An Empirical Evaluation of a Domain-Specific Language for Maintenance Scheduling Optimization

The design of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) plays a key role in improving productivity and usability in software engineering tools. This paper empirically evaluates a DSL developed to optimize periodic maintenance scheduling, which is crucial for efficiently managing vehicle fleets. Optimizing this process can significantly reduce costs by ensuring that only the required maintenance is performed, preventing bottlenecks and other problems derived from inefficient resource management, especially when faced with restrictions such as limited maintenance facility capacity. Most current tools for planning maintenance, such as Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), fail to optimize their schedules, requiring custom implementations to achieve better results and being overwhelming to use due to complex navigation and repetitive procedures. In this paper, we propose a Domain-Specific Language that simplifies the maintenance scheduling process through the centralization of all the functionality in a single program, following Model-Driven Engineering principles. This DSL enables the optimization of maintenance schedules by defining constraints directly within the language. Usability tests and user surveys demonstrate a reduction in the time and effort required for maintenance scheduling and an increased satisfaction rate compared to CMMS.