Heathrow Terminal 5

Prime Partner Guide - 2008

London’s Heathrow Airport opened the doors to Terminal 5 (T5) in March 2008. Phase I added Terminals 5A and 5B. Phase 2, which adds Terminal 5C, is set to open in 2010. Built at a cost of £4.3bn, the new terminal has offered the airport operator BAA the opportunity to redefine the passenger experience with the first new gateway at Heathrow since Terminal 4 opened in 1986.

T5 has the capacity for more than 30 million passengers a year and comprises a 4,000-space car park, transport links, and two satellite terminals. Passengers are transported to the satellite terminals via an underground tracked transit system. The terminal has a small footprint compared to the conventional modern terminal buildings, which poses particular architectural and structural challenges. It is constructed on a series of levels and will have the highest number of lifts of any building in the northern hemisphere, as well as one of Europe’s longest escalator drops.

ICONICS was invited by Ultra Electronic Airport Systems, a first tier supplier for the building systems integration (BSI) at T5, along with the BAA Systems Team, to participate in the process of product evaluation, resulting in the selection of GENESIS32 as the chosen product for this challenging project.

T5 is designed to be a fully integrated facility, monitored through a central terminal service centre (TSC) with mobile devices provided to staff. There was a key driver to produce a common user interface to allow staff to access heating, ventilation, lighting and fire, lifts, CCTV, security, centralized alarm management and interaction automation between systems.

Within T5 there are more than 50 different systems, producing a massive tag count of over three million, which is no small task for an off-the-shelf supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) product.

By using open industry standards based on OPC, the architecture has been designed to provide flexibility for future expansion and further integration. ICONICS was confident the solutions could be delivered on time and within budget.

Ultra Electronics was also responsible for the design and fit-out of the TSC, including its ergonomic design, human factors analysis and budget management of over £30 million.

A proactive approach was taken to minimize risks on the project by developing standard symbols and properties, auto creation of consistent tag structures and displays and minimization of interface numbers. ICONICS schedules monthly consultations with the system integration teams and adopted only tried and tested technology.

Ultra, as the integrator of GENESIS32, focused on the flexibility of operation brought about by the use of BSI in an airport terminal. Simple maintenance was a priority and is achieved by the use of an off the shelf, easily configurable product that delivered complex functionality through a point and click approach.

The ICONICS GENESIS32 platform, as implemented by Ultra, provides better information to users that any previously designed model, allowing the terminal operators to respond more quickly to changes and situations through a global view of all operations within the building. The software also allows users to drill down by camera pan and zoom to any asset or area of interest.

It was important to BAA to keep up with industry developments in its implementation of the intelligent BSI. This was achieved with GENESIS32 because the solution was designed on open industry and IT standards such as SQL, OPC, OLEDB, XML and because it is deployed on Microsoft operating systems and uses the Internet Explorer browser, including on mobile devices.

By allowing connectivity to many industrial devices and control systems through a common interface, OPC was fundamental to achieving seamless integration within the BSI and giving users the ability to both see and react to cause and effect within the terminal.

BAA recognized that ICONICS, with its clearly defined development path, was able to deliver future flexibility in both technical and operational spheres, thus offering an extended useful product life cycle for BAA.

Industry: Facility management
Country: UK
Solution: GENESIS32
Partner: ICONICS
Technology: Microsoft SQL Server, Windows Server, Internet Explorer
Benefits: High visibility of operations and assets, rapid response to changes, efficient maintenance, IT open standards for scalability and flexibility

ICONICS Background Information

Founded in 1986, ICONICS is an award winning leader in the development of Web-enabled industrial automation and manufacturing intelligence software for Microsoft® Windows® operating systems. Our solutions are certified for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. ICONICS has successfully deployed more than 250,000 solutions in over 60 countries worldwide. Its solutions meet diverse customer needs in a variety of industries including Automotive, Building Management, Food & Beverage, Oil/Gas/Petrochemical, Machine Builders, Pharmaceutical/Biotech, Security, Water/Wastewater, Utilities, Government Infrastructures and more.

ICONICS’ corporate headquarters is located in Foxborough, Massachusetts (USA) near Boston. The company has offices throughout the United States, as well as in Australia, China, France, India, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and United Kingdom. ICONICS also has a joint software development and sales office in the Czech Republic.

© 2010 ICONICS, Inc. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice. GENESIS64, GENESIS32, Pocket GENESIS, BizViz and their respective modules, OPC-To-The-Core, and Visualize Your Enterprise are trademarks of ICONICS Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.