When an aircraft experiences an unexpected issue during flight operations, a technician determines whether the aircraft can safely perform the next flight. This operational decision process - known as dispatch assessment - has to happen within limited available time between aircraft arrival and departure. Currently, technicians face two main problems during the assessment: lack of access to decision support information and a time-consuming process for finding relevant information in extensive maintenance manuals. These issues often lead to delays and additional costs and are indicative of three larger challenges in the decision support domain: 1) a paucity of decision support models and applications for operational processes in maintenance; 2) relatively few efforts in applying and evaluating artifacts in experimental and real-life operational settings; and 3) a lack of systematic development, application and evaluation of digitization and automation efforts of complex decision processes in maintenance. This paper applies a design science research approach to address these challenges and introduces two novel artifacts: a decision support framework for real-time decision making in aircraft dispatch, and a web-based prototype tool accessible through mobile solutions. The practical relevance of the framework and prototype is validated through two representative application and evaluation studies, one in an experimental setting and one in an operational environment. Results show significant time savings and strong qualitative indications towards a higher incentive to use documentation and reducing human risk factors that lead to maintenance error.

当飞机在飞行操作过程中遇到意外问题时，技术人员会确定飞机是否可以安全地执行下一次飞行。这种操作决策过程（称为调度评估）必须在飞机到达和离开之间的有限可用时间内进行。当前，技术人员在评估过程中面临两个主要问题：无法访问决策支持信息，以及在大量维护手册中查找相关信息所花费的时间。这些问题通常会导致延误和额外的费用，并且预示着决策支持领域中的三个更大挑战：1）缺乏决策支持模型和维护操作流程的应用；2）在实验和现实操作环境中应用和评估伪像的工作相对较少；（3）缺乏对维护中复杂决策过程的数字化和自动化工作进行系统的开发，应用和评估。本文采用了一种设计科学研究方法来应对这些挑战，并介绍了两个新颖的工件：用于飞机调度中实时​​决策的决策支持框架，以及可通过移动解决方案访问的基于Web的原型工具。框架和原型的实际相关性通过两项代表性的应用和评估研究得到了验证，一项是在实验环境中进行的，另一项是在操作环境中进行的。