Jun 19, 2013By applying Near Field Communication (NFC) tags to tens of thousands of items, and by equipping maintenance workers with NFC mobile phones, Italy's Milano Malpensa Airport reports that it has made the maintenance and repair of its facilities and equipment faster and more efficient. The airport installed the RFID-based solution to manage maintenance throughout its facility in 2012. Since then, says Stefano Dolci, Milano Malpensa's senior project leader, the airport automatically knows of every repair or maintenance request received—for everything from a lighting unit to an aircraft-boarding bridge—as well as its status at any given moment.
The solution, known as CAM (an acronym for Controllo delle Attività Manutentive, which translates to Maintenance Activities Control) was provided by RFID360, which supplied the airport with tags, as well as software to manage the collected read data. Since the deployment began a year ago, Malpensa has attached a total of 50,000 passive NFC RFID tags—one for every object or area that requires servicing, including fire extinguishers, electrical panels, bathrooms, moving walkways and elevators.
Like most airports, Malpensa has a complex environment in which thousands of service calls are placed annually, related to the repair, maintenance or replacements of equipment. In order to respond to those calls, the airport depends on an army of 600 workers, consisting of internal personnel and third-party service providers. Managing all of these workers and their assignments each day, Dolci says, is a monumental task.
The airport already uses RFID technology to automate its processing of baggage received by passengers and routed to the appropriate aircraft. The airport utilizes 1.3 million EPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags each year on baggage, to automate this process and ensure that every bag is loaded onto the correct aircraft. By reading each bag's tag and linking that data to its assigned flight, Dolci explains, Malpensa has been able to eliminate manual labor previously required to make sure that bar-coded baggage tags were properly scanned, and that the luggage was routed accordingly while moving down conveyors. The RFID baggage-handling system was installed in 2007 (see Milan's Malpensa Airport Prepares for RFID Baggage Handling). Thanks to the system's 99.95 percent accurate read rate, Dolci says, "We don't need manual workers, and our mishandling rate is very low." Prior to the RFID system's installation, that rate was between 3 and 4 bags for every 10,000 handled—but with RFID, he reports, that rate is less than one bag per 10,000.
More recently, the airport decided that it would like to have an automated solution for managing its maintenance, repair and cleaning staff. With passive NFC HF RFID tags installed on equipment and other objects throughout the airport, staff members could use an NFC-enabled mobile phone or tablet to read the tags, thereby creating a record of which services are being provided, as well as any exceptions encountered (such as identifying another problem that must be addressed, or a part that needs to be ordered).
According to Vittorio Ricci, RFID360's CEO, his firm has been offering RFID-based solutions for approximately five years, initially in the health-care market, allowing workers to log into the system and identify the steps they complete while caring for patients within their homes. About two years ago, he says, the airport approached the company seeking the NFC solution to track maintenance activities.
The solution consists of a variety of NFC RFID tags provided by RFID360, Ricci says, of many sizes and form factors, to be affixed to variously sized objects. RFID360 designed all of the tags and employed a third-party manufacturer in China to manufacture them. RFID360's software is stored on the airport's server, where it manages all read data, while also storing details linked to each tag such, indicating the type of equipment to which it is attached, as well as its maintenance record and requirements. In some cases, the software also issues alerts to management when expected work is not completed, based on the preset requirements for a particular item.
If a staff member encounters a piece of equipment that is not functioning properly, such as a bathroom faucet or a light, that worker taps his or her mobile phone against a tag associated with that item. The phone, which has an RFID360 application loaded on it, captures the tag's ID number and forwards that information to the software residing on the airport's server. That software then identifies the item and creates a service request.
The airport's management staff views the software and routes the request to the appropriate service provider—a process that typically takes less than a minute to complete. By contrast, airports lacking the system typically must rely on workers to fill out a written repair or maintenance request and submit it to their managers at the end of their shift. The managers, in turn, then forward the request to airport management, which can take up to 24 hours.
Upon arriving to repair an item, a worker taps his or her phone against the tag and follows steps on a drop-down menu to indicate the work being performed. Another tap of the tag, once the employee is finished, typically signifies that the problem has been resolved.
The tags are also being used by the cleaning staff. For example, an NFC tag is mounted on the wall of every bathroom. Employees tap their phones against the tag as they begin their work, and again when finished. If a worker finds a problem, such as a non-working faucet, that individual inputs information about the issue, after which the software transmits a request for service to the appropriate service providers.
Typically, Dolci says, once a request for service is issued to a worker via mobile phone, that person has 15 minutes to respond by reading the tag onsite. If he or she fails to respond within the allotted time, an alert can be displayed in the software or sent to management.
For scenarios in which a series of steps must be completed, such as during the inspection of smoke detectors, personnel first read the tag, and then view a list of steps that they must select on the phone's touchscreen while completing their assigned tasks.
If government inspectors wish to view the condition and status of equipment at the airport, they are escorted by an airport employee equipped with a mobile phone. The worker reads the tags of any equipment that interests the inspectors, thereby pulling up a record of each item's manufacture date and maintenance or inspection history.
"We are very happy with the technology," Dolci states, adding that Malpensa intends to continue adding functions to the system. For example, the airport plans to enable users to access vocal instructions, which would spare them from trying to read instructions on the phone's screen. The system will also be integrated with warehouse data, so that users (such as an electrical worker making a repair in an electrical closet) can view on his or her phone if a spare part is available at the airport's warehouse, and put in a request for that item.
Within the next year, Ricci says, the Milano Linate, a sister airport to Malpensa, will also begin using the technology to track maintenance.
