Assignment 2 : Schiphol International Hub

Schiphol International Hub

Schiphol Amsterdam airport is Europe’s fourth-busiest airport. Handling about 50 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of freight per year. It is often ranked among the world’s best airports by the Skytrax passenger survey. Producing that sort of quality 24 hours a day, seven days a week imposes high demands on the infrastructure and services, including Schiphol’s network.

Problems

§  According to a 2009 LATA CATS survey. Moreover, mishandled baggage is a $2.5 billion problem for this industry every year.

• Annually effect about 51 million passengers travelling through Schiphol airport alone.

Goals

Realize a monumental 1% maximum loss of transfer baggage (against the initial 22 million lost baggage);

• Increase capacity from 40 to 70 million bags
• Reduce cost per bag without increasing wait time.

Q1: How Many Levels Of Complexity Can You Identify In Schiphol’s Baggage Conveyor Network?

There are 3 levels of complexities for schiphol’s baggage conveyor network:

Ø 21kilometers of transport tracks,

Ø 6 robotic units, and

Ø 9,000 storage capacitors,

(No extending the system with more surfaces)

Schiphol's involved gigantic baggage conveyor network that includes 21 kilometers of transport tracks, 6 robotic units and 9000 storage capacitors, all behaving as one system. Extending the system with more surfaces is not possible given the land conditions surrounding the airport. The baggage conveyor network goal is to have the right bag must be at the right place at the right time. 

Network must perform several key roles that are moving bags from check-in area to the departure gate, move bags from gate to gate, move bags from the arrival gate to the baggage claim and plan and control peripheral hardware and software. System involves a wide variety of sensors, actuators, mechanical devices and computers and this network uses over 3 million lines of source code. Some advance technology used in baggage-handling system includes destination-coded vehicles (DCVs), automatic bar code scanners, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and high-tech conveyors equipped with sorting machines. Baggage should move from its current location to its destination before travelers do. Further complications shows that all of this must be available and robust that are it must operate 99.99% of times while being able to minimize loss or damage in that 0.001% of time it doesn't.

Q2: What are the management, organization and technology components of Schiphol’s baggage conveyor network?

Management

Manager sets organization strategy for responding to business challenges. Manager has estimated the budget for renewing the baggage control system is amounting $1.0 billion over a period of about 10 years.

Organization

1.      Hierarchy of authority

Ø  Management and the employees to be working toward the same vision

Ø  Different task for employee according to their authority e.g controller, security and maintenance worker

Ø  Training all employees from the earliest stages of the project, and doing so in the most hands-on way possible.

Ø  Employees were to be trained about managing a robot to handle the baggage process.

2.      Separation of business process/operation

Ø  When the customers arrived at check in desk their bags are tagged

Ø  The tags contains the flight information/bar code/FRID that all of the computer in the baggage handling system can read.

Ø  When computers in the system scan the bar code/detect the RFlD, they process the information it contains and determine where to send your bag.

Ø  After being scanned (at least) once, the system always knows where the bag is at any point, and is able to redirect it based on three parameters: (a) time of its flight; (b) priority: (c) size.

3.      Unique business process

Ø  Driving a major effort to increase baggage processing capacity on the strength of intelligent routing and optimization.

Technologies

1.      Networking and telecommunication technology

Ø  3 million lines of source code

Ø  Networks; the internet

2.      Plan and control peripheral hardware and software

Ø    wide variety of sensor, actuators, mechanical devices and computer

3.      Advanced technology

Ø    Baggage- handling systems (includes destination-coded vehicles (DCVs))

Ø    Automatic bar code scanners,

Ø    radio-frequency identification automatic (RFID) tags,

Ø    high- tech conveyors equipped with sorting machines.

Q3: What is the problem that Schiphol is trying to solve? Discuss the business impact of this problem?

The problem they are trying to solve is the increase efficiency in baggage handling in the Schiphol International airport, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Mishandled baggage is a $2.5 billion problem for industry every year and this problem may annually affect about 51 million passengers travelling through Schiphol airport alone. With the new system, the manager of Schiphol estimated this system operate 99.9%of times while being able to minimize loss and damage in that 0.01%. This system is extremely expensive, but if implemented successfully it can save 0.1% of $2.5 billion. 

Q4: Think of the data that the network uses. What kinds of management reports can be generated from that data