Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) Two versus Three Level Maintenance Support Concept Study

摘要

Two maintenance support concepts for selected RPV subsystems lifetime supply and maintenance (S&M) costs are: 1) two levels of support, organizational and depot; and 2) three levels of support, organizational, intermediate (direct support and general support) and depot. Lifetime costs applicable to current peacetime conditions are estimated through the method of the Optimum Supply and Maintenance Model (OSAMM) which uses the supply model called Selected Essential-Item Stockage for Availability Method (SESAME), as a subroutine. The unique features of OSAMM allows it to simultaneously minimize costs, develop maintenance task distributions, and quantities and placement of test equipment and stockage while achieving a pre-stated operational availability target. Results are presented over a range of operational availability values of interest in which supply quantities are variants. It is concluded that the three level support concept is less expensive than the two level concept for every selected subsystem studied except one - that one exception has a small cost impact. Another interesting conclusion reached for the three level concept is that the operational availability can be significantly improved with small stockage cost increases. Keywords: Aircraft maintenance; Life cycle costs; Cost estimates. (edc)