Ground Operations

Managing risk has become increasingly important in modern organisations. Managers recognise it is difficult to manage without measurement, however, it is difficult to know what to measure in order to drive the continuous safety improvements, promised by modern safety management systems. One industry where safety performance improvement appears to have stalled, is aviation ground operations. Unlike the flight operations, which is now regarded as an Ultra-safe system (Amalberti 2001, p.

Many airports today consider the application of autonomous vehicles for the transportation of passengers from parking lots to the terminals or for the transportation of baggage from the lateral to the aircraft. This project concerns a throughout analysis of the transport requirements at airports and a determination where, how and under what circumstances autonomous vehicles can be applied.

The supply chain of perishable products like flowers, fruit or medicines needs to be controlled. Due to the various parties involved in this supply chain, maintaining the proper temperature of the products and accurate tracking and tracing of the products may be challenging. In this research project models that describe the deterioration of fresh products as a function of their temperature need to be determined. Being able to predict the deterioration of perishables allows a proper system design of their supply chain.