Study on the evaluation model of serialized civil aircraft commonality index based on fuzzy set theory

Commonality, a typical commercial feature of serialized civil aircraft study and development, refers to a series of methods of reusing and sharing assets, which were developed based on broad similarity. The common design of serialized civil aircraft is capable of maximally saving RD, production, operation, and disposal. To maximize the total benefits of manufacturers and operators, the common design of serialized civil aircrafts primarily exploits the commercial experience of serialized products in other fields (e.g., automobiles and mobile phones), whereas a scientific index system and quantitative evaluation model has not been formed. Accordingly, this study proposes a new civil aircraft commonality index evaluation model in accordance with fuzzy set theory and methods. The model follows two branches, i.e., attribute commonality and structural commonality, to develop a multi-level civil aircraft commonality index system. The proposed model can split the commonality into six commonality sub-intervals and build the corresponding standard fuzzy set with the characteristic attribute parameters of the civil aircraft as the elements. Next, based on considerable civil aircraft sample data, a fuzzy test is designed to yield the membership function of the fuzzy set. Thus, a model of evaluating civil aircraft commonality is constructed, taking the characteristic parameters of the civil aircraft to be evaluated as input, and selecting the degree of commonality of each level as output. Lastly, this study employs the evaluation model to evaluate the commonality of Boeing 757-200 with other civil aircrafts. Furthermore, the evaluated results well explain the actual situation, which verifies the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed model.