Question

Terminal 5 (T5), built by British Airways for $8.6 billion, is London Heathrow Airport's newest state- of-the-art facility. Made of glass, concrete, and steel, it's the largest free-standing building in the United Kingdom and has more than 10 miles of belts for moving luggage. At the terminal's unveiling in March of 2008, Queen Elizabeth ll described the facility as an important of Britain’s future. Alas… the accolades didn't last long! After two decades in planning and 100 million hours in manpower, opening day didn't work out as planned. Endless lines and major baggage handling delays led to numerous flight cancellations stranding many irate passengers. Airport operators said the problems were triggered by glitches in the terminal's high-tech baggage-handling system.

With its massive automation features, T5 was planned to ease congestion at Heathrow and improve the flying experience for the 30 million passengers expected to pass through it annually. With 96 self-service check-in kiosks, more than 90fast check-in bag drops, 54 standard check-in desks, and miles of suitcase-moving belts estimated to be able to process 12,000 bags per hour, the facility's design seemed to support those goals.

However, within the first few hours of the terminal's operation, problems developed. Presumably understaffed, baggage workers were unable to clear incoming luggage fast enough. Arriving passengers waited more than an hour for their bags. Departing passengers tried in vain to check in for flights. Flights left with empty cargo holds. Sometime on day one, the airline checked in only those passengers with no luggage. And it didn't help that the moving belt system jammed at one point. Lesser problems also became apparent: a few broken escalators, some hand dryers that didn't work, a gate that wouldn't function at the new Underground station, and inexperienced ticket sellers who didn't know the fares between Heathrow and various stations on the Piccadilly line. By the end of the first full day of operation, Britain's Department of Transportation released a statement calling for British Airways and the airport operator BAA to get the problem fixed so customers would not be inconvenienced.

You might be tempted to think that all of this could have been prevented if British Airways had only tested the system. But thorough runs of all systems "from toilets to check in and seating" took place six months before opening, including four full-scale test runs using 16,000 volunteers.

Although T5’s debut was far from perfect, things have certainly changed. A recent customer satisfaction surveyshowed that 80 percent of passengers waited less than five minutes to check in. And those passengers are extremely satisfied with the terminal's lounges, catering, facilities, and ambience.

With the Summer Olympics in London, London’s Heathrow (and T5) grappled with a record passenger surge. As competitors, spectators, and media arrived. To cope with the deluge, some 1000 volunteers greeted arrivals, and special teams were assigned to deal with the athletes’’ oversize items like javelins, bikes, and other sports equipment. Despite the chaotic ‘birth’ of T5, it’s become a valued component of Heathrow and British Airways.

Please answer the following questions:

1- Define the main issues of this case study.

2- What type of control – feedforward, concurrent, or feedback- do you think would be most important in this situation? Explain your answer.

3- How might immediate corrective action have been used in this situation? How about basic corrective action?

4- What could companies learn from the smooth handling of the throngs of arrivals and departures for the Summer 2012 Olympics?

Answer 1

Answer 1: The main issue of this case study are the following:

Banking on the Automative System: The case details about how massive utilization of the automation systems was done on the Terminal 5 with escalators, baggage handling systems, self-check-in facilities, etc. The reliability of manual operations was either not planned or unexpected from the T-5 management team which leads to the chaos.

Absence of Preliminary Testings: The full-scale testing was probably not possible with the limitations of time and focus on opening the T-5 as soon as possible. But the critical systems could have been tested such as suitcase movement belt, check-in systems, and team coordination systems. The stress and strain tests on team management, mock drills, back up emergency machinery, and arrangements could have been easier and resulted in better scenarios in the inauguration of the airport.

Improper team and management coordination: The mock drills and role-play activities help the workforce to be ready for the anticipated or unexpected situations. These exercises not on help during the emergency management but also helps in better training and skill set of the worker staff.

No plan B or alternative strategy: The alternative strategy implementation or quick response team management can focus on the critical to least priority based jobs whenever need requires. The newly inaugurated airport T-5 went into the panic mode of management when nothing went as planned and they had nothing to back up or manage the crisis of the time.

Answer 2: Feedforeward control suits the best in this kind of crisis of the Airport management. The feedforeward is a type of preventive or preliminary strategy which aim at identifying the possible events of problems and deviations from the regular flow within the different department of operations in order to minimize the risks and people involved in the situations. This helps to map the team and resources with the roles and responsibilities whenever the situation arises and the team will have a clue about what is expected from whom and how to coordinate in such type of situation. If feedforward control had been taken place during the inauguration of the T-5 airport, the problems have been lower and could have been handled in a most professional way.

Answer 3: The immediate corrective actions can prove to be critical in defining the further case scenario of any incident. The corrective actions can help to improvise and avoid getting the situations worse to be handled further. In this case, shifting towards manual operations of baggage check-in and check-outs, accessibility to the common stairs for public instead of absolutely relying on the escalators, more staff for the management of customer check-in, on-ground crew to handle the cargo and logistics could have put the situations in a much better condition than it was during the inauguration of the T-5 airport. Few of the basic corrective actions could have been instead on randomly allocating the resources and man power, proper plan and fixed responsibilities could have been sorted out and deployed to the point of action and application.

Answer 4: Few of the lessons that can be learnt from the Summer 2012 Olympics are as follows:

Proper Resources and Manpower Planning: The proper resources and manpower planning is a key to run the business in the competitive market. Without proper planning the entire business can be jammed as on the first day of the operation of T-5 airport. The mathematical and IT tools are there to facilitate the planning and job allocation and tracking the performance of the resources with the specified constraints to check for efficiency and capabilities.

Coordination and relations between team: Team coordination and good work relations promote the healthy work environment in the business. If a team is under pressure of performance at the threshold limits, other teams can assist till the burden lowers in the situations. There can be a lot of cases where coordination between the team had been a key factor in various success.

Well defined roles and responsibilities: Well defined roles and responsibility helps the employees to understand and control the boundaries of their job requirements. The specific job criteria and the assigned responsibility provides the authority to the right person at the right time to take control, manage and improvise on any problem or need of the situation.

Backup and dedicated plans: Back up and dedicated plans are defined when the regular course of plans fail and there is requirement of predetermined and strategically planned approach to handle a situation. The dedicated plans are planned under very serious environment and with the help of the subject experts to provide the ideal approach to any problem. Therefore, it is always good to have a backup plan in case of any problems and emergencies.

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