Helping airport efficiency take off

In common with all airlines and airport operators, GES.A.P. is also committed to sustainable operations and reduced carbon footprint. Every efficiency gain in terms of maintenance processes and asset lifecycle management helps to improve total sustainability by maximizing infrastructure performance.

To add to the mix, Palermo Airport is extending its main terminal, which includes new passenger services such as parking, food and shopping.

“We constantly strive to enhance our operational standards, improve our sustainability performance, and meet our compliance and safety objectives,” says Salvatore Libertino, Safety Manager at GES.A.P. “We realized that paper-based processes did not provide the right level of detail and were unable to provide the insights that would help us tune our capabilities.”

For example, many of the airport’s teams ran their own management systems. One team even relied on typed and handwritten reports. Extracting meaningful data to meet audit and compliance requirements took too long, and manually created reports in spreadsheets often contained transcription errors. When source data changed, it was not always possible to ensure that all the affected reports had been updated, generating potential re-work for the team that absorbed significant time and resources.

“Another challenge was the resistance we encountered to changing processes that had been established for many years,” says Vito Vitale, ICT Operations, GES.A.P. “People naturally avoid change, but it was time for the airport to move forward. With digital management, we could meet our efficiency, cost and sustainability objectives, as long as we carried the staff with us to ensure we maximized the impact on productivity.”

GES.A.P. engaged ELMI, an IBM Business Partner that specializes in facilities management and related business process automation technologies. GES.A.P. looked for possible solutions, starting with open-source software.

“We soon concluded that we did not have sufficient resources to develop and support open-source software, or to customize it sufficiently,” says Vitale. “We surveyed the marketing and IBM Maximo immediately stood out as the best solution to mee tour needs, so we started working with ELMI.”

GES.A.P. and ELMI created a step-by-step implementation plan that deployed IBM^® Maximo^® Asset Management to multiple departments in turn. Ultimately, the team aims to manage all airport operations using IBM Maximo, enabling a single, unified digital information resource for assets, infrastructure, safety, sustainability and more.

“For example, the safety management team carries out regular audits, and the audit results could be useful for other departments to confirm status for compliance reasons,” explains Libertino. “We would like to share appropriate information automatically, such as course attendance, qualifications, driving licenses, and more, which would help reduce duplication and improve our resource flexibility.”

Assets and infrastructure condition data is already being migrated to and stored in IBM Maximo, replacing spreadsheets and paper documents. Previously, when colleagues in the flight movements team noted an equipment maintenance issue, they sent a physical document to the infrastructure team. With IBM Maximo, defects are recorded centrally, with a full reporting audit trail from initial logging to final resolution.

“If something as simple as a switch gets broken and repaired, with IBM Maximo we know the status in real time and can trigger a stock replacement so that we don’t find ourselves unprepared next time,” comments Libertino. “The reports generated by Maximo allow us to have clear status visibility, from warehouse stock to our service response times, helping us to improve our efficiency and enhance the quality of our services.”