Case Study

DFS Meets Highest Safety Requirements with Consolidated ITSM Platform

Challenges

Multiple isolated systems and databases
Strict regulatory requirements
Lack of standardization across all business units

Results

Consolidated system for all areas of air traffic control services
Automated reports of mandatory events to EU organization
Simplified communication while meeting all safety requirements

Challenge

The privately organized company, which is wholly owned by the German state, is in charge of the country’s air traffic control and must comply with a series of national and international requirements and regulations.

DFS implemented Serviceware Processes for two reasons: to meet their statutory obligations with respect to their obligation to furnish evidence in air traffic control services and to map the IT service management processes in the internal IT department.

DFS monitors air traffic in the German air space from four control centers. Moreover, the company is represented at all 16 international airports in Germany where the take-offs and landings are monitored and coordinated from the tower. Before, DFS had used different systems, portals, and databases in their control centers and the towers. As a result, information was not available uniformly and they were not able to retrieve it centrally.

“Serviceware Processes helps us fulfil complex requirements. Thanks to the high flexibility and adaptability of the system, new processes can be easily integrated. Looking at future regulatory demands or process adjustments, Serviceware Processes enables us to respond promptly and effectively.”

Markus Schäfer

Technical Project Manager at DFS

deutsche-flugsichering-case-study-hamburg-airport

Solution

With Serviceware Processes, DFS now has a standardized, consolidated system for all corporate divisions in the field of air traffic control (control centers, towers and air traffic control engineers), which meets all security requirements and makes communication significantly easier.

The system developed by Serviceware for DFS, called nDL (new Daily Log), stores all incidents (whether they have security relevance or not) such as bird strikes, medical emergencies, or delays in a centralized database. It then creates and transmits automatic logs of the reportable events to the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation and can be extended through additional operative processes.

Moreover, nDL has additional features: in recent years, there has been a worldwide increase in cases in which pilots were blinded by laser pointers during their landing approach. As soon as such an incident is entered into the nDL, the system transmits all relevant information such as the direction of the beam, the time, or the color of the laser, to the police. They can then use this information only a few minutes later and start looking for the criminals to prevent worse things from happening.