An overhead monorail system delivers aircraft parts for American Airlines to four maintenance hangars at the Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport. Interfacing with the monorail system are a miniload automated storage and retrieval system and takeaway conveyor lines.

This system has eliminated a large amount of ground equipment and personnel that the airline previously found necessary to truck parts to the maintenance areas.

Most aircraft parts are stored in the mini-load system at the main maintenance warehouse. When particular parts are required, the system pulls them from the mini-load and places them into black totes, which are then deposited onto a takeaway conveyor.

Four arms extending from each monorail carrier then reach down to pick the totes off of the conveyor. Totes then begin the ride to the four hangars at 600 ft/min.

The half-mile long monorail system is built within an overhead tunnel that crosses two streets on its way to the maintenance hangars. The monorail track passes directly into hangars 1 and 2. These are small hangars, each holding two aircraft. If a part is needed here, the monorail carrier drops the tote onto an elevator. The part descends down to a conveyor that then takes the tote to the repair area.

Spurs are used to deliver parts to hangar 3, which holds six 727 aircraft and to hangar 4, which has a capacity for four MD-11 planes. A parallel return of the monorail system provides a continuous loop back to each hangar and to the main warehouses.

A limited number of common parts is also stored in small warehouses within each hangar. Often these parts will be pulled from one facility and delivered by the monorail loop to another. The system provides great flexibility. Each monorail carrier has its own, self-contained power, for example. And the system provides complete tracking of the parts contained within the totes.

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