Innovation of the runway system maintenance strategy at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol using the

192 Pages·2012·2.96 MB·English

by  Bas Bennebroek

INNOVATION OF THE RUNWAY SYSTEM MAINTENANCE
STRATEGY AT AMSTERDAM AIRPORT SCHIPHOL USING THE
VALUE OPERATIONS METHODOLOGY
bas bennebroek
public version
— —
MSc thesis
Air Transport and Operations
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering
Delft University of Technology
Airfield Maintenance Services
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
2012
May

Innovation of the runway system maintenance strategy
at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
using the Value Operations Methodology
MSc thesis
May2012
GraduationFebruary10,2012
BasJanJacobBennebroekMSc
Studentnumber:1260634
[email protected]
[phone]
supervisors:
prof.dr.RickyCurran(TUDelft)
prof.dr.ir.JohnStoop(TUDelft)
dr.ir.FrankvanderZwan(TUDelft)
FrankKamminga(A/AMS/A&O,AmsterdamAirportSchiphol)
ir.GijsEmsbroek(A/AMS/A&O,AmsterdamAirportSchiphol)
CoverphotobyDirk-JanKraan(http://www.panoramio.com/photo/51436142)

PREFACE
Aboutayearago,amidstheavysnowandcanceledflights,Ifirstspokewith
Frank Kamminga about the proposal that would be the starting point for
this research. While not an expert on runway maintenance, I immediately
enthused over the chance of working at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on
a project that combined technical knowledge with ‘soft’ topics such as a
stakeholderanalysisandvaluetrade-offs.
In June 2011 I started with the project, and this thesis is the result of
tenmonthsofresearchontherunwaysystemmaintenancestrategyatAm-
sterdam Airport Schiphol, and on the Value Operations Methodology as
theacademicframework.Readerssolelyinterestedinthepracticalfindings
for the maintenance strategy are advised to read Chapter 2 and 5–7 first.
Chapter3and4focusonthetheoreticalconceptsandframeworksusedin
thisresearch,andmaybeofprimaryinteresttoacademicreaders.
In this public version of my thesis, certain confidential information has
been removed. This includes the individual stakeholders’ preferences as
presentedinChapter5,andthesubsequentindividualchangesinvalueas
calculatedinChapter7.Onlytheaveragestakeholder’sresultsarepresented
in this version. Please contact Frank Kamminga or Gijs Emsbroek at the
AirfieldMaintenanceServicesdepartmentatAmsterdamAirportSchiphol
forpermissiontousetheclassifieddata.
This thesis concludes the Master of Science program at the Faculty of
AerospaceEngineeringatDelftUniversityofTechnology.Aftertwentyyears
ofattendingschoolanduniversity,formeitalsomeanstheendofbeinga
student.Ithoroughlyenjoyedit,andIamlookingforwardtothenextstep.
Ofcourse,manypeoplewereofgreathelptomeinthisresearchproject.
Firstandforemost,IwouldliketothankFrankKammingaandGijsEmsbroek
for their daily supervision and for giving me the chance of finishing my
studies at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, and Frank van der Zwan for his
superbguidanceandideasthroughoutthisproject.Wakinguptoanearly
email from Frank is a great start of a productive working day. Professor
RickyCurranandJohnStoop,thankyouforyourtimeandcontributionsto
this research. I would also like to thank all the people who made time for
aninterview(seeAppendixAforthefulllist);withouttheseinterviewsthe
researchwouldnothavebeenpossible.Manythanksalsotoallthepeople
at Airfield Maintenance Services, for helping me along with documents,
hints and ideas, and for helping me understand the intricacies of runway
maintenance.ToallSIM’ersandotherinternsatAmsterdamAirportSchiphol:
thanksfortherelaxingdailythree-o’clockcoffeebreaks.Thankstomyfriends
forhelpingmeenjoymyfreetimeandforsix-and-a-halfgreatyearsinDelft.
Of course, I would like to thank my parents and brothers for being the
best family one could wish for. And finally, Eline, thank you for always
supportingmeandformakingmehappy,evenattimeswhenIgotstuck.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Worldwide, the air transport system is becoming increasingly busy and
crowded,andeveninthecurrenteconomicclimatethedemandforairtravel
isexpectedtogrowfast.Thisincreasingdemand,togetherwiththehighly
punctual schedules of airlines, requires a high availability of all elements
withintheairtransportsystem,includingaircraft,airspace,terminalsand
runways.
IntheNetherlands,thegrowthof‘mainport’AmsterdamAirportSchiphol
(AAS) isnot only limited by the current(terminal) infrastructure, butalso
bystrictnoiseregulations.Theseregulationsensurethatthepeopleliving
nearbySchipholdonotexperiencetoomuchnuisancefromairtraffic.Inan
efforttobalancetheintereststheaviationindustryandthelocalcommunity,
the Dutch government has set up the so-called ‘Alderstafel’. In its final
agreement, the Alderstafel proposed changes in the noise limits, a new
preferentialrunwayuseandalimitonthenumberofairtrafficmovements
peryear.
Both the growth in demand and the Alderstafel agreement affect the
airport’soperations.Animportantoperationalaspectisthemaintenanceof
airsideinfrastructure,andmorespecificallyoftherunwaysystem.Runway
systemmaintenanceisabsolutelynecessarytoguaranteesafeoperationsin
accordancewithinternationalregulations.However,duetothelargeimpact
on operations and runway capacity it is often seen as a ‘necessary evil’.
Moreover,amaintenanceprojectrequiresalargefinancialinvestmentand
confronts residents with a different runway use resulting in more noise
in some areas. In the near future, the growing demand for air traffic and
the new regulationsof the Alderstafelwill also result inchanging, stricter
requirementsforrunwaymaintenance.TheAirfieldMaintenanceServices
(AMS) department at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is therefore in need of
newsolutionsthatimprovethecurrentmaintenancestrategy.
In previous years several studies have been performed at Amsterdam
AirportSchipholtogenerateandanalysealternativemaintenancestrategies.
These studies generally result in a list of benefits and drawbacks for each
alternative. Unfortunately, these reports lack a trade-off between the pros
and cons, so no conclusion is drawn as to the merits of the alternatives.
Therefore,thisresearchdoesnotonlycreateandanalyseaseriesofalternative
runwaysystemmaintenancestrategies,butitalsostrivestobuildatrade-off
frameworktodeterminewhetherthesealternativesareanimprovementover
thecurrentstrategy.Thisframeworkthusassiststhedecisionmakingprocess
regardingtherunwaysystemmaintenancestrategy.Inthetrade-offnotonly
thegoalsofAMSareconsidered,buttheinterestsofallrelevantstakeholders
aretakenintoaccount.
The trade-off framework is founded on the concept of ‘value’ and the
philosophy of ‘value-focused thinking’. In this philosophy, value is not
expressed as a monetary unit but defined much broader: value describes
what is important to a stakeholder in the context of the decision situation.
Tomakethisconceptandtheframeworkoperational,theValueOperations
Methodology(VOM)ischosenasthecentralmethodologyinthisresearch.
TheVOMcalculatesthechangeinvalue∆V ofanalternativecomparedtoa
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referencesituation;ifthechangeinvalueispositive,thealternativeimproves
onthereferencesituation.Themainresearchquestionthenbecomes:
How can a quantified change in value for all relevant stakeholders
measure the success of new ideas in improving the runway system
maintenancestrategyatAmsterdamAirportSchiphol?
While the general approach of the Value Operations Methodology is
welldefinedinliterature,severalstepsinthemethodologylackedasound
theoretical foundation. By thoroughly analysing each step, a number of
improvementstotheVOMareproposed:
• BasedontheAnalysisofComplexNeighbourhoods,Savage’sapproach
and Mitchell’s approach, a six-step procedure is outlined to identify
andselecttherelevantstakeholdersforinclusioninthevaluemodel;
• A systematic approach is suggested for the formulation of the set of
objectives that form the main parameters in the value function. This
approachusesanobjectivetreetoselecttherightlevelofabstraction,
and a list of desired properties to improve the formulation of the
objectives;
• A number of improvements are proposed to the Analytic Hierarchy
Process(AHP),whichisusedtodeterminetheobjectiveweightfactors.
Itisconcludedthat:
– Pair-wise comparisons are absolutely necessary when applying
theAHP,asitcompelsdecisionmakerstomakeachoice;
– Averbal‘more/less/equal’ratingscaleisbestsuitedtocapture
stakeholders’valuetrade-offs;
– The simple arithmetic mean of the individual objective weight
factors should be used to determine the average stakeholder’s
preferences.
• AproposaltoscrapfromtheVOMtheso-called‘secondtier’todeter-
mineattributeweightfactors,andtobasetheseweightfactorsonthe
preferencesofdecisionmakers(the‘firsttier’);
• TheadditionofasystematicapproachbasedonGeneralMorphological
Analysis (GMA), to use the value model to create alternatives. This
approach uses a morphological grid to split up the research object
in separate parameters, which are then used to generate alternative
options;
• Theconclusionthatglobalscalingisbestusedtocalculatetheattribute
valuesinalternativescenarios.
Withtheseimprovements,theVOMbecomesabetterstructuredmethodology
forbuildingvaluemodelsandcreatingalternativesforreal-lifeproblems.
UsingthisimprovedValueOperationsMethodology,avaluemodelisbuilt
forthecontextofrunwaysystemmaintenanceatSchiphol.Sevenrelevant
stakeholdersareidentified:
• Airportoperator(AmsterdamAirportSchiphol);
• Airtrafficcontrol(LVNL);
• Airlines;
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• Nationalgovernment;
• Regionalandlocalgovernments;
• Residentsandlocalcommunitygroups;
• Passengers.
Thesesevenstakeholdershavethefollowingsixobjectives:
1. Increasecapacity(availabilityandreliability)ofairsideoperations;
2. Reducemaintenancerelatedcosts;
3. Increasepredictabilityandtransparencyregardingmaintenanceactivi-
ties;
4. Increasesafety,bothofairsideoperationsandthemaintenanceactivi-
ties;
5. Reducetheenvironmentalimpactofmaintenanceactivities;
6. Reducenuisancetolocalcommunity.
Basedoninterviewswithmoststakeholders,andaliteraturereviewfor
theothers,theobjectiveweightfactorsaredeterminedforeachindividual
stakeholder. Also the average stakeholder’s preferences are calculated, in
theassumptionthateachstakeholderisequallyimportant.Itisconcluded
thatonaverage,increasingcapacityisbyfarthemostimportantobjective,
followed byimproving predictabilityand safety. Thisis different fromthe
currentpracticeattheAirfieldMaintenanceServicesdepartment,whereof-
tentimesreducingcostsisthemostimportantobjectiveindecisionsregarding
maintenance.
Using the value model, a morphological grid is constructed to generate
sevenparametersthatcontain21alternativesfortherunwaysystemmainte-
nancestrategy.Fromthisgridfollowstheobservationthatmostalternatives
are related to the planning of maintenance. This warrants the conclusion
thatatAmsterdamAirportSchiphol,themaintenancestrategyisprimarily
concernedwithschedulingactivities.
The21alternativesarefirstindividuallyanalysedinaqualitativemanner.
The reference situation in these analyses is the large maintenance project
(GOH)ontheKaagbaaninSeptember2011.Fromthisqualitativeanalysisit
canbeconcludedthatthecurrentmaintenancestrategyisquitesuccessful:
mostalternativesresultinanegative∆V,indicatingthatthecurrentstrategy
creates more value. It also means that scheduling maintenance during the
winter(oneofthealternatives)isnotbeneficial:duetoalongermaintenance
periodandaresultingdecreaseincapacity,valueisdestroyedcomparedto
maintenanceinthespringandsummer.
The most promising alternatives are combined in two scenarios, taking
into account incompatibilities between options from the grid. These two
scenarios are quantitatively analysed. Only the first scenario, in which all
maintenanceisdoneduringthenightandtherunwayisoperationalduring
the day, results in a high positive ∆V, indicating that this scenario creates
valueforalmostallstakeholders.Thisisprimarilyduetothemajorcapacity
benefits.However,asthesafetyriskcannotbequantified,theactualvalue
creationwillbelowerthancalculated.Still,itisconcludedthatonthebasis
ofthevaluemodel,the‘nightlymaintenance’scenarioofferssignificantvalue
opportunities.
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The value model is checked for its conceptual, logical and operational
validity.Themainlimitationsofthemodelaretheuncertaintiesregarding:
thelevelofdetailoftheanalysisofthealternatives;thesetofattributesthat
measurethefulfillmentoftheobjectives;therepresentativenessoftheinter-
viewees;thechoiceoftheso-called‘factormax’;andtherelativeimportance
of each stakeholder. Still, the main conclusion regarding the operational
outcome of the value model is that the model works: for an alternative
maintenancestrategyitproducesa∆V foreachstakeholder.Themanager
of Airfield Maintenance Services finds these results useful, not only for
aidingdecisionmaking,butalsotoexplaintheeventualdecisionstoother
stakeholders.
In short, based on the value model and its outcomes the three main
conclusionsregardingtherunwaysystemmaintenancestrategyare:
1. The value model provides a useful trade-off framework for making
decisionsregardingthemaintenancestrategy.Itshowsthatthevalue
of the maintenance strategy is only marginally determined by costs.
Instead,capacity,predictabilityandsafetyobjectivesrankmuchhigher
inimportance;
2. Thecurrentmaintenancestrategyperformsbetterthanmostalterna-
tives,includingthealternativetoscheduleallmaintenanceduringthe
winter;and
3. Themaintenancestrategycanbeimprovedbyschedulingmoremain-
tenanceduringthenightandmakingtherunwayavailableduringthe
day.
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