SubscribeAirport operators around the world share the same business goals – to provide a safe, secure and operational efficient environment.
On the one hand they want the capability to detect and respond to threats more quickly; to mitigate risk. On the other, they want to drive productivity improvement and reduce costs. Regardless of location and size, airport operators share the same business agenda - how to do more with fewer resources?
Intelligent Technologies and Integrated Airport Operations
The solution lies in intelligent technologies. Integrating airport operations with building, security and life safety management and business systems - a data management engine if you like - delivers an enterprise-wide view. It pulls all the different applications into a single, streamlined system with a common set of procedures and point of control, a PC. It enables information to be shared between departments and automated processes to perform on the basis of all available information within the different systems.
Working with multiple, standalone applications for building, security, life safety and airport operating/management systems restricts information to narrow silos. It slows response times and blurs the facts in an emergency. Independent operation - non-integration - is characterised by lack of data-exchange; it fails to leverage the full potential of all the data available. This, in turn, limits the airport operator's ability to make the facility - air and/or landside - function as a whole and makes it nigh-on impossible to implement proactive strategies that address business issues.
Automated Airport Operating and Management
The real power lies in managing the different functions as one integrated - IP converged - solution. Bringing automated airport operating and automated building management control systems together enables proactive management of the airport; it harnesses all the key elements of good airport operations - airplanes, people, processes, facilities, equipment, documentation and regulatory compliance - in one common solution for optimal monitoring and control.
Addressing the issue of operational drivers (fig 1) Honeywell's Paul Crombie advises that security & IT Master plans must include all aspects of airport operations. He says, "Integration of airside and landside systems is the mechanism to implement effective security and productivity strategies. It supports effective management and use of all information and data vital to driving safety and productivity at airports."
Airport Network Systems
Figure 2 shows some of the Honeywell systems that are IT network connectable. This ability to share information makes for a new operational philosophy. In the event of a fire for example:
- An alarm would be generated
- Closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras would pan tilt and zoom to view the source of the alarm (to check its validity and negate a false alarm)
- There would be a Voice Alert in the related zone
- Appropriate access controlled doors would be unlocked to provide escape routes
- The gate allocation system would be notified to prevent an aircraft being docked onto an unsafe area
- The people tracking system could notify the control room of the location of key people on site
- The heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system would switch to 'smoke/fire' mode
- Lights would be turned on to assist with the evacuation
- Events would be electronically recorded for internal review, training and possible legal evidence.
- Duty operators would receive on-screen prompts to ensure their correct and timely response to events.
Airport operators are constantly seeking ways to achieve many of unbounded and difficult-to-measure aspects (Fig 3) in order become safer and more efficient:
Airport Infrastructure Development
By way of response to this agenda, some $500B investment is projected in airport upgrades and developments over the next ten years. This is in relation to 1.6B passenger movements per year - traffic which is expected to double in the next 20 years. By 2020 industry-experts predict a severe under-capacity to handle this growth in passenger numbers.
Many existing airports are unable to expand their current capacity to meet these new and growing needs. Environmental impacts, fixed and constrained physical boundaries, fixed gate allocation to 'tenant' airlines, passenger segregation (inbound/outbound, domestic/intenational, schengen/non-schengen travellers), legislation, landing/takeoff slots, and constrained operating timetables all contribute to this issue.
Infrastructure development also has a part to play, being expensive and taking a long time from concept to operation. Scarcity of space impedes development with London Heathrow having to move a river and a sewage farm before starting work on the new Terminal 5 for example. Added to that, air movements can be disrupted by weather, poor visibility, false alarms and, increasingly, security alerts.
Says Crombie, "Many airports can only overcome these constraints by becoming more efficient. They must handle aircraft and passengers as quickly and cost effectively as possible, whilst ensuring optimum safety.
"They'll want to avoid false alarms that disrupt airport operations by validating all alerts that impact airport operations. Then they must be able to recover efficiently from any alarm scenario - to quickly and safely resume business-as-usual. All of which points to the need for cycle time reduction in airport processes along with more automation and less reliance upon human interactions."
Airport Systems Integration
The objective of integration is to achieve coherent real-time operation between airport systems, for the purposes of improving airport-wide management. It is not unheard of to have more than a hundred systems integrated together to help achieve this including:
- Airfield Ground Lighting
- Aircraft Video Docking
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
- Energy management systems
- Metrological systems
- People movers (lifts, escalators)
- Access controls
- Closed circuit television (CCTV) and Digital Video Management
- Fire detection
- Voice/Data Systems
- Large format video screens
That said, it is not unusual for these different systems to be supplied by different vendors, historically without consideration as to how they could be pulled together into a single airport process for facility-wide deployment.
But times are changing. The decision to invest in an integrated approach to operating the airport as a single process is driven by growing demand for air transport and greater competition. And this is in a marketplace where increasing quality and security are a priority - even though budgets and revenues are under increasing pressure.
Payback is gained from empowering the labour force and reducing operational and maintenance costs. The enabler for this is productivity gain - from technology improving the airport functional processes and bringing with it operational efficiency and a much better use of capital resources.
Measuring Return of Investment from Airport Systems Integration
Experience from around the world shows that careful planning for systems integration is instrumental to measurable efficiency gain. Expected gains from the investment will not materialise if existing inefficiencies are 'engineered in' to the solution. They must be 'engineered-out' by Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), the main challenge of which is to understand and define the business process along with all the associated information flows. This is essential to leveraging efficiency gain.
Management, Operations, Economic and Technical Benefits
Airport-wide integration delivers four big benefits to the airport operator under the generic headings of management; operational; economic and technical.
Management: integration of the different systems facilitates the provision of relevant and timely information to the right people at the right time and to the right place. It allows operators to make sense of a lot of data and, from this, informed decisions to be taken and quickly communicated to the right people. It also supports a rapid and defined escalation process so that any problems can be quickly identified and resolved. Information provided in this way helps inter-departmental co-ordination which, in turn, leads to the delivery of a better quality of service to the airport user - to airline clients, airport tenants and passengers alike.
Operations: the ability to better plan, allocate resources and implement change processes, supports optimal airport operations both air and landside. Incident management is enhanced. Likewise the ability to monitor and control changes to airport procedures and maintenance regimes. This leads to an improvement in the availability of services and equipment up time.
Economic: improved productivity and deployment of available resources and a better understanding and control over energy consumption. The ability to implement an automatic billing system, based on the measured consumption and utilisation of assets, on a transaction basis, is another important contributor to cost reduction and better cash flow/generation.
Technical: integration supports regulatory compliance and risk mitigation, in particular those potential pitfalls associated with system modification and the introduction of new systems. It allows new measurement and management processes and tools to be developed for airport-wide deployment. Then there is the Airport Management Centre (AMC) which exists to adapt the delivery of services to the demand of user-clients and to the changing needs of the airport as a whole. It is the AMC that creates the opportunity for the airport operator to 'learn' and to control changes that may be required for its operational development.
In summary, system integration delivers multiple business and operational benefits. It is not a 'one size fits all' solution though. Airport processes must be optimised before integration becomes a viable consideration. Failure to do so risks wasted resources and investment - inefficiencies are replicated in perpetuity.
Airport Operating System Integration Requirements
In planning for future expansion over time and distance, Crombie recommends that all airport operating system specifications should incorporate integration requirements - with the capacity to accommodate further improvements that will inevitably be identified during the process of procurement and delivery. Entering into contracts before deciding upon these needs is false economy and detrimental to safety, security and profitable growth over time.
Putting intelligence in a building doesn't cost; rather it delivers a measurable ROI over time. Honeywell Enterprise Buildings Integrator™ for example, is designed to give complete control of your airport runways, docking stations and terminal buildings/facilities while offering unrivalled integration with your business processes. Through a single networked PC, it will deliver all the knowledge and control needed to meet two seemingly conflicting mandates: performance improvement and reduced operating and resource allocation. This ability to process more information, more quickly translates into greater strategic control over your business operations.
Crombie advocates a flexible and participative procurement process so as to enable the customer to capitalise on the significant benefits of the integration specialist's practical domain knowledge. As for choosing the right integration partner, it is important that the players in the value chain - the consulting engineers and contractors for example - understand the true meaning of integration and can factor in such critical variables as financial goals and the need to regulate for regulatory compliance.
A comprehensive lifecycle cost/benefit analysis is key to soliciting buy in to the potential of intelligent technology and since departments often compete for limited resources, working together towards the same goal is vital. Adopting an holistic approach to airport operations makes it possible to convince decision-makers that integration will deliver a measurable return on investment - minimal risk with maximum operational benefit. Look to an integration provider to help develop business models that demonstrate this. With a realistic case made, the evidence for integration and a single process airport monitored and controlled via a single PC interface cannot be ignored.