At a Glance
Accenture Technology Labs devises first class solutions that encompass every facet of the airline industry.
Troubleshooting Mechanical Difficulties Before Troubles Begin
Accenture Technology Labs is exploring miniscule technology with massive safety potential for aircraft. "Smart Dust" will pack a sensor, power supply, analog circuitry, radio communication capability, and a programmable microprocessor into a package the size of a pinpoint. These sensors could be embedded into objects like a turbine blade on an aircraft and be able to transmit information to other sensors. To aggregate the data received by the sensors, the Labs developed Sensor Aggregation Models, which could enable airlines to easily detect or investigate changes in the blade and other inaccessible objects—in flight—as soon as they occur and take the appropriate actions.
Tracking Passengers from Check-in to Departure
The ability to track passengers between check-in and boarding could contribute to added security, help minimize delays, and optimize customer service. The Labs' Context-Based Services prototype is designed to locate people or objects indoors in real time. A type of GPS (Global Positioning System) for inside buildings, Context-Based Services relies on wireless LAN infrastructures to transmit information like boarding announcements, delays or pages to passengers' PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) or mobile phones depending on their location within the airport.
Tagging and Tracking Baggage
Imagine the advantages of "intelligent" luggage. Accenture Technology Labs' Physical Media Tracking prototype enables objects such as baggage to continuously report their locations wherever they are. Bags would be tagged with inexpensive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and scanned via a tunnel reader. The reader would immediately integrate the RFID information into a central database application which would determine where the luggage should be directed. The system can monitor if the luggage is removed from a belt clandestinely or if it's moved to the wrong location. RFID tags continuously gather detailed product information and allow the system to track the movement of a bag from drop-off to baggage claim.
Accelerating Customer Knowledge Gathering
Sentiment Monitoring Services can help companies tap into customer attitudes towards traveling, in-flight services, advertising, pricing and other issues affecting business. The prototype searches airline, travel-related sites or newsgroups on the Internet for opinions, interprets the sentiment of the text towards a specified product or service, and provides the user with an analysis of the results. For a broader-based search, the Labs' Knowledge Discovery Tool aids companies in discovering all airline-relevant data repositories and links they never knew existed, and displays knowledge as if stored in a single, holistic database. The tool then shifts into high gear identifying and introducing parties with similar travel research interests, linking them into chat rooms to share findings.