Scenario Description
• Airline check-in options and procedures vary among airlines globally. Some airlines allow certain restrictions while other airlines have in place, and occasionally the same airline at two separate airports may have different check-in procedures. Such differences are usually not noted by the average passenger and occasionally lead to service interruptions when one carrier refuses to abide by the procedure that another carrier normally would be willing to do.
• There are numerous airlines operating and currently they have dedicated check-in points. This is likely to be less efficient especially when the time between departing flights is reduced. The delay affects departures, passengers’ waiting time and service levels.
• In this scenario, three airlines are operating in a local airport, airlines X, Y and Z have their own regulations to run and manage their check-in area. This includes the way that passengers wait in terms of queue layout, resources used at each check-in counter.
Data Collection (Resource Information and Process Description) Arrival Passengers
• Arrivals in the terminal are expected at relatively enough time prior to departure of the aircraft. Inter-arrival times of passengers are random and after consideration by a team of statistician working at the management level, it has been modelled as Triangular distribution with minimum equal to 1, maximum equal to 3 and most likely equal to 2 minutes.
Passengers Booking
• 30% of passengers have already booked to travel via X airline, 25% booked to travel via Y airline, while the remaining passengers prefer to travel via Z airline.
Queuing before check-in (Economy Class)
• Airline X prefers to arrange passengers into two queue lines. These queue lines work based on First Come First Served (FCFS) rule.
• Airline Y has allocated only one queue line for its passengers.
• Airline Z adopts Airline X in their arrangements.
Check-in operations
• The X airline has dedicated 2 check-in counters open 90 min before the departure and close 30 min before the departure of the aircraft. Triangular distributions were used for the check-in time depending on the purpose of the trip and if the passenger has already the boarding pass. A staff member is allocated to each counter to provide the required assistance. In average, the service time has parameters: 0.5(min), 1.1 (most likely), and 1.5 (max) per passenger.
• The Y airline has dedicated 1 check-in counter open 90 min before the departure and close 30 min before the departure of the aircraft. Triangular distributions were used for the check-in time depending on the purpose of the trip and if the passenger has
already the boarding pass. A senior staff member is allocated to provide the required assistance. In average, the service time has parameters: 0.7(min), 1.9 (most likely), and 2.3 (max) min per passenger.
• The Z airline has dedicated 2 check-in counters open 90 min before the departure and close 30 min before the departure of the aircraft. Triangular distributions were used for the check-in time depending on the purpose of the trip and if the passenger has already the boarding pass. Three senior staff member are allocated to provide the required assistance. In average, the service time has parameters: 1.5 (min), 1.6 (most likely), and 1.7 (max) min per passenger.
• Modelling of luggage has not been considered in the above check-in problem.
Security screening
• After checking a passenger in, he/ she has to walk through the detection equipment for further security checking. This applies for both airline passengers, as this is the only security screening available at this airport. Only one screen officer is allocated to monitor the screening operation.
• The screening last for a couple of minutes to 3 min with an average of 2.5 minutes per passenger. When necessary passengers will be asked by the screen officer to walk more than once through the detection equipment and this may increase the service time. Modelling of passenger travelling times has not been considered in the above check-in problem.
Operations before boarding
• Once passengers have passed through the security operations, they arrive in the departure area when they head directly for boarding.
The Coursework Tasks
For this piece of individual coursework, you are required to apply simulation modelling to deliver the tasks below:
Task 1- Provide an Introduction to the problem including: problem brief, main aim, objectives, tools and techniques, and key performance indicators.
Task 2- Use the tabular form to define and analyse the refurbishment system problem. This analysis includes decomposing the system being investigated into its main components including: entities, attributes, activities, state variables, and events.
Task 3- An appropriate flowchart with detailed explanations.
Task 4- Develop a business simulation model for 150 passengers to imitate the above check-in scenario (“As-Is” situation). Five simulation runs are required, at least one experiment (scenario) to:
i. Reduce the overall simulation time.
ii. Achieve a reduced queue at each service facility.
iii. Reduce average waiting time of passengers.
A comparison via Excel diagrams of the “As-Is” scenario with any other improvement scenarios “What-If” is required.
Task 5- Conclusion and Recommendations for further improvement (bullet points)