Denver Airport: delayed by a baggage handling system

Set to open in 1994, the Denver Airport was to be the first major airport opened in the United States since 1974. It was enormous, covering over 53 square miles and having 22 miles of tracks for moving baggage on a system of 4,000 baggage cars. The airport's $186 million baggage handling system is the most advanced in the world. A similar system used only by United Airlines at the San Francisco Airport is one tenth of the new system's size. A similar system in the Frankfurt, Germany airport had taken six years to build and two years to debug. In Denver, the system had been expected to work within just four years.

The baggage handling system starts by automatically reading a bar code label attached to the luggage giving its flight number and destination. The bag is put in a baggage car and propelled along the tracks by motors. Every 150 to 200 feet laser scanners register the bag's location. Upon arriving at the destination the baggage car flips the luggage onto a conveyor belt into the airplane or baggage claim. The system is controlled by an information system whose database includes flight times, arrival and departure gates, and the location of 4,000 baggage cars. Networked 486 computers control the local routing of the cars. Programmable logic controllers along the tracks run the motors and switches that route the baggage to the right location.

Unfortunately the routing turned out to be more complicated than anyone had anticipated. During trials cars crashed into each other at intersections or dumped the baggage in the wrong locations. Sometimes cars were sitting empty instead of being routed to where they were needed. Early tests were plagued by power failures. Physical and mechanical problems ranging from faulty latches on cars to laser sensors blinded by dirt contributed to the mess. The airport's opening was delayed at a cost to bond holders of $500,000 per day because an airport cannot operate without moving baggage, and there was no accommodation for doing this manually in the huge new airport.

Questions:

1. Use the WCA framework to organize your understanding of this case and to identify important topics that are not mentioned.

2. Explain how this case is related to the chapter's ideas about things that can go wrong with systems.

3. What might have prevented these problems?

Sources: Scheier, Robert L. "Software snafu grounds Denver's high-tech airport." PC Week, May 16, 1994;
Johnson, Dirk. "Spilled Luggage Grounds Denver's New Airport." New York Times, Mar. 2, 1994, p. A13.

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