parts, very few studies actually consider empirical solution implementation and with few exceptions, case studies are lacking. Such a case study is described in this paper, the purpose of which is to offer insight into relevant business practices.

The issue of demand categorisation (including forecasting and stock control) for spare parts management is addressed and details reported of a project undertaken by an international business machine manufacturer for the purpose of improving its European spare parts logistics operations. The paper describes the actual intervention within the organisation in question, as well as the empirical benefits and the lessons learned from such a project.

This paper demonstrates the considerable scope that exists for improving relevant real word practices. It shows that simple well‐informed solutions result in substantial organisational savings.

This paper provides insight into the empirical utilisation of demand categorisation theory for forecasting and stock control and provides some very much needed empirical evidence on pertinent issues. In that respect, it should be of interest to both academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to describe simulation research carried out for the needs of multi-sensor anti-collision system for light aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.

This paper presents an analysis related to the practical possibilities of detecting intruders in the air space with the use of optoelectronic sensors. The theoretical part determines the influence of the angle of view, distance from the intruder and the resolution of the camera on the ability to detect objects with different linear dimensions. It has been assumed that the detection will be effective for objects represented by at least four pixels (arranged in a line) on the sensor matrix. In the main part devoted to simulation studies, the theoretical data was compared to the obtained intruders’ images. The verified simulation environment was then applied to the image processing algorithms developed for the anti-collision system.

A simulation environment was obtained enabling reliable tests of the anti-collision system using optoelectronic sensors.

The integration of unmanned aircraft operations in civil airspace is a serious problem on a global scale. Equipping aircraft with autonomous anti-collision systems can help solve key problems. The use of simulation techniques in the process of testing anti-collision systems allows the implementation of test scenarios that may be burdened with too much risk in real flights.

This paper aims for possible improvement of safety in light-sport aviation.

This paper conducts verification of classic flight simulator software suitability for carrying out anti-collision systems tests and development of a flight simulator platform dedicated to such tests.

This paper aims to present research carried out on the influence of GUI graphical elements design for an integrated mission management system (IMMS) display flight planning process.

Surveys and research were conducted among students/pilots to explore graphic presentation methods for flight planning displays. Guidelines for graphical layout of the IMMS flight planning interface are proposed.

A research concept was obtained, enabling GUI tests for IMMS using prepared templates and questionnaires.

This study improves cockpit information readability, understanding and presentation, particularly for flight planning elements such as terrain, weather, traffic and zones influencing route organisation.

This study targets possible improvements to the flight path planning process in aviation, inducing a reduction in errors related to human factors while processing the visual data on-board.

The study verified the impact of drawing and rendering methods on IMMS flight planning, suggesting that current display methods may be error-prone when showing hazard information from multiple sources on a single screen.

Airdrop operation has become an important transportation mode due to its mobility and rapidity and mission planning is one of the critical steps in the preparation of an airdrop operation. The purpose of this paper is to propose an efficient mission planning method for airdrop operation using multiple vehicles.

A hierarchical mission planning method is proposed. According to the objectives of the action, the mission planning is divided into three planning levels to form the hierarchical structure and the constraints are distributed among them. By doing so, the proposed approach converts the original mission planning problem to a constrained optimization problem, which is solvable using existing mathematical methods.

On the basis of analysis, the mathematic models of three planning levels are established. Each level has its own optimization objective, taking part of constraints into account. The integrated mission scheme had been obtained step by step.

This paper systematically tackles the complicated multiple vehicles airdrop mission planning problem, and it provides a platform for optimizing the outcomes. The mathematical models established in this paper could apply in a variety of more complex mission scenarios.

This paper fulfils an urgent need to study how the advantages of airdrop operation can be maximized through planning airdrop mission schemes carefully.

The purpose of this paper is to present an efficient path planning method for the multi-UAV system in target coverage problems.

An enhanced particle swarm optimizer (PSO) is used to solve the path planning problem, which concerns the two-dimensional motion of multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a three-dimensional environment. Enhancements include an improved initial swarm generation and prediction strategy for succeeding generations. Initial swarm improvements include the clustering process managed by fuzzy c-means clustering method, ordering procedure handled by ant colony optimizer and design vector change. Local solutions form the foundation of a prediction strategy.

Numerical simulations show that the proposed method could find near-optimal paths for multi-UAVs effectively.

Simulations indicate the proposed method could be deployed for autonomous multi-UAV systems with target coverage problems.

The proposed method combines intelligent methods in the early phase of PSO, handles obstacle avoidance problems with a unique approach and accelerates the process by adding a prediction strategy.

This paper aims to describe an idea for an integration process and tests of flight parameters measurement system, which supports infrared thermography (IRT) boundary layer mapping.

The study of flow changes in the boundary layer with the use of IRT requires registration of the thermal images of the selected area of a wing or the fuselage, as well as synchronous recording of flight parameters. These tasks were realized by the supplementary measurement system mounted on the PW-6U glider. Two examples of the determination of the laminar-turbulent transition areas on the left wing of a PW-6U glider are also presented in the paper.

Optical methods can be used in several research areas, for example, aerodynamics and strength analysis. For instance, the measurement of the infrared radiation from surfaces with the use of IRT can be used for the measurement, with high accuracy, of surface temperature distribution. Moreover, the thermography is used for the analysis of the boundary layer. Performed in-flight experiments confirm the possibility of practical usage of the IRT method even on the board of a glider.

The use of optical methods will, in many cases, be less expensive than assembly of an additional measurement and data acquisition systems. Implementation of optical methods for industrial purposes has many advantages, and, hence, they will probably become very common in the future.

The study introduces advanced measurement and visualization techniques in general aviation.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a 3D route planner, called 3DPLAN, which employs the Fast‐Pass A* algorithm to find optimum paths in the large grid.

The Fast‐Pass A* algorithm, an improved best‐first search A* algorithm, has a major advantage compared to other search methods because it is guaranteed to give the optimum path.

In spite of this significant advantage, no one has previously used A* in 3D searches. Most researchers think that the computational cost of using A* for 3D route planning would be prohibitive. This paper shows that it is quite feasible to use A* for 3D searches if one employs the new mobility and threat heuristics that have been developed.

This paper reviews the modification of the previous 3DPLAN in the ocean dynamical environment. The test mobility map is replaced with more realistic mobility map that consists of travel times of each grid point to each of its 26 neighbors using the actual current velocity data from the Navy Coastal Ocean Model – East Asian Seas version. Numerical comparison between the A* and genetic algorithms (GA) shows that the A* algorithm has significantly faster running time than GA.

These new heuristics substantially speed up the A* algorithm so that the run times are quite reasonable for the large grids that are typical of 3D searches.