How Airports set the Stage for Cutting-Edge Digital Services
Five Case Studies Showcase the Importance of Cable Management
Digital transformation of the aviation sector is forcing aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and airports to act. The latter in particular often find themselves grappling with an IT infrastructure that fails to meet modern requirements in terms of transparency, agility, and efficiency. Cable management is crucial here. It’s far more than just a functional necessity with a database of visualized assets. Efficient monitoring of critical resources is a prerequisite for resolving technical faults with minimum disruption, leveraging the full potential of IT infrastructure, and seizing business opportunities as they arise.
Steve MacDiarmid, General Manager at FNT in the USA, discusses his findings in this context. He has seen, that airports need attractive and innovative retailers, service providers and caterers to increase their appeal. To support all the airport’s service providers the airport IT department must provide a fully transparent and optimized digital infrastructure.
Why is the infrastructure so important for this?
MacDiarmid: Modern airports need to be able to bring together a large volume of diverse infrastructure information to support innovative services. The biggest lever at their disposal is the ability to break down barriers and make things happen. If an airline wants biometric check-in, this must be set up quickly and securely as a service provided by the airport.
After all, the airport wants to stimulate consumption to create revenue with airlines, retail and passengers. Some airports concentrate on restaurants, some focus on retail and all focus on an improved overall customer experience. The point is, the airport has to become part of the journey, not be just a transit building.
How can airports support the renewal of their infrastructure?
MacDiarmid: The technological basis for many innovations has already been developed, but they are not easy to implement without a platform like FNT’s. Traditionally, companies put people in charge of finding and solving problems, but that is neither efficient nor fast.
With our solutions you can automate processes from planning through execution, resulting in skilled workers receiving a detailed work order that includes a precise set of actions to execute. Also important, the IT documentation is automatically updated when planned changes are completed. This is critical to ensure future changes are based on current and accurate data.
What are the main advantages?
MacDiarmid: Operators increase their operational efficiency by minimizing risks and their impact, and our solutions enable operators to manage both. Traditional change means: Do it first, then react to the consequences. But if change is understood as a planned activity, the consequences can be identified in advance. This gives you control over the process and reduces unexpected surprises.
You can download the full interview and the accompanying whitepaper for free here.
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