Writes Sander Opdam, Site Manager (AMS)
We are almost at the end of another successful year, full of exciting projects and opportunities.
For the first time in three years, we have a team fully up to strength after finally filling all of our vacancies. This was due to people leaving, together with business explansion. At the peak we were recruiting three FTE at the same moment. That’s almost 15% of our entire current team.
So I’m very happy to be able to say that the team is complete with 21.5 FTEs at the time of writing this article.
This team is more than needed due to all the project work we’ve been working on and will be working on in the future. Our biggest customer SITA has sold new kiosks to their biggest customer KLM; for us that means the replacement of 180 kiosks scattered over the airport but this project is of course not as straightforward as it might seem!
About 100 kiosks could be replaced with newer models without any adjustments to the construction but the remainder of them will require a bit more attention, as those kiosks are desktop models and that is not an option for the new units. This requires expertise in construction next to the normal IT expertise we’re delivering. We’re expected to work closely with one of the main contractors at Schiphol to achieve a successful completion of such a project on a “construction site”. Obviously we have health and safety as a priority for our staff and organisation and our recently renewed HSE certificate (VCA standard) proves we’re meeting standards; we are capable and allowed to work in the aforementioned environments. This is the 7th year we’re a VCA-certified company and every 3 years the certificate needs to be renewed. I’m very proud to say we’ve managed to avoid any major incidents in terms of HSE and kept everybody safe for all these past, and hopefully coming years.
Our newest customer, IDEMIA, has also been selling kiosks (and gates) to the airport and Dutch government. These kiosks are for the support of the European Entry Exit System (EES) which is part of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS); this is basically the European equivalent of the ESTA.
Even though the majority of the kiosks have been installed for a while now, the system hasn’t yet gone live. This primarily has to do with the European government not being ready for the implementation of the ETIAS system and therefore all of those brand new kiosks see their EOL date approaching without ever being used for what they’ve been designed to do. The location of the kiosks has instigated the discussions about the operational requirements for the border forces and unofficially we’ve already heard the majority of them need to be relocated. Altogether quite a costly venture with no return of value.
In the meantime that same customer is setting up a pilot to test passportless travel between The Netherlands and Canada on certain KLM flights. This system is called DTC1 (Digital Travel Credential) and allows passengers to cross borders by having their identity checked with the biometrics of their face, at this moment you still need to scan the RFID chip inside your passport but there’s no requirement to show an agent or eGate your photo page. Eventually the intention is to travel completely passport free and cut the length of the queues massively. For this pilot we’ve installed 2 eGates developed by Easier and hopefully after a successful pilot period we’ll be installing and servicing many more.
To ensure that the many different systems keep working in case of a power outage at the airport, an annual test for the emergency power takes place. This means the power is cut purposely to have the generators and UPSs takeover, causing a surreal view of the airport as if somebody left his house and switched off the lights.
As shown on the video, Schiphol is already a large airport and is still growing with a new pier and terminal approaching completion in the next few years. I’m sure this will mean many more challenges and great opportunities for us in the near future. But none of it would be possible without the great team of people we’re lucky to employ.
Therefore I would like to say a big thanks to everybody involved in achieving all of our successes.
