Simio Academic Program: Expansion Project for an Airport Security Area

A new terminal at a major airport will be added. This new terminal (T4) will service two new airlines. T4 will be constructed just next to an existing terminal (T3), which services three airline companies. The airport management is concerned about the design of the security check-point area(s). Each security check-point area has a precheck area, waiting area, bag scanners, people scanners, and manual bag search tables.

Evaluate two proposed scenarios that has: proper staffing level; 90% of passengers spend less than 45 minutes in the security check-point area; 99% of passengers reach their flights before at least 15 minutes; and, is cost effective

• The first scenario is to build a new security area in T4 so that each terminal has its own security area.
• The second scenario is to have a single shared security area (located in T3) which will service both T3 and T4.

To sum up, it can be seen that scenario one is more efficient from financial-wise. Moreover, there are some potential improvements that might be studied in the future to improve the system. Since the automation level in the system is too low, adding interactive machines can improve the overall system. An example would be adding ticketing machine kiosks in the ticketing area to reduce the ticketing time. Also, automated machines can replace the precheck officers and can reduce the waiting time in the precheck line. Since bag scanners are the bottleneck of the system, increasing the buffer capacities of the bag scanning machines can contributes significantly in reducing the amount of waiting time in the scanning area, as well.