Insights into Integrated Engine Maintenance Modelling

Abstract

Maintenance of modern aircraft engines remains a key driver for safety, reliability and economic performance. As maintenance represents one of the largest cost drivers in aviation, even incremental improvements in planning and execution can substantially enhance fleet efficiency. However, the complex interaction between engine behaviour, maintenance decisions and operational variability continues to be a persistent challenge in order to predict and optimise maintenance processes. To develop more effective strategies, decision-makers need evaluation methods that capture real operating conditions and quantify trade-offs over the engine lifecycle. Existing practices often do not consider such an integrated, multi-objective perspective, which limits the systematic assessment of new maintenance concepts. Therefore, a discrete-event simulation framework has been developed to model the broad spectrum of engine maintenance processes, from inspections and service events to component failures and their corresponding maintenance actions. The model facilitates the integration of probabilistic data, environmental influences and imperfect maintenance to represent both scheduled and unscheduled activities. It also allows for the implementation of different maintenance policies such as fixed-interval, condition-based and opportunistic approaches. The framework enables a detailed exploration of how maintenance planning, operational conditions and system behaviour interact throughout the engine lifecycle. It offers a flexible and transparent environment for evaluating and comparing maintenance strategies under realistic constraints. By supporting a holistic understanding of maintenance system dynamics, the approach provides a foundation for data-driven decision-making and contributes to advancing efficiency and reliability in engine fleet management and modern engine MRO.