Guihang Liu, Runxia Guo and Jiusheng Chen
Maintenance stands are the most valuable maintenance resources and provide the necessary maintenance space and maintenance facilities for aircraft maintenance. To expand the…
Abstract
Purpose
Maintenance stands are the most valuable maintenance resources and provide the necessary maintenance space and maintenance facilities for aircraft maintenance. To expand the maintenance market, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) urgently need to achieve a reasonable schedule between aircraft maintenance requirements and maintenance stand capability to improve aircraft maintenance continuity and reduce the risk of scratching due to aircraft movement. This study aims to design a maintenance stand scheduling (MSS) model based on spatiotemporal constraints to solve the problem of maintenance stand schedules.
Design/methodology/approach
To address the problem of maintenance stand schedules, this study introduces mixed-integer programming algorithm to design the MSS model on the basis of classical hybrid flow shop structure. When designing the optimization objective function of MSS modeling, the spatiotemporal constraints are mainly considered. Specifically, first, the spatial constraints between maintenance stands are fully considered so that more aircraft can be parked in the workshop. Second, the optimization objective is designed to minimize the number of aircraft movements by defining multiple maintenance capabilities of the stand. Finally, a solution based on spatiotemporal constraints is proposed in the solving process.
Findings
A set of MRO production data from Guangzhou is used as a test data set to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MSS model.
Originality/value
The types of maintenance stands are defined and divided into four categories: fixed stand, temporary stand, half-body stand and engine ground test stand, which facilitates optimal modeling; a new scheduling model is designed considering both temporal constraints and spatial constraints, which can improve both the utilization of maintenance stand and safety (reduce the risk of scratching between aircraft).
Details
Keywords
Dongjin Yang, Chin Tachia, Liu Ren-huai and Zuowei Yao
China has become the world’s largest vehicle market, because of the strong governmental support to boost car sales and particularly because of the establishment of joint ventures…
Abstract
Purpose
China has become the world’s largest vehicle market, because of the strong governmental support to boost car sales and particularly because of the establishment of joint ventures between state-owned enterprises and world-class automakers. However, because many Sino-foreign joint ventures have performed unsatisfactorily in terms of creating indigenous brands, the purpose of this paper is to explore the cause-and-effect relationships among governmental policy support, Sino-foreign joint ventures and own-brand innovation in China’s passenger-car industry.
Design/methodology/approach
After briefly introducing the development history of the Chinese auto industry and reviewing relevant literature, first, the analytic hierarchy process method is used to create a unique, context-specific equation to measure the degree of policy support in China. This paper then uses the hierarchical multiple regression method to process the 2014 public data set.
Findings
The findings show that the degree of policy support increases the preference of the firms for producing foreign-brand cars, while such a relationship is fully mediated by the establishment of Sino-foreign joint ventures.
Research limitations/implications
The research brings greater and deeper insights into the interplay among governmental policy, the conduct of own-brand strategy and international joint ventures in China’s auto market, showing that policy support may not always be beneficial, but sometimes be detrimental to indigenous innovation.
Originality/value
This paper can be seen as an exciting step that adds to a better understanding of the role of political support in shaping the strategic choices of firms in terms of brand innovation in the Chinese automobile industry. The proposed novel, context-specific approach for evaluating the degree of policy support embodies the distinctive institutional complexity and intricate social network embedded in the local car market during the period of China’s socio-economic transformation – an approach that is original in this field.