Line Planning Automation

Line Planning Automation (LPA) is a planning tool that automatically creates work packages for turn and service checks, and schedules (or reschedules) these work packages.

To schedule the work packages to suitable line locations and ground stops, LPA uses the information from the flight schedule. Authorized users can run LPA, monitor its status, and view the results from the Line Planning Automation to-do list page. For information about what must be set up in the maintenance baseline before you can use LPA to create turn and service work packages, read the topics on turn and service checks.

When a user runs LPA, the user selects a fleet—an aircraft type—and the planning range, which is the number of days for which LPA should schedule turn and service checks. LPA creates the turn and service checks that are required during the planning range for all aircraft of the selected type. It creates the work packages, and it attempts to schedule the work packages to suitable ground stops and maintenance locations. A suitable ground stop is one that is scheduled to start within the planning range selected by the user. If LPA cannot schedule some of the work packages, it creates an issue record that indicates the reason for the failure.

LPA also reschedules existing checks and work packages if changes were made to the flight schedule that make the scheduled ground stop no longer suitable, or because of conflicts with other work packages that were scheduled during the ground stop. If there are existing turn and service work packages that are scheduled at ground stops that are no longer suitable, but LPA cannot find another suitable ground stop within the planning range, it leaves these work packages intact. It leaves their scheduled date, scheduled location, and workscope as they are, and creates an issue record that states No Suitable Stop as the failure reason.

In addition to suitable ground stops, LPA considers the following factors:

  • For service checks, the due dates and planning yield

  • Duration of the check

  • Work type capabilities of the line maintenance locations

  • Conflicts with other scheduled work packages

For service checks, LPA looks at the due date and the minimum planning yield value of the service block, and tries to schedule the check at the latest possible ground stop that starts after the minimum planning yield date, but before the due date of the driving task of the service block. LPA only considers the minimum planning yield value set on the service block, not the minimum planning yield value set on the requirements that are included in the block. LPA tries to schedule or reschedule service checks when one or all of the following are true:

  • The due date of the block is before the end of the planning range selected by the user.

  • The start date of the work package that contains the service block is before the end of the planning range.

Note: Service blocks whose planned due date was outside the planning range but has since changed to be within the planning range are also scheduled when you run LPA. This change in due date can happen when a service block is scheduled based on the actual start date or end date of the previous occurrence of the block, and the previous occurrence was started or completed earlier than planned.
Turn checks are meant to be performed before the aircraft departs, and they do not have deadlines. Therefore, LPA attempts to schedule a turn check at each ground stop of the aircraft, unless a service check is scheduled during that ground stop.

LPA considers the estimated duration set in the block definition of the check to determine how much time is required to complete the work, and to identify the ground stops that are long enough to complete the work.

LPA schedules turn and service work packages only to locations that have all the work types that are assigned to the work packages. You select the work types of the turn and service work packages on the Line Check Settings page.

LPA does not repackage tasks to meet scheduling requirements, nor does it consider the labor capacity of the line maintenance locations or the availability of parts and tools required for the maintenance tasks.