Research On Utility Evaluation Of Customer Oriented Civil Airplane Options

During the airplane acquisition, the airlines need to configure the options in standard specification manuals given by the manufacturer. The decision-making process for options installment has direct effects on the operation efficiency when the airplane starts en-routing, and it is meaningful for the airlines’ long-term development. The civil airplane options have attracted more and more attention from airlines and manufacturers.Firstly, in the fact that current academic research about airplane options have not formed systematic results at home and abroad. In this thesis, the options are classified into five types according to the manufacturer’s suggestions. Due to the characteristics of each type, the evaluation could be summarized as two problems, namely the single option and multi-options. Four evaluation indexes are chosen combined with airlines’ practical operation, and each of them is quantified into secondary detailed indexes. After that, the evaluation index system is established to describe customization demands, and the analytic hierarchy process is used for calculating different weights among indexes.Secondly, the concepts of options’ utility evaluation are defined based on multi-attribute utility theory. Due to the different descriptions of two problems, the multi-objective decision-making methods are used for modeling. The TOPSIS method is used for multi-options, and the grey correlation analysis is used for single option. The selection and order of multi-options are computed by TOPSIS modeling, and the correlations between single option and customization demands are computed by GCA modeling. In the example of two problems, the results verify the reasonable of modeling.Thirdly, according to the three types of curves of utility functions, the two models are improved by using risk factor, which describe the customers’ investment risk preference for purchasing new airplanes. In the example of multi-options, the results are the same as TOPSIS modeling when the airline has no risk preference. The results change when the risk factor has different values, which verify the practical and feasible of modeling.Finally, the utility evaluation system for configuring airplane options has been designed for airlines, which strongly supports the implement of decision-making.In this thesis, the evaluation methods and calculation tool are provided for airplane options, and the decision-making results are improved more scientific and comprehensive, with important theoretical significance and practical value for research.