HMI and Supervisory Control Excellence: AENA, Barcelona El Prat Airport

 We'd like to congratulate Wonderware Spain and AENA for winning the HMI and Supervisory Control Excellence category of the Schneider Electric Software OPEN Contest. Find out why.



The gateway to the beautiful city of Barcelona is the El Prat Airport. In a typical year, over 35 million passengers and 96 thousand tons of cargo pass through the Barcelona El Prat Airport

The AENA Group is responsible for the operations of the Barcelona El-Prat Airport. AENA is one the world's top airport operators, in terms of the number of passengers handled. More than 200 million travelers pass through AENA's 46 domestic and 15 international airports.

AENA created a Smart City solution at the Barcelona El Prat Airport that boasts a dynamic, high-functioning, reliable and secure infrastructure.

With a little help from Wonderware

A Smart City solution at the Barcelona El Prat Airport, with a little help from Wonderware

AENA, whose operations take care of over 200 million travelers, created a Smart City solution at the Barcelona El Prat Airport that boasts a dynamic, high-functioning, reliable and secure infrastructure. 

With a little help from Wonderware

AENA's Smart City solution helps 200 million passengers a year

AENA is so pleased with the solution’s performance that today: Wonderware is being used in all the 46 airports that it manages all over Spain and overseas.

“AENA is the top operator in terms of the number of passengers handled. More than 200 million travellers pass through AENA’s 46 domestic and 15 international airports."

José Luis González

Director de Informático

 

But none of this success would be possible without the help of local partners

“Our experience with Wonderware Spain has been very positive. They have helped us a lot in the initial tool implementation phase, in creating the object validation model, following their recommendations and advice. They have greatly facilitated the implementation of solutions and have guided us to new developments we need to address.”

 

Jordi Asensi, Jefe de Departamento de Gestión de Sistemas y Bases de Datos

More Information

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog

Barcelona-El Prat Airport: Standardization helps maintenance too

The standardization done at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport Smart City solution has reaped benefits not only for operations. It has also made it easier for the maintenance people to do their work.

“The solution helps us in terms of maintenance so we can have a single control point to monitor all facilities. It also allows us to have the same control point in each of the sites. So, when an incident or breakdown is detected, we can actually see what's going on and interact remotely without sending out a technician. This translates into significant time and cost savings”. 

Jordi Asensi, Jefe de Departamento de Gestión de Sistemas y Bases de Datos

 

More Information

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog

Standardization at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport

 

The Wonderware System Platform objects created by AENA encourage standardization

AENA adopted an engineering standard on solution implementation with the help of Wonderware System Platform. During the design stage, each new device that is added into the airport's Smart City Solution would be integrated into the Wonderware System Platform based on a set of common rules, and each supplier and system integrator who was awarded a contract would be required to conform to these rules.

 

Replication of objects make integration easy

 

A data template was created for each element to be deployed in the airport. Wonderware enabled these objects and templates to be easily replicated, and pretty soon AENA had a library that helped them to connect all field devices in a standardized manner.

No matter what PLC or any other device manufacturer was used in a particular section of the airport, it had a common interface to the Smart City solution. Since each vendor followed AENA's contract specifications, the various components integrated successfully.

 

Twenty or so System Integrators work in harmony 

Based on the feedback of the twenty or so System Integrators that regularly do work for AENA, the project marks a change in how control systems are developed in Spain’s airport sector. The new way of implementing large scale airports in Spain overcomes two key challenges:

1. It avoids duplication of engineering work
2. New components could be brought online faster because the objects have already been pre-validated

“This is an object-oriented environment, so when we develop an object, we can reuse it for the same facilities without having to repeat code or generate new errors.  Since it is an open-code, market solution, it also allows for several integrators to work with the system, creating a competitive environment that cuts back development costs.”

Jordi Asensi, Jefe de Departamento de Gestión de Sistemas y Bases de Datos

More Information

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog

Barcelona-El Prat Airport: Everything Under a Single Platform

Wonderware System Platform enables AENA to manage a large number of processes at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform — even with so many devices and signals with distinct technological languages.

“Wonderware Spain realized that System Platform could be greatly advantageous for airport management. System Platform has a number of features that make it appropriate for infrastructure management. 

For example, it can control up to one million inputs and outputs. Having a million inputs and outputs allow total control of an airport facility, where thousands of signals must be controlled all at once.

Secondly, another important point is redundancy. In a facility such as an airport, which has to be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, it is very important to eliminate system failures. And System Platform has redundancy built in.”

Jordi Rey, Managing Director, Wonderware Spain

More Information

 

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform 
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog