BLDG4306 Strategic Facilities Management | London City Airport

Introduction

Facilities Management at airports is considered a challenging issue for organizations, as it could develop solutions, and offer a positive contribution within the organization, and the society. The sustainability of facilities management is one of the emerging themes within organizations (Balslev et.al, 2016). London City Airport is located in the center of the city, its unique location differentiates its operations from other airports' operations. It functions as a primarily business market. The airport seeks to expand its capacity for example, to improve the passenger access to facilities, and makes future expansions to sustain its business. The airport development plan expects to have 8 million passengers by 2030. It seeks to maximize the use of the existing facilities, as the runways flight occupancy, and creation of better facilities to increase customer satisfaction (London City airport , 2013). The airport considers the environmental impact of its operations, and follows the quality management measures.

The following section discusses the scope, and role and responsibilities of an executive facilities manager at London City Airport. Then it Identifies the main activities for preventative maintenance, and the challenges that face them. Identification of the in house, and outsourced operations. Finally, it analyses the quality management at the airport.

First: The scope of facilities management in London City Airport

In the typical workplace interface, Facility Management (FM) unit contribution, includes, location, plant, buildings, information technology, people, and transport (Ogbeifun, et.al. 2016). FM services usually take the form of inputs required to produce outputs.

London City airport serves 38 main business destinations in Europe, and New York. It is considered the gateway of London for both inbound, and outbound travelers. Also, it makes much effort to maintain its high levels of services, and fast processing of passengers' facilities. London City Airport has completed the refurbishment of the main terminal to provide more capacity in the departure lounge. The airport offers free Wi-Fi, new bars, and restaurants to make the airport more attractive option for the travelers. To maintain this high reputation, a streamlined approach to facilities management is effective, providing a better infrastructure for service delivery that enables the visibility, and accountability of task completion in a paperless format. The concept of Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) takes place in London City Airport since 1990's, and was developed to be fully web-enabled in 2010 (FSI, 2017). Accordingly, engineers receive jobs on their PDAs directly, which results in greater use of workflow.

Role and responsibilities of an executive manager

Airports, usually provide resources, infrastructure, and management systems to allow efficient, and secure air transportation services (Merkert & Wayne, 2016). FM executives are challenged by the dynamics of the airline alliances, and stakeholders to provide domestic, and international passenger, and freight traffic services. Executive FM should differentiate their business operation from competitors to generate revenues, and make sound brand awareness (Ware, 2012). They have to make a competitive strategy to sustain their competitive advantage.

This best of this system is that it enables the executives to access of all of the modules at the touch of the activation key immediately. The CAFM system could meet the expectation of the airport expansion. The biggest challenge of the system was loading the assets into the database. The system required very well planning in the beginning before implementation. The challenge was mainly represented in creating a nicely integrated platform that could easily generate the required reports.  The system helped in labor allocation to the planned maintenance tasks, and ensured that the engineers' time is highly maximized, as the staff manager can know the required number of the staff to fulfill specific work commitments (FSI, 2017). Purchases could be tracked through the system, and just in time schedule could be generated, making sure no waste of supplies. This system enables the executive facilities manager to save costs in all of the stages of processing.

Second: Identification of the main activities for preventative maintenance at London City Airport

The sustainability strategy at London City Airport, and the sustainability action plan have a series of objectives for managing the main activities for preventative maintenance according to (London City Airport, 2012a), as follows:

• Waste production:The airport established a series of activities to ensure waste reduction, and promote for waste recycling. The airport objective for waste management is to promote for waste hierarchy, and reduce waste to landfill.
• Energy, and emissions:The airport is committed for energy efficiency, and adapts a series of measures to lower the energy consumption.  Also, it aims to reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the future.
• Water resources:The airport promotes for water efficiency to reduce water consumption per passenger. It has implemented a series of water saving initiatives, for example, it used the proximity detection taps. 
• Sustainable transport:The airport promotes for sustainable transport for the staff, and the passengers to, and from the airport. The airport is already accessible by a number of surface access, as the Docklands Light Railway.
• Biodiversity:The airport is concerned with the biodiversity, as it considers it a key sustainability issue. It promotes for the biodiversity issues with the staff, school children's, and the local residents.
• Noise: the airporttakes many actions to monitor, and lower the adverse effect of the noise. A noise management scheme was established to manage the noise of the operations at the airport
• Local air quality:Managing air quality is considered an ongoing process which requires an ongoing monitoring management, and review. The airport continues to meet the emissions standards to ensure the air quality to protect health.  
• Sustainable construction:The airport plan aims to make the best use of the current infrastructure. More facilities could be added in the future, beside of the minor constructions that are carried out periodically.

Challenges for maintaining a large facility at London City Airport

The airports need additional airport capacity in the short, and the long term. Increasing the capacity of the airport requires expansions in the runways, terminal capacity, ancillary facilities, aircraft stands, and maintenance. The decision of expansions requires multilayer decision making process, and complex neighborhood consultation. The degree of uncertainty is high. Also, the optimization of the current operations assumes that additional capacity will be added from the available infrastructure. Using technology to optimize the airport operations, will require culture change processes (Eurocontrol, 2009). Culture change is considered the biggest challenge that would meet the airport.  

Third: In-house, and outsourced operations in London City Airport, and the multiplicity of contractors

The concepts of commercialization in air transportation management have emerged remarkably, which led the airports to strategize their operational strategies to provide enhanced services to their customers. Privatization, and deregulation of airports created competition between the service providers. Outsourcing services are considered a way for saving money, but it is associated with risks. For example, outsourcing the security services to ensure safety of the staff, and the passengers is very important. The big challenge is to provide excellent customer services efficiently even if they are outsourced. To ensure profitability, and efficiency, airports can outsource their logistics activities, as it is considered a tool that leads to the competitiveness of the company. The majority of airports outsource the security services, including the X-rays devices to detect any metal. Also, activities as engine maintenance are usually out-sourced. It is recommended that London City Airport engage in both internal, and external activities to satisfy its customers. Activities as line maintenance are usually in-sourced by the airlines (Soita & Gichinga, 2016). Although, the outsourcing may result in service failure, and unforeseen costs (Pruzinky & Mihalcova, 2015). Analysis of outsourcing is critical, and includes multi-dimensional aspects that should be considered when taking the decision of outsourcing.

According to York Aviation LLP. (2011), outsourcing has advantages as follows:

• Immediate contracting with temporary labor.
• Cost reduction of maintaining, upgrading, and repairing equipment's.
• Speed in processing activities, and orders' execution
• Guarantee that services will be performed.

The multiplicity of contractors relates to several factors within the supply chain management. It is related to the type of operation strategy either Just-in-time, or door-to-door. Velocity is accompanied with reliability in the logistics management activities, but it is still challenging. For example, the increase of traffic or amount leads to crowd at the terminals or along the transport segment. The multiplicity of contractors may lead to high logistics costs, transportation cost accounts for more than of the half of the costs, the inventory costs usually carry the costs of about one fifth of total costs (Paul, 2012). As London City Airport depends on the Just-in-time operations, it could reduce the inventory costs, and increase its efficiency.

Fourth: Quality assessment in facility management at London City Airport, and quality accreditation system

London City Airport aims to manage the impact of its operations on the environment, and the local communities. It works closely with its neighbors, and stakeholders to maximize the benefits of its operations, and grow in a sustainable way (London City Airport, 2014). The air quality issue is considered the key to the airport environmental strategy. It delivers the air quality at levels within the EU limits (Loader, 2013). Also, it considers the habits of the wildlife, and the waste management (London City Airport, 2013). Accordingly, the airport maintains the quality standards, and makes regular improvements to sustain its success, and leadership in the market.

The airport's major goal is to minimize the negative environmental impact of the operations, and people living in the working areas. The airport is highly concerned with the air quality. The Air Quality Action Plan reveals how the airport intends to manage its operations to ensure quality of its operations. According to London City Airport (2012b), the airport quality system includes the following measures:

• Encouraging staff, and passengers to use sustainable transport mode to access the airport, through making the best use of public transport, and lowering the number of trips by single vehicles.
• Reduction of the airport related traffic on the local roads to improve the air quality.
• Considering the impact of the airport operations on the natural resources, as water, and energy.

Conclusion

London City airport serves 38 main business destinations in Europe, and New York. It is considered the gateway of London for both inbound, and outbound travelers. Also, it makes much effort to maintain its high levels of services, and fast processing of passenger facilities. The concept of Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) takes place in London City Airport since 1990's, and was developed to be fully web-enabled in 2010. FM executives are challenged with the dynamics of the airline alliances, and stakeholders to provide domestic, and international passenger, and freight traffic services.

The airports need additional airport capacity in the short, and the long term. The decision of expansions requires multilayer decision making process, and complex neighborhood consultation. The degree of uncertainty is high. Outsourcing services are considered a way for saving money, but it is associated with risks. It is recommended that London City Airport engage in both internal, and external activities to satisfy its customers.

London City Airport works closely with its neighbors, and stakeholders to maximize the benefits of its operations, and grow in a sustainable way. The Air Quality Action Plan reveals that the airport intends to manage its operations to ensure quality of its operations.

References

Balslev, S., Sarasoja, A., & Ramskov, K. (2016). Sustainability in facilities management: an overview of current research. Facilities, 34(9), 535-563.

Eurocontrol. (2009). Mitigating the challenges for air transport 2030. 

FSI. (2017). London City Airport. Retrieved from https://www.fsifm.com.au:

Loader, A. (2013). Air quality at Heathrow airport – Annual report for 2012. Ricardo-AEA.

London City airport. (2013). CADP: Planing statement. UK.

London City Airport. (2012a). Air quality action plan. UK.

London City Airport. (2012b). Sustainability strategy and airport austainability action plan. London.

London City Airport. (2013). Transforming east London together. UK.

London City Airport. (2014). Strategic report. UK.

Merkert, R., & Wayne, D. (2016). Managing Freight Operations Chains of Passenger Airlines at International Airports. In Airline Efficiency (pp. 221-241). Emerald Group Publishing Limite.

Ogbeifun, E., Mbohwa, C., & Pretorius, J. (2016). Facilities management unit: improving self-image before its customers. Facilities, 34(13), 956-975.

Paul, J. (2012). Supply chain management, logistics changes and the concept of friction. New York: Hofstra University.

Pruzinky, M., & Mihalcova, B. (2015). Outsourcing within airport services. Scientific Journals of the Maritime University of Szczecin, 44(116), 162–169.

Soita, S., & Gichinga, L. (2016). The international journal of business and management. The International Journal Of Business & Management, 4(3), 307-333.

Ware, J. (2012). Raising the bar: Enhancing the strategic role of facilities management. UK: RICE research.

York Aviation LLP. (2011). Integral to growth: The economic significance of London City Airport. UK.