Denver Baggage Handling

Background

The new Denver International Airport (DIA), in original concept, was designed to be a technically advanced and state of the art facility. The build of the airport was aimed to help resolve the mid-1980s economic downfall of the Denver area, increase Denver's airport capacity to support current and anticipated demand, and, through its technological advancements, fortify its presence as an air transportation hub.

The new airport facility would extend throughout 53 square miles with parallel North-South runways and East-West runways, room for a total of 12 major runways, and the capacity to allow aircraft to land, taxi, and take off in a single direction. To ensure passengers did not incur excessive turnaround or baggage reclaim delays as a result of the mass-sized airport facility, the airport's design committee elected to implement a complex automated baggage handling system. The sophisticated system would reduce aircraft turnaround time to less than 30 minutes and produce more efficient operations with less manpower. The baggage system was designed to be DIA's competitive advantage.

DIA was scheduled to open in October 1993. Multiple problems resulting from an underestimation of construction complexity for the large-scale airport facility, and poor risk assessment and technological planning of the baggage handling system delayed the opening approximately 16 months.

Due to poor planning and communication techniques, the DIA design committee did not identify the large amount of risk associated with automated baggage system. A more exhaustive analysis of the design and performance of the planned baggage operations should have been completed. Also, due to the time, monetary, and political constraints for the opening of the DIA facility, the insurance of a backup system was not cemented into the original baggage system design.

Political Influence

Political pressure produced an over-confident initial construction timeline. Throughout the airport design and build, the consultants and construction crews were more focused on meeting the scheduling constraints than they were in communicating problems and scheduling. Political influence was an unforeseen obstacle for the progress of the automated baggage system design and installation. For example, Denver's mayoral administration wanted to ensure local revenue and therefore mandated that local businesses be incorporated into the airport contracts. Firms with 30% minority-owned and 6% women-owned were awarded the job of operating the baggage system that BAE (Boeing Airport Equipment Automated Systems Incorporated) designed, though these entities were not involved in the initial design or implementation.

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment of the system that was anticipated to be the airport's competitive advantage should have been completed with the layout of the airport's master plan. Instead, the baggage system was designed after project commencement because decision makers underestimated the complexity of the project. Had the correct strategy been incorporated into the master plan, BAE would have had an additional two (2) years for