 ATH: Handling company
ATH (Air Terminal Handling) is a handling company, which is a subsidiary of the GMD Handlair group and a key professional player at airports. The company was created through the merger of ATS (Air Terminal Service) and RH (Roissy Handling), and is involved in the storage and management of goods flow at Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport. Its work involves customs handling, with 180 staff members spread across two platforms, one of 11,000 m² at La Sogafro, the other of 8,000m² in the building which has been open since August 21st and which is for the sole use of its customer Schenker.
Air freight traceability
The handling business activity consists of the transportation and monitoring of goods between customs warehouses, which it provides for use by forwarding agents, and the customs warehouses belonging to the airlines responsible for transportation. Goods of all kinds reach the platform during the day, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., including weekends.
“We receive the packages brought in by our carrier clients,” explains Fernando Carvalho, Director of Operations, “and we store them temporarily, for a few hours or a few days, in our 8,000 m² warehouse, which can hold 2,742 pallets, before preparing the aircraft pallet, which will then be transported by air.”
During this service, each package (ranging from envelopes to crates weighing several tons) is weighed, measured, put through an X-Ray security control. It is then labelled and delivered directly to the airlines, either loose or on an aircraft pallet, adhering to a manifest which gives the service provider instructions, telling them what they have to do with each package, the time of delivery and the recipient company. Delivery takes place as soon as the AWB (Airway Bill) is ready.
The solution developed with ID Services
“We have developed a software application designed specifically for the management of this platform together with our service provider ID Services”, continues Delphine Dupard-Kleijn, head of IT, who has been using ID Services for the preventive and corrective maintenance of their old terminals for around six years, before deciding to replace all the equipment.
In order to replace the equipment, they put their heads together and came up with statement of requirement documents and a functional analysis, drawing up the specifications. “This system works out, as the pallets are put away in the pallet rack with the time of storing and destocking.” There are 30 Skorpio Gun™ terminals, which have been used for receiving, storing and destocking of goods since August 2007.
Traceability: a must for security!
A robot has the job of working out the dimensions and weight of each package received. The security procedures are obviously very strict. Each package and each pallet is given an identification label with a barcode on it before undergoing an X-ray check. Once the check is complete, the goods go into the customs bonded area. They are placed into a holding area before being handled by a forklift truck operator who also has a Skorpio Gun™ which indicates where they should be stored. All the operator has to do is read the stored package’s label and the barcode identifying the storage space in order to carry out the storage operation at the given location on the 11 m pallet rack.
Full supervision of operations
The name of the driver who has carried out the operation is also recorded on the computer together with the identifier for each package. Finally, when the time comes to prepare the aircraft pallet, the barcode on the transport document supplied by the forwarding agent is read by the forklift truck driver using the Skorpio Gun™, which indicates where to go to pick up the goods. The aircraft pallet is made up of various packages all grouped together. Once it is ready, it is taken with the transport documents to the runways to wait for the next aircraft bound for some faraway destination.
Future development with the Datalogic Memor™
From the start of 2008, a new application which is currently being developed with ID Services will handle the checking of each aircraft pallet’s contents, again still monitored by 8 ultra-light (210 g) WiFi Datalogic Memor™ terminals.
Customer
ATH Schenker
Industry
Transportation and Logistics
Application
Traceability
Country
France
Datalogic Business Solution
Warehouse Management Systems
Datalogic Product
Skorpio Gun™
Datalogic Partner
ID Services |