WBP NEWS
Tech talk
We shine the spotlight on a handful of technology driven initiatives designed to improve the operational efficiency of airports and hasten their recovery from the global pandemic.
Reinventing the management of airfields Jacobs has developed a new proprietary cloud-based platform designed to enable the effective asset management of airfields. Indeed, based on the success of trials across the world, it believes that the solution, called Pavy, will reinvent the way airports manage airfield pavements. It states: “Airfield pavements are complex and extensive, and understanding how they perform is key to planning investment. Now more than ever, with the need to adapt to COVID-19 impacts, airport operators are looking for smarter ways to make strategic, cost-efficient decisions about their most important airfield assets. “Built on the insight and experience of a network of aviation and asset management professionals at Jacobs, Pavy is a customisable platform that puts the airport in control, enabling strategic, data-led decisions about airfield investment.” The asset management principles behind Pavy were originally conceived when London Heathrow commissioned a team of Jacobs specialists to create a solution to manage its four million square metres of airfield pavement. Jacobs says that Pavy enables airports to: • Devise investment strategies over 5-year periods, connecting engineering and finance teams to help balance costs, risk and performance, particularly in the wake of the pandemic; • Work with optimised CAPEX spend profiles, whilst receiving client-decision support, immediate feedback and basic scenario forecasting combined with visual plans; • Harness the power of their data to build stronger business cases for additional funding requests.
“We work every day to tackle our clients’ toughest challenges, and airfield asset management is a recurring issue in the aviation industry, even more so now, as operators look for more agile ways to manage their operations effectively in response to COVID-19,” says Donald Morrison, Jacobs’ senior vice president and general for people and places solutions, Europe, Middle East and Africa. “With Pavy, our new cloud-based platform, airports around the globe can better plan pavement investments and prioritise critical interventions.”
Security upgrade at Hamad International Airport Qatar’s Hamad International Airport (HIA) continues to innovate, recently becoming the first airport in the Middle East to install Smiths Detection’s HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX machines, which utilise Computed Tomography (CT) technology to X-ray screen carry-on baggage at security checkpoints. The new additions are expected to help expedite the security screening process by allowing passengers to keep electronic devices and liquids in their hand baggage, subsequently reducing wait times and boosting customer satisfaction levels. The airport’s vice president of security, Saeed Yousef Al-Sulaiti, says: “Smiths Detection has a reputation for providing market leading solutions with world-renowned standards for quality.”
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AIRPORT WORLD/ISSUE 6, 2020
