An airline engineering department classifies aircraft maintenance work orders to determine service queue priority based on three attributes: Safety Impact (Critical vs. Routine), Flight Hours Remaining until threshold (<50, 50–150, >150), and Prior Deferral History (Yes vs. No).
Queue priority is established according to the following strict precedence rules:
1. Work orders with a Critical Safety Impact take precedence over all work orders with a Routine Safety Impact.
2. For work orders with the same Safety Impact, priority is given to fewer Flight Hours Remaining (<50 outranks 50–150, which outranks >150).
3. If work orders have the same Safety Impact and fall into the same Flight Hours Remaining category, a work order with a Prior Deferral History (Yes) takes precedence over one without a Prior Deferral History (No).
Based on these rules, place the following four work orders in sequence from highest priority (first to be serviced) to lowest priority (last to be serviced).
- 1Work Order Beta: Critical Safety Impact, 40 Flight Hours Remaining, Prior Deferral: Yes
- 2Work Order Alpha: Critical Safety Impact, 40 Flight Hours Remaining, Prior Deferral: No
- 3Work Order Gamma: Critical Safety Impact, 120 Flight Hours Remaining, Prior Deferral: Yes
- 4Work Order Delta: Routine Safety Impact, 15 Flight Hours Remaining, Prior Deferral: Yes