Optimization of structural assembly scheduling in the aeronautics industry

In the aeronautical industry, structural assembly refers to the stage in which parts, subassemblies, and main aircraft structures are fitted together, forming aerostructures. Aircraft structural assembly requires many complex activities to be performed over an intricate precedence network and is subject to interactions among the various production resources, which makes planning and scheduling challenging to be carried out without the support of adequate analytical tools. In this paper, we propose optimization approaches based on integer linear programming (ILP) and constraint programming (CP) models designed to support scheduling decisions in aircraft structural assembly, explicitly integrating shift‐based workforce planning by deciding the number of workers by type assigned to each work shift over the planning horizon. The computational experiments, conducted with real data collected in a case study at a Brazilian aeronautical company, reveal that the proposed ILP and CP models, along with general‐purpose solvers, are effective in solving realistic‐sized instances. The results of both approaches show the potential to generate optimized solutions for aeronautical structural assembly scheduling in practice.