Every facilities manager or maintenance employee is readily familiar with the mechanics of their airport. The entire structure has delicate mechanical operations. Each of these needs different types and frequency of attention.
Take, for example, the baggage handling system. While passengers are tapping their feet waiting for their luggage, there’s an entire system of conveyor belts working behind the scenes.
Baggage handling woes
When a part of the system goes down, it becomes a nightmare situation for employees. It’s inconvenient for the passengers who need to relocate to a different carousel. Also for the baggage handlers, who must reload that baggage to a new carousel. And the facilities personnel, who have to make necessary repairs.
As airports modernize with new technologies, there are several ways to prevent inconvenience from improperly functioning baggage systems. The most effective is sensor technology.
When a motor on the belt is overheating or vibrating heavily it’s an indication of a larger problem, that something will break soon. With sensors feeding this information to a central location via Wi-Fi, the facilities manager sees this problem. Then they either redirect the baggage to a different part of the airport before the plane arrives or send someone out to make quick repair. This way, the passenger luggage does not stall on a broken belt, and the airport continues to function uninterrupted, preventing downtime.
EP in the airport
With Embedded Planet products, all information regarding the baggage handling system gets hardwired directly into our Sensor Connect Gateway. Installing the Gateway involves either wired or wireless, battery-powered SmartMesh sensors.
When installed in baggage handling systems, sensors measuring motion, temperature, and humidity can prove invaluable in airport facilities management. Automatic alerts tell you exactly which motor is malfunctioning and why so staff can mobilize and correct the problem as quickly as possible.
There are so many belts and motors to maintain this kind of facility. Sensors are your best option for anticipating and correcting mechanical failure.
Click here to learn more about sensor options and their many different applications inside the airport and beyond.
