Question

In addition, you are expected to support your arguments with substantial research, referring to the relevant resources wherever required, using Harvard referencing system.

Introduction

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, known informally as Schiphol Airport, is the main international airport of the Netherlands. It is located 9 kilometres southwest of Amsterdam, in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer in the province of North Holland. With almost 72 million passengers in 2019, it is the third-busiest airport in Europe in terms of passenger volume and the busiest in Europe in terms of aircraft movements. Schiphol is the hub for KLM and its regional affiliate KLM Cityhopper as well as for Corendon Dutch Airlines, Martinair, Transavia and TUI fly Netherlands. The airport also serves as a base for EasyJet.

Baggage handling at Schiphol International Airport

Theoretically, baggage-handling is quite simple. Baggage input is connected to merely two events: an airplane lands or a person checks in. However, its risky business. Baggage handling is the second most important factor in having a pleasant trip, according toa 2009 IATA CATS survey. Moreover, mishandled baggage is a $2.5 billion problem for industry every year. Just think that this problem may annually affect about 51 million passengers travelling through Schiphol airport alone.

IBM Corporation, Vanderlande Industries and later Grenzebach Automation Systems jointly took up the challenge of renewing the Baggage Control System for one of the biggest airport hubs in Europe, and one of the busiest in the world: Schiphol International Airport, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. With an investment of around $1 billion over a period of about 10 years, Schiphols goal was threefold: (a)realize a monumental 1% maximum loss of transfer baggage (against the initial 22 million lost baggage); (b) increase capacity from 40 to 70 million bags; (c)reduce cost per bag without increasing wait-times.

The baggage conveyer network

Most of the job involved Schiphols gigantic baggage conveyor network: 21 kilometers of transport tracks, 6 robotic units, and 9,000 storage capacitors, all behaving as one system. Also, extending the system with more surfaces is not possible, given the land conditions surrounding the airport. The baggage conveyor network has a simple goal: the right bag must be at the right place at the right time. To pursue this goal the network must perform several key roles: move bags from the 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. In addition, these roles involve a wide variety of sensors, actuators, mechanical devices, and computers. The network uses over 3 million lines of source code. Some of the advanced technology used in baggage- handling systems 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. To add further complications, all of this must be available and robust, i.e. operate 99.99% of times while being able to minimize loss or damage in that 0.01% of time it doesnt!

Operations of the Schiphol baggage conveyors network

The following simple scenario summarizes the operations of the Schiphol baggage conveyors network. You arrive at check-in desk, and your bags are tagged. The tags contain your flight information and a bar-code/RFID that all of the computers in the baggage-handling system can read. When computers in the system scan the bar code/detect the RFID, they process the information it contains and determine where to send your bag. After being scanned (at least) once, the system always knows where your bag is at any point, and is able to redirect it based on three parameters: (a) time of its flight; (b) priority; (c) size. Bags for immediate embarkation are considered hot. These are sent immediately to aircraft stands while cold baggage (i.e. low priority, distant flight time) are quickly rerouted away from the main highway tracks, directed towards various storage points in the network. DCVs are unmanned carts that can load and unload bags without stopping movement. These carts move on tracks like miniature roller coasters along the main highway tracks that span the airport. Buffers and hot/cold storage areas are used to avoid overcrowding.

Computers throughout the system keep track of the location of each bag, its destination, and the time it is needed at that destination. The system can optimize the routes taken by the carts to get the bags needed most urgently to their destinations fastest. Because DCVs move at high speed and do not come to a full stop to receive baggage, the conveyors must be extremely precise, depositing bags where they are needed at just the right time for maximum efficiency. Once bags reach the gate, they enter a sorting station where airline employees use computer terminals to send bags to the correct plane. To make sure that baggage is not lost, the system reconciles baggage with its owner, i.e. it checks if the baggage and the owner are actually on the same plane!

However beautiful and harmonious this process may seem, there are still many things that can go wrong. For example, what if baggage is mis-tagged? What if the tag is unreadable? What about schedule changes? Baggage handling systems can be extremely expensive, but if implemented successfully, they pay for themselves imagine saving around 0.1% of $2.5 billion. Its a lot of money!