A modern airbase can have a population and infrastructure equivalent to a small town. And, like any small town, someone has to keep it ticking over 24 hours a day.
Traditionally at bases, individual departments such as maintenance have kept maps showing the areas for which they have responsibility, together with any ongoing problems.
Geographic information system specialists ESRI (UK) will be showing the first UK adaptation of a system already being used in the US that pulls together all the information previously held by separate departments (Hall 3, B24).
ESRI UK’s Airbase Management product gives managers a single, shared view of the entire base, combining all infrastructure, maintenance and operations information and removing the ‘silo syndrome’ that plagues large organisations into an electronic ‘map’.
The software-based system allows a single, coordinated picture of a base’s operations and continuing maintenance problems to be drawn up. “By joining up the processes and data into a single view, an air base can be managed more effectively, with greater control and co-ordination of resources,” says ESRI (UK)’s Richard Gould, himself a former station commander of a UK Royal Air Force operational base. ESRI UK has been working with the RAF to refine the service’s needs in this area.
Source: Flight International
