Wonderware Software
Facilitates a Decade of Integration and Growth for Unprecedented Spanish
Airport Expansion
Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (AENA) is a public company in charge
of civil air navigation and airports in Spain. Its subsidiary, AENA Aeropuertos
SA, manages 47 airports and two heliports in Spain and participates directly in
the management of 28 other terminals throughout the world. In passenger count,
AENA is the world’s leading airport operator with about 200 million passengers
per year.
The Barcelona El Prat Airport, together with the Port of Barcelona and
the city’s Zona Franca area, serves as a vital hub for the region’s economy and
is integral to tourism in the region. Recorded airport traffic in 2010 was
29,209,595 passengers, 277,832 operations and 104,280 tons of cargo.
To modernize the airport and prepare for future demands, major
improvements to infrastructure and services have been made.
In 2000, 15 to 20 integrators were engaged in supporting the airport
control systems. Each vendor implemented a separate solution, resulting in a
multiplicity of technologies. The airport’s operators had to learn all of these
different tools, which made it practically impossible for the facility to
function smoothly.
Management searched the market for a solution. They wanted a control
architecture that would provide:
- A single platform, to unite the control systems of the existing facilities and the future expansions
- Reliability, to support efficient and safe airport operations and avoid downtime in airport services
- Scalability, to handle the addition of a second large terminal building and integrate the annex buildings and other systems into one infrastructure
- Economy, to meet the budget restrictions of a
public project
When considering their goals and plans for expansion, the choice for
AENA was Wonderware software. It met management’s criteria, plus it offered the
only non-proprietary solution, providing a better alternative to disparate
systems and the high costs and operator challenges the airport had experienced
in the past.
Today, the control environment of the airport
is almost completely integrated, AENA is achieving operations excellence,
and the Barcelona Airport boasts a dynamic, high-functioning infrastructure.
According to the AENA team, the most outstanding benefit so far is that the
solution enables them to manage a large number of processes in an integrated
and simultaneous manner under a single platform – even with so many devices and
signals with distinct technological languages.
“The centralization of operations that we get with Wonderware helps manage around 700,000 signals and is essential for a critical infrastructure like this. We can now quickly respond to incidents and also be proactive in optimizing management.”
– Jordi Asensi, Head of Systems and Database Management, AENA Barcelona Airport
Once the full expansion is complete, nearly 1,000,000 signals will be
controlled under the unified platform. With Wonderware technology and the
vision and teamwork of numerous executives and integrators, the Barcelona
Airport is one of the most emblematic projects for AENA to date, and AENA’s
commitment to Wonderware software as
their standard for handling the 47 airports they operate in Spain is stronger
than ever.
For more information, read the complete AENA, Barcelona El Prat Airport success story and/or reference any of our Wonderware Transportation or Facilities Management success stories.
