Operations Management at Heathrow Airport

This document discusses the operations management at Heathrow Airport, focusing on customer expectations, objectives using the four-stage model, different process types, and their ability to meet operations objectives. It also explores how these processes help or hinder in achieving the airport's goals.

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Analysis.......................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Description of the customers and what they expect from the output....................................5
2.3 Objectives using the four-stage model..................................................................................6
2.3 The different process types and their ability to meet the range of operations objectives......7
3. The process in these terms and explanation of how and why it helps or hinders in the
achievement...................................................................................................................................11
4. Conclusion and recommendation..............................................................................................14
References:....................................................................................................................................17
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1. Introduction
Heathrow airport is known as the London Heathrow. It is the primary international airport in
London, UK. According to the international passenger traffic report, Heathrow is one of the
busiest airports in the world. Also, it is the seventh busiest airport in the world based on the total
number of passengers who are travelling daily. This airport is one of the six international airports
which serves in greater London. In 2018 this airport handled a record 80.1 billion passenger who
has been increased a 2.7% from 2017. Also, 480,339 aircrafts movements have recorded in 2018,
which has grown from 4705 from 2017(Heathrow, 2019b). Heathrow airport is situated 14 miles
from the west of central London. This airport has two parallel runways in both east and west
along with the four operational terminals on a site which is situated on an area which has covers
12.27 squares kilometres. This airport is owned and operated by Heathrow airport holdings,
which is also owned by an international consortium FGP top co limited.
There are 80 airlines have flown to 185 destinations in 84 countries from the Heathrow airport. It
is the primary hub of British Airways. The airport has four terminals and one cargo terminals. In
2017, 78 million passengers travelled in this airport, among them, 94% were international
travelers (Heathrow, 2019b). The aircraft is designed for Heathrow airport usually routed to one
of four holding points. The air traffic controller of Heathrow airportfirst controls the approach
then directed the plane to their final plan. The sizeable use is made of the continuous downward
approach techniques help to reduce the adverse effects of environment from the incoming
aircraft. Once an aircraft is ready for the final approach, then it is hand over to the Heathrow
tower. There is a restriction for the nighttime flights at the Heathrow airport. The aircraft cannot
fly in this schedule for reducing noise (Heathrow, 2019a). There is an agreement that no early
morning arrivals to be scheduled before 4.30 am. From the review of the passenger’s services the
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Heathrow airport entirely focuses on the operational efficiency (Heathrow, 2019c). They are
offering excellent customer services according to the review of the customers. The security
control of the Heathrow departure is measured by the regulation of the civil aviation authority.
The employees of the Heathrow airport use the latest technology in the crime prevention security
provide passenger screening, profiling and aircraft protection etc.
Operation management is critical to the organisation. It improves all over the productivity of the
organisation. It plays a vital role in handling the issues such as design, various operations and the
management system (Nakamura et al. 2015). The operation management of the Heathrow refers
to the resources of management produces an excellent service. The operation manager of the
department of Heathrow observes that there are planned activities about the safety and other
services to the passengers. The operation department maintains all the schedules of flight
timings, and also they manage the security system of the airport efficiently.
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2. Analysis
2.1 Description of the customers and what they expect from the output
Customers of Heathrow
i. Airline passengers, airport
visitors, and all the employees
working in the Heathrow airport
Customer’s expectation
 They expect conveniently located
boarding area and the alighting areas.
 Also, they expect clears sings from the
gate of the aircraft
 . They also expect minimum timing,
and also they need a proper choice of
transportation option (Heathrow,
2019c).
 Also, they expect their vehicles will be
clean
ii. Airport management: airport
management includes the staffs
responsible for the day to day
control.
 They expect the companies to provide
proper fair wages.
 They also expect their employees
should provide oversees and control
service.
 They also expect that all commercial
ground transportation picking up
passengers that they obey all
regulations (Heathrow, 2019b).
iii. Local elected officials: their  They expect the customers of the
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expectation is the vast region airport to be offered very high-quality
services, reasonable prices etc.
iv. Commercial vehicle drivers:
drivers of industrial ground.
 They expect to able to earn a fair
income and also they hope their wages
is not only based on the transportation
of the customers.
v. Ground transportation service
providers: providers of ground
transportation services at the
airport
 They expect that they able fair return
from their investment.
Table 1: Customer and their expectation
Source: Created by the author
2.3 Objectives using the four-stage model
Four stage model:the four stages are planning model provides the vision into the process
planning, to reduce the confusion about the selection of competitive proper planning
methodology (Slackand Brandon-Jones, 2018).
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Fig 1: Four stage model
(Source: Slackand Brandon-Jones, 2018)
There are some objectives to meet Heathrow's business goal using this four-stage model:
i. Ability to handle the operations at the airport efficiently.
ii. To increase the efficiency of the process
iii. Reduce the errors and better r4esilience
iv. Able to earn a higher capacity for utilisation
v. To enhance the quality of services.
2.3 The different process types and their ability to meet the range of operations objectives
There are many types of process which helps to the Heathrow's business objective, and it is
profitable for the Heathrow airport. These processes are:
i. Operations and method: the heath row airport provides a higher quality of services
to the customer. According to the reviews by the passengers on their experiences that
they said their demands would be immediately fulfilled by the airport's authority of
Heathrow (Schmidt, 2017).Excellent communication with the staffs meets their
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needs. Also, the productivity of the services is right on the base of the reviews by the
customers.
ii. Operations and strategic impact: Heathrow authorities make a proper strategy for
the launching of new products for attracting the customers and also for the
development of the services.
They create a vertical integration strategy; also the plan is successful to
implementation (Davies et al. 2019). Also, they create an excellent technological
strategy for bringing new technology.
The operation management makes a proper working strategy for the customers and
also for the employees that help the employee to maintain the proper working
environment and also it is valuable for the organisation (Efthymiou et al. 2019).
Also, they make a capacity adjustment facility that helps the no of a passenger
travelling daily in the airport and also adjust the situation appropriately. Also, they
make an inventory strategy that helps to bring new innovative ideas that are helpful to
the customers of the Heathrow airport.
They also adopted proper planning toaccomplishing to any work efficiently and need
it within time. Also, they control the system on which they work efficiently. Also,
there is some failure in these strategies when to implement them, and the authority
takes some steps to improve these for further failure.
Product and service innovation: they make an inventory strategy that helps to bring
new product and service innovation for the customers of Heathrow airport.
More significant Market Share: Early entry of the market has increased the market share of the
Heathrow airport. There are three ways that the Heathrow created the market share value. These
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are i) redefining the productivity of the value chain, ii) reconceiving the markets and the
products, iii) by building supportive industry clusters at the location of the company (Koudiset
al.,2017).
i.) Price Premiums: Heathrow airport authority launches new services like Whisky
Festival and Pre-order Travel Money for its customers at the new prices which
comparatively higher than the old services (Heathrow, 2019d).
ii.) Quick Reaction to Competition: The Heathrow responses quickly with launching
the new products against the newly launched products from the other competitors.
iii) Set Industry Standards: The Heathrow launches the improved services for the
customers initially to capture the market in a proper strategic way.
Operations scope and structure: By launching the new services, Heathrow has the scope to
capture the market and attract the customers. They also have the scope for new product design
for the customers, process designing and the proper controlling of the products (Maggiore et
al.,2018). They also have the opportunity to provide the customers with the location facility that
the customers get the newly structured area.
Process design: the authority of the Heathrow airport makes a new design for the processes that
they produce new services and also make a new design for the new services like Whisky Festival
and Pre-order Travel Money that attract the customers (Heathrow, 2019d). By the successful
process design, the Heathrow airport authority has taken into account the appropriateness for the
overall process to achieve the organisation's objectives (De Neufville et al. 2016). For the period
of times, the process design has been changed by the Heathrow and adoptsnew concepts like
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flexible manufacturing needs to be developed which delivers efficient and effective product
design and analysis.
Supply chain management: A supply chain is a combination of organization, which flows of
products, services and financeto the customer.An unstable supply chain management canimpose
challenges with respect to recovery, development, manufacturing, marketing, sales
anddistribution. It can be explained by using the Total quality management (TQM), Just-in-time
and supply chain management (Emeraldgrouppublishing, 2019). Mainly blockage in the system
is the issue and this directly demotivates the employees and quality of the employees. Working
progress has also reduces due to such issues. Though this Heathrow is facing some real issues in
this arena, some summative and formative solutions need to be addressed to get rid of problems.
Capacity management: Capacity management is the method of proper sizing IT resources to
meet the present and the future business requirements in a cost-effective manner (Huang et al.
2018). The most common understanding of capacity management has described in the ITIL
network (Kralik et al. 2015). This process is used to ensure the IT department of the Heathrow
airport is capable of meeting to the current and future business.
Inventory management: it is the process of supervision of non-capitalized and the items which
is in stock. A component of inventory management evaluates the flow of products from the
manufacturers to warehouses and also gets the facilities to the point of sale (Guo et al. 2018).
The Heathrow organisation uses this process to avoid the excessive shortage of inventory. In
order to keep the production level of sufficiently the organisation Heathrow use this inventory
management. By using this process, the Heathrow has been able to disinvest in inventory at a
minimum level to the maximum level of the profitability.
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Quality management: the Heathrow uses this process to ensure that all products or services and
the organisationare stable and consistent. By using this process quality management, the
Heathrow controls the better planning, and also maintains the quality of products that the
customers are not unhappy when buying the products (Martin-Domingo et al., 2019). By using
this process, Heathrow focuses on not only the quality of products and services but also the
organisation's aim is to achieve the organisation goal. This is also related to the operations and
supply chain. The resources like raw materials and the manufacturing stuff are ending up to all
customers, and it is also known as company logistics.
Project management: Project management is a primary stage of planning, initiating, executing
and controlling different tasks to achieve goals and to create a successful project. The main task
of the project management is to execute all tasks in these stages within time to achieve a specific
goal with the help of correspondent constraint (Zerjavet al.,2018).The management of Heathrow
includes the activities of all strategies related to the project of the organisation to control the
entire function of the whole system of the airport, to properly organise and execute the all tasks
through the useful available resources for the convenience of the customers.
3. The process in these terms and explanation of how and why it helps or
hinders in the achievement.
Operations and process
Operation and process at Heathrow airport are very much customer oriented to provide safety
and security. Safety during the flight is one of the major, and the customer always demanded
security. For this Heathrow airport processes controlled and uncontrolled airspace where the
flight has been directed by the several professional to reduce the chances of an accident.
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Heathrow airport also practices the westerly preference and also continuous descent approaches
(CDA) (Heathrow,2019). Such process and operation make the Heathrow airport more
convenience to the customer and also helps in reducing the late flight and accident.
Process design:
This type of design procedure of Heathrow Airport reveals that it gives various kinds of
strategies and those implementations of the roadmap of the airport to provide a beneficial service
for the customers or the passengers in order to enhance the throughput lowers the costs of
travelling and also betters the customer's service. This kind of process of Heathrow Airport
contains that self-service facility and also bag drop facility provided for both kinds of on or off
the airport services (The Design Solution, 2019). This type of implementation process surely
needs good infrastructure, employees support and also technical support. This kind of services
reduces the burden of the journey from the passenger, and more implementation of this kind will
create more permanent customers as well as a brand image of peak position. So this kind of
facility is undoubtedly beneficial for the authority.
Supply chain management:
This service of Heathrow Airport develops day by day. It mainly describes the supply chain of
various kind products retailing related to the airport through its other country region or
counterparts, it mainly defines the structure of the supply chain of Heathrow Airport and about
the power that retailers and the suppliers can have for negotiation process, it is the kind of sector
that is in still believe on conventional market strategy of exchange rather than believe in
technology (Davies et al.2016). Though if the technology is introduced highly then may be the
Heathrow become benefited undoubtedly. However this management process is done by certain
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factors like corporate culture creation, use of technology appropriate for this practice,
responsibility and skill to run this service,strategy align mentation, with proper business strategy,
agility and adaptability of the system (Your Heathrow - Heathrow Airport Microsite, 2019). This
system surely benefits a lot of Heathrow Corporation by giving them a competitive advantage.
Capacity management:
The Heathrow Corporation haveanalysing tools like capacity analysis tools which used to
determine the Heathrow's capacity on the basis of faced challenges with the help of an operation
team and an internet-based portal. This kind of analysis allows the corporation to make the better
planning for the airport according to other factors like taxiway closures, reallocation, air traffic
control, schedule delay and too weather conditions (Martin, 2016). This type of contract delivers
an intense type of analysis of the capacity of the Heathrow which allows the corporation to grow
faster rate by analysing its capacity and making plans along with the capacity which they can
achieve. For this, it is immensely helpful for the corporation.
Inventory management:
The inventory part of Heathrow Airport contains the current level of operations and community
characteristics. The number of aircraft took off or landed can be determined by the help of this
management process. Population, education at all levels, taxes etc. are also assessed. This kind of
determined things provides planners with a brief overview of the current position of the airport
which helped a lot to plan something for the welfare of Heathrow by comparing the data with the
forecasted data (Blackthorneit, 2019).All things are mainly done by improved technology and
expert handlers of the Heathrow. It is a much-required process for Heathrow airport as this
immensely helps in future planning as well as for the growth of the airport.
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Quality management:
Quality management of the Heathrow is mainly based on customer satisfaction and their reviews
about their services. It is actually a long term success plans, as the corporation have a well-
organised team which delivers this kind of data in order to plan something different in order to
achieve a competitive advantage. It mainly depends upon the reviews as the corporation can
exceed their expectation (Lion and Gazelle, 2019). This is mainly monitored by technology by
social reviews as well as physical reviews also. This is immensely helpful for the corporation to
determine and perform some plans in a customer-centric way through which company gets a
competitive advantage.
Project management:
It is the sector where any kind of plans or project is executed. As Heathrow Airport has people
who are expert in dealing with latest technology, they also have immense knowledge. They are
able to deliver a sort of experienced leadership and have integral designing knowledge and have
knowledge about engineering which is much needed to deliver projects at the airport
construction mainly complex in nature as of size. The involvement of stakeholders and
multidisciplinary requires this kind of management body of the Heathrow mainly helps to
upgrade the airport structure and others for the excellent fare of the business.
Heathrow is one of the most influential corporations of the aviation sector. The Heathrow
Airport along with all of this management facilities are able to satisfy its customers' needs. By
this, the corporation also built up a brand image among the customers as well as to the
competitor companies also. With some developments in these sectors this Heathrow Corporation
can achieve and be in the peak position of it is regarding industry for a long time.
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4. Conclusion and recommendation
Recommendations:
The recommendations are as follows:
Process designing:
In this sector, some improvement can be done by introducing new technologies and more expert
designer team. With improved technology, experts can analyse the available data more
accurately and can draw or make the plan more improvised. Then the plan implementation sector
must need to face development in order to implement those highly accurate plans accurately to
beat their competitors by a distance in the aviation industry.
Capacity management:
In this aspect of Heathrow Airport, improvement is also needed. This aspect demands an
experienced management body and a high technological system. With the help of the system, the
expert team can easily find the data and get the information by analysing it. With that
information, they can get a clear view of market demand and also the company's demand. Then
they can take the right decision in the welfare of the company which fits the market needs. They
also can analyse the capacity of the company and analyse data to discover new paths in order to
increase the capacity of the company. That will be immensely helpful to launch better customer
services to grab better profit.
Quality management:
This sector of Heathrow also needs some development. The development needs in the
management body by recruiting more expert employees who have soothing communication skills
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in order to interact with the customers directly. Then an open review system or a digital board
can be installed in which passengers can give review about the provided services by just clicking
buttons or speaking to the installed machine (Isurv, 2019). This machine will process this data
and give a chart of reviews to the respective team in order to plan for the future. For this, the
required machinery installation and maintenance should be done correctly.
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Conclusion
From the above description, it can be said that the entire project has discussed the operation
management of the Heathrow airport and various aspects of the operation management.
Customer analysis has also done in this assignment to provide the ultimate picture of the
customer need. In addition various operational process have been described with justification.
Viable recommendations have also been placed in this assignment for better understanding.
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