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As well as representing a major step forward by London's Gatwick Airport in the handling of transfer baggage, the new North Terminal 'Transfer Baggage Facility' (TBF) is also the first facility developed by Logan Teleflex under its generic 'The Bag Factory' principle.
Over the past few years, the expansion of London's Gatwick Airport has also seen a significant change in traffic profile, with over 70% of the airports traffic now accounted for by scheduled flights. As part of this change, the complex task of handling and processing transfer baggage has become a rapidly growing and important part of the airport's service. In particular, the growth of British Airways' (BA) operations at Gatwick, including the transfer of a large proportion of its transatlantic flights from Heathrow to Gatwick's North Terminal, has increased the pressure on the airports baggage transfer facilities.
"The effective handling of transfer baggage is very important to Gatwick Airports Ltd (GAL), in terms of both what we offer airlines, and the service we provide to customers," explains Kevin Harman, the Engineering manager for Gatwick's North Terminal. "But, he adds, "especially with the increase in BA flights, we have seen the baggage transfer handling requirements grow faster than the facilities at our disposal could be developed."
Therefore, with the three small temporary transfer baggage units (TBU's) operated by GAL bursting at the seems, the rapid development of BA's new single-site Transfer Baggage Facility (TBF) at the North Terminal, which has recently been 'officially' opened, has proved to be a major achievement.
This new centralised facility, the first of its kind dedicated to the comprehensive processing of transfer baggage to be installed at the airport, is for the reception, identification, coding, screening and automatic sorting of all of BAs' transfer baggage arriving at the North Terminal. This is a two way process, with bags coming in from BA flights arriving at the North Terminal and being sorted and checked before transfer onto other flights going out from either Gatwick's North or South Terminal or from Heathrow, and with bags arriving at the North Terminal, from Heathrow or the South Terminal, being checked and sorted onto BA flights out of the North Terminal.
"The temporary facilities we were managing on behalf of BA were under severe strain," notes Harman, "and so the introduction of this new BA owned facility, which is already proving so effective in operation, has removed a major bottleneck form the airport's operation."
Garry Comber, BAs' Baggage Support Manager at Gatwick agrees. "Although the previous solution for dealing with the screening and sorting of our transfer baggage was just able to cope with existing demand, it was a messy and relatively slow process, and the use of three different units significantly increased the potential for major disruptions. Our operation at Gatwick needed a major facility with the capacity to ensure that even at peak times all transfer bags are checked and sorted rapidly, and this is exactly what the new TBF provides."
Sited in a stylish new building, the TBF is able to handle the screening and sorting of over 5500 bags per hour, or more specifically 92 bags per minute. Transfer efficiency, in order to meet the required service level for aircraft to aircraft transfer, is provided by a in-system time performance of just seven minutes. This means that from unloading and receipt into the system through tag reading, 100% HBS screening, sorting and delivery to the sort location, each bag is processed within 7 minutes.
Just as impressive, has been the rapid development and installation of the TBF's complete baggage handling and sortation system by Logan Teleflex, a long standing supplier of specialist equipment to Gatwick Airport.
While only just officially opened, the TBF went live in March 1999, just eight months after the start of the design and installation project. It subsequently underwent extensive commissioning and confidence trails over the peak summer months, and after an independent audit, the system was handed over in September. It is now fully operational and meeting performance targets.
"To help cope with demand the facility was used at reduced capacity throughout the summer, and even at this level, the system proved its speed and efficiency. Since it went fully operational this potential is now being realised in terms of real benefits to both our operation and passengers alike. The new facility is much less susceptible to process failures and is delivering improvements in process quality and transfer baggage performance," claims Comber.
Key BA quality measures back up this point, showing that since the full introduction of the TBF, BA is already seeing reductions in both the number of short shipped bags (those that miss that day's connection) and short landed bags (those that go to the wrong destination).
Meeting the Deadline
However, this simplified account of the now operational facility, belies the complexity of its baggage handling system, and the engineering and project management effort that has gone into getting the TBF up and fully running this side of the millennium.
Originally, when first conceived, the TBF was to be based around a tracked vehicle system. But after considerable design work, this approach was abandoned when it ran into time and cost overruns. As a result, BA took over the management of the project in mid 1998 and invited new tenders for a more traditional baggage handling system. Due to already increasing time constraints, this tendering process was reduced to just eight days, and of the two companies that managed to put together a proposal in that time, only Logan were prepared to meet the project cost requirements, and the timeframe of completion by summer 1999.
As Derek Jobling, the Project Manager for Logan Teleflex, explains, "A key factor behind our ability to deliver this total system design and installation project in such a short timescale, where others could not, was that we were in a position to adopt, for the first time, the group's new generic development concept, termed 'The Bag Factory'."
The principle behind this concept is that by having strategically developed its portfolio of capabilities, through acquisitions, business partnerships with leading suppliers and internal developments, Logan Teleflex is able to design complete baggage handling solutions that use current technology in modular form. This allows the group to offer flexibility to meet individual terminal requirements, while providing a proven system that can be completed in a shorter time, at less cost.
A key module within 'The Bag Factory' solution is the group's Bag2000 system. This includes sort allocation computer, baggage reconciliation system and management information system - and essentially encapsulates all the control, monitoring and management information systems required for baggage handling. Another module is 100% Hold Baggage Screening (HBS). Through the redesign of mechanical equipment, the adoption of tried and tested control technology and the resolving of the interface problems with smart screening machines, an HBS module has been developed and packaged as a complete product. The solution also includes the group's Model 700 tilt tray sorter. Other system elements - bag separation, bag suitability check, auto tag reading (ATR), manual coding, bag tracking, and so on - can also be easily integrated depending on the facility requirements.
It was only by already having these tried and tested design building blocks and interfaces in place, that meeting the time and cost constraints of the Gatwick TBF project became feasible.
Design Complications
Even so, while employing the standard modules reduced some of the major design hurdles, the TBF development project still posed some additional technical difficulties that required all of Logan's experience and expertise to solve. For a start, the handling solution had to achieve some very tight performance requirements, in particular the in-system time frame of 7 minutes. A further complication was an initial design requirement to avoid the need to screen domestic luggage - a flexibility which could only be achieved by tag reading bags prior to HBS. Moreover, the system had to be fitted within the size constraints of a building that was already being built, but which had been designed for the original tracked vehicle system.
"Establishing all the necessary capacity into the fixed building envelope proved to be a very tight squeeze, which had ramifications throughout the design," notes Jobling.
As a result of these issues, the traditional and simpler approach of undertaking HBS first, on a relatively slow and straight conveyors, and then tag reading prior to sortation, was not an option available to Logan Teleflex engineers. Instead, key design decisions were taken to place ATR stations prior to HBS, and to send all bags straight from HBS onto the sortation system, without waiting for screening to be completed, so as to avoid incurring 'idle' time, and wasting space. Bags are therefore effectively under HBS tracking from the ATRs right through to the destination chute. Also, handling systems typically match the speed of the Vivid X-ray machine, which is 0.5 m/s. But, in order to help achieve the in-system time requirement, the TBF's system has been designed to transport bags - prior to and after the x-ray machines - at a much faster 1 m/s second. Similarly, the sorting system operates at a faster than normal rate, at 1.44 m/s.
"Essentially," states Jobling, "our engineers came up with a very efficient system, one which would fit within building confines, ran faster than normal and where activities are carried out in parallel, and then developed a 'rugged' tracking system to met these requirements".
In the final detailed solution, which is now operating, regular baggage is received into the TBF through one of five unloading stations where bags are manually loaded onto belt conveyors. Each of these stations are part of the units five main sub-systems, each of which has all of the elements necessary for code reading and HBS screening. There are also two further sub-systems - also with their own unloading bays, coding and HBS systems - for out of gauge baggage. Within each of the main sub systems, bags are routed from the off-loading position, through height and length checks and baggage separation, to an Automatic Tag Reading position. Bags with unreadable labels are diverted to one of the two manual coding stations dedicated to each line. The bag destination information is communicated to the SAC system, which in terms determines and communicates to the sub system's controller, and subsequently the sorter's controller, each bag's destination chute. Once coded, bags are routed and tracked through a Vivid 'level 1' x-ray machine and then to a Vertical Belt Diverter which pre-sorts bags to one of the two tilt tray sorting systems.
Once the bags pass through the x-ray machine, they are tracked for security as well as destination, and during the travel time along the conveyors and onto the sorter bags which have failed the 'level 1' screening process are subject to 'level 2' screening. This is undertaken by operators viewing the x-ray images at one of the nine 'level 2' screening stations, all of which are located in a separate HBS screening room. All bags which pass the screening process are sorted through the 96 flight destination chutes and 4 inter airport chutes.
All bags that fail 'level 1 and 2' screening are dispatched by the sorting system down one of the two (one for each sorter) 'level 3' chutes and are routed through a system dedicated to the 'Level 3' CTX scanning process. Also, these chutes receive any bag for which a 'level 2' decisions is not reached in time, and any bags which are lost by the tracking system during this part of the transfer process. Bags which subsequently clear Level 3 security are re-introduced into the sortation system, whilst bags which fail level 3 security are diverted from the system to a remote pick up point for passenger reconciliation (level 4) and further inspection.
System Integrity
With such a complex system being design and installed within a very tight timescale, there was little time for testing prior to the system going live in March. Even so, the use of standard modules ensured that the system was operational on schedule. However, in order to fully meet all the high performance requirements, some key issues have had to be addressed during a relatively lengthy commissioning and compliance trail period.
One area which had to be fined tuned to meet the demands of the rapid transit of 'variable' luggage, was the sorter injection process. To more effectively cope with the wide range of 'variable' luggage types and the faster speed of both the conveyor system and the sorter, a new smoother injection philosophy was developed. Bags are now dragged slowly off the main conveyor by the injection conveyor and brought to a stop. They are then smoothly but rapidly accelerated by the injection conveyor up to an injection speed of 2.2 m/s and deposited onto the passing tilt tray.
Although, the biggest compliance issues was proving the integrity of the baggage tracking system, and its ability to effectively maintain the tracking of bags - in terms of both destination and security status - right through the conveyor system and onto the sorter.
According to Jobling, "Unavoidable design decisions significantly increased the demands placed on the tracking system, and the running at a fast speed while maintaining tracking and HBS integrity, stretched the bounds of existing technology."
"The key," he adds, "has been the achieving the difficult balance between system speed for throughput, while meeting the technical specification of only losing track of less than 1% of bags."
While compliance testing proved the need for improvements to the tracking control software, and mechanical belt speed adjustments, it also proved the fallibility of high technology to human intervention. In particular, the tracking system was susceptible to bags - many of which were out of gauge bags that were wrongly being injected into the main transfer systems - moving about on the conveyors.
The previous transfer baggage units has been simpler and more manual operations, and as a consequence each transfer and checking system had been able to handle all types of baggage. Whereas, the complexity of the TBF's handling system meant that while a wide range of bags could be handled by the main units, significantly out of gauge bags needed to go through their own system. Therefore, along with system improvements, BA has also undertaking a major education programme, in order to train its staff to load bags properly and put out of gauge bags through the appropriate sub systems.
As Comber concludes, "With the two companies working closely together, during this hand over period, we were able to work around and solve operating problems while still maintaining some throughput capacity. As a result we now have an established and fully proven facility - that meets all the audited requirements in terms of throughput volume and time and tracking capability - and which has already proven that it will be a major asset for BA's Gatwick operations in coming new millennium."
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