Köln Bonn Airport
« Back to Case Study MenuLocated in one of the most densely populated regions in Europe, Köln Bonn Airport is one of Germany’s largest commercial airports and home to Fed Ex’s main hub for central and eastern Europe. The management team at Köln Bonn Airport have worked with SCHAD since 2009, following the selection of EXTEND7000 as a mobile SCADA system, to allow continuous, ‘anywhere-anytime’ monitoring and remote control of the technical processes controlling the facility’s highly automated baggage handling systems.
At the airport, materials handling is controlled by 13 Siemens Simatic S7 400 Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). These send 7,290 alerts including alarms, warnings, statistical data and operating noti cations, to the InTouch Wonderware SCADA system. Prior to implementing EXTEND7000, stationary control room sta would monitor for irregularities and manually forward noti cations to the responsible service staff.
7 days for live monitoring across the entire airport
Now, after integrating EXTEND7000, which took a week from start to finish, technical engineers and control staff receive real time noti cations of system performance issues if a problem occurs anywhere inside or outside the security areas within the airport facility. Alerts are sent to the right member of the team directly onto a standard BlackBerry mobile device.
Secure mobile SCADA means ‘anywhere-anytime’ control
EXTEND7000 uses existing Wi-Fi or GPRS infrastructure thereby providing a low cost, functionally rich mobile control and monitoring solution. The system works by granting secure remote access to the automated baggage handling conveyors, which allow system controls to be monitored 100% of the time from any location. In addition, depending on their level of authorisation, engineers can gain remote access to automated control systems to investigate system performance issues, potentially fi x problems on the spot or check for parts availability online.
“Service staff satisfaction has improved because important tasks could be ful lled with less unnecessary walking and fewer operational disruptions. The overall performance of the baggage handling systems has increased, workows have been improved and the time spent on unpopular tasks reduced,” says Ralf Weifenbach, head of technical systems at Köln Bonn Airport.
Downtime cut by 50% through faster, better communication
Since the integration of EXTEND7000 into maintenance workflows, unplanned downtime of baggage handling systems has been signi cantly reduced. This is because communicating with the control room in case of failure noti cations is no longer necessary. Information relating to baggage handling system faults is transferred directly to mobile devices used by the appropriate service personnel.
Detailed failure information, including pending and unacknowledged noti cations, can be obtained anywhere at any time, reducing the need for walkways and security checks. The baggage handling control room is no longer sta ffed around the clock and will most likely be turned off for good in the near future.
Calculated success – low LBI means more profi ts
Köln Bonn Airport has calculated that EXTEND7000 saves up to 90 hours of unplanned downtime caused by system failure each month, which equates to a 50% reduction and lower ‘LBI’ – ‘leave behind index’. This result is derived as follows: there are an estimated 100 noti cations per shift, 20% are relevant for EXTEND7000 = 20 relevant noti cations per shift. This amounts to 1800 noti cations per month (3x daily shifts x 30 days). Each noti cation saves 3 minutes of downtime = 5400 minutes or 90 hours saved in downtime per month.
