Bottleneck modelling: An essential step towards security process optimisation.
Bottleneck modelling: An essential step towards security process optimisation
Bottleneck Modelling as the Key to Smarter Checkpoint Operations
A security checkpoint may seem, by now, as a common process for those who fly every now and then. However, thinking about the setup; there aren’t that many line processes through which we as people move, including the amount of technical components.
As a society we have become known to the high-tech screening equipment, the added or lifted restrictions and also the changing actions to take as a passenger in the checkpoint. Yet, it is always a challenge from start to finish to (re)organise for the most optimal checkpoint solution, to be able to successfully screen passengers and their unique belongings within a limited footprint at the airport.
Authors
Tjeerd van der Meulen
Senior Consultant
Tjeerd@pointfwd.com
Robin van Gemert
Managing Director
Robin@pointfwd.com
Article highlights
Identify shifting bottlenecks through consistent analysis.
Model scenarios with tools like the CIT What-If module.
Optimise by testing and implementing improvements in real operations.
Request an assessment
Has this article made you curious about your security process optimisation? Point FWD, we are happy to help and answer in case-specific questions about simulations in security checkpoints that arise. We are open for demo requests and like to think with you in the solutions that can be brought with our security checkpoint simulation capability.
Optimal process organisation through bottleneck analysis
Following a bottleneck-analysis approach, we believe that true motivation for process optimisation should result in an ever-present chase to full process understanding. Knowing that the ‘bottleneck’ process in the security checkpoint is subject to changes constantly, and to be able to keep track on actual optimisation potential, we believe it is beneficial to adhere to a consistent optimisation approach. Our What-If module gives airport security stakeholders the opportunity to keep looking at process optimisation scenarios.
On the right-hand side the output capacities of our CIT ‘what-if’ module are depicted. What you see is a bottleneck that shifts by altering the input parameters of the process, usually coming from a baseline performance measurement at the airport.
The calculation runs on a complete model of the airport specific checkpoint situation and includes, amongst others, parameters like:
Process performances such as occupancy rates, process cycle- and wait times and availability of operators and machines.
Systems and staffing configuration and number of components and space.
Please note that the above representation is a snippet of our module. Beyond capacities, the complete module enables users to focus on system utilisation rates, staff efficiencies and workload KPIs, in order to organise for the changing requirements in security checkpoints nowadays.
Security Process Optimisation Cycle
The so-called what-if scenario modelling is usually the second step in our optimisation approach for airports and security companies. Based on an airport specific data collection, scenario modelling is the basis for setting paths for serious optimisation potential. It provides for a tangible asset to set up the operational business case, and then take it further and test it against operational situations in a simulated environment. The last step is to experiment and operationalise in the real-life checkpoint environment and passenger behaviour in full effect.
Point FWD owns a core capability in the monitoring and optimisation of airport security processes and has developed a highly effective platform for its partners to collect process data, to analyse and identify bottlenecks and to quickly initiate and monitor effective change.