Date of Award

3-1994

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

James T. Moore, PhD

Second Advisor

John J. Borsi, PhD

Abstract

This research investigated a heuristic approach to schedule aircraft for the channel cargo system of the Unit States Air Forces Air Mobility Command AMC. Given cargo frequency of visit requirements, a fleet of aircraft, and possible routes, the objective of this research was to develop, implement, and test an iterative procedure to efficiently schedule and load aircraft in order to maximize the flow of cargo through the channel cargo system. Once a level of flow was established, attempts were made to minimize cost in terms of cumulative weighted time-in-system CWTIS. A minimum cost flow heuristic, incorporating a successive shortest path algorithm, was coupled with a critical arc schedule improvement heuristic. Our procedure iterated between these two heuristics to generate a cargo flow pattern and aircraft schedule. This research demonstrated the usefulness and efficiency of this heuristic in planning airlift for the channel cargo system. The FORTRAN programs which implement the heuristics are compatible with current AMC scheduling advance planning tools. Given this compatibility, additional testing in conjunction with AMCs current planning tools STORM, CARGPREP, and CARGOSIM is warranted. Pending successful testing in this environment, implementation of these methods is recommended.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GOR-ENS-94M-05

DTIC Accession Number

ADA278499

Comments

The authors' Vita pages are omitted.

Download

Share

COinS