1.3Background
Historically, the airlines, rather than the airport owners, have been the major decision-makers in purchasing IT&S at airports. In fact, during the 1970s and 1980s, airlines procured and installed almost all IT&S systems. This was because airport operators mainly focused on the safety, security, and maintenance of the facilities while the airlines focused primarily on operations.
As unstable airline financial statements became commonplace, airport owners started to take greater control of their facilities and assets. For many years, airport owners in Europe and Asia have managed the operations of an airport, including passenger-processing infrastructure, baggage handling, catering, below-the-wing services, and the communications infrastructure. Now, in the US, airport owners also implement shared tenant services and facilities. IT&S, a key enabler, allows airport operators to manage infrastructure efficiently while providing an increased level of customer care. Technology facilitates changes in business processes and these processes became part of how airlines differentiate themselves. Today, proactive airports support their tenants’ customer-service initiatives and IT&S helps make this possible.
During this transition period, the industry has lacked appropriate IT&S design guidelines. Frequently, airport master plans inadequately mention IT&S requirements and, as a consequence, during the design phase, isolated and stand-alone designs of IT&S can evolve with no consideration for business requirement support.
As a result, the Airport Consultants Council (ACC) commissioned the ACC IT&S Committee to assist the aviation community by developing these IT&S guidelines. They are intended to support an airport owner’s business objectives early in the planning phase. Too many times in the past, the design of new airport facilities have proceeded, giving minimal attention to IT&S. As a result, once it was discovered that IT&S was required, airport owners had to redesign their facilities with insufficient funding and inadequate budgets.
1.4Contributing Professionals
Members of the ACC IT&S Committee developed these guidelines by volunteering their time, knowledge, experience, and resources to help the airport industry achieve the highest quality levels in IT&S at airports.
AirIT
Mark Sapp
ARINC
Dennis Lengyel
Airport Process Design
Ron Hiscox, Rachel Domba
Convergent Strategies Consulting, Inc. (CSC)
Marco Prieto, Jim Willis
DMJM Aviation / AECOM
David Tamir, Herb Shipp, Lewis Barnum, Peter Dallaway
Glover & Associates
Heath C. Kolman, PE
Jacobs Engineering
Enrique M. Melendez, David Barron
Roy D. McQueen & Associates
Peter Yip, P.E.
SAIC
Hal Ludwig, Scott Barbier,
Mahil Abeywarna
SITA
Peter Aarons
Stellar Services
Liang Chen
1.5Proposing Revisions
The ACC IT&S Committee intends to update and enhance these guidelines over time as appropriate. Direct recommended additions and suggested changes should be directed to:
Airport Consultants Council
Information Technology & Systems Committee
908 King Street, Suite 100
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Phone: 703-683-5900
Fax: 703-683-2564
E-Mail: TJS@ACConline.org
2AIRPORT IT&S GOVERNANCE
This section of the design guidelines examines the critical elements for effective IT governance and the need for incorporating these frameworks into corporate governance. It also identifies how CIOs/IT Directors need to be prepared to support IT oversight committees at the board level. Even though airports are not necessarily publicly traded companies, the principles behind IT governance and how airports should support such principles will allow for greater airport management and operations efficiencies.
2.1Introduction
The federal regulatory environment has intensified governance and risk management demands on CEOs, CFOs, and their boards of directors. The significant amount of money that companies spend on information technology, and the strategic opportunities and risks those investments present, necessitate board-level involvement. Hence, IT executives today are judged by their corporate boards on their ability to optimize the outcome of IT—producing cost-effective business results. It is no longer enough to focus on completing IT projects or on managing IT outcomes. That is why leaders embrace effective IT governance strategies to manage the priorities, processes, and people required to run IT like a business.
Three strategic business issues drive the demand for IT governance:
Control – the need for better control over IT costs, risks, and resources to improve credibility
Compliance – the mandate to meet proliferating compliance requirements by harnessing IT to automate processes and controls, manage compliance projects from concept through production, and provide reliable audit trails
Alignment – the need to align IT priorities and activities with business objectives to maximize the business value delivered by IT
2.2What Is IT Governance?
IT governance is the framework made up of the processes that govern decision making around investment decisions, client relationships, project management, and other IT operational areas.
Effectively governed IT brings control, compliance, and alignment to the enterprise, enabling companies to reduce the cost of day-to-day operations and free up more resources for the strategic initiatives that improve competitiveness. Effectively governed IT brings those strategic initiatives to market faster and with less risk, documents contributed business value, and ensures that the business operates within government-mandated requirements.
A typical large corporate IT budget allocates 20-25 percent for strategic projects. The remainder, 75-80 percent, supports day-to-day activities. At airports, Capital Expense is at 45 percent and Operating Expense is estimated at 55 percent (according to ACI’s Airport IT Trends Survey – 2006). As a result, IT governance must ensure the performance and effective management of these operational requirements. Equally important, with IT budgets remaining tight at most airports, reducing expenditures on day-to-day activities can free up additional resources for strategic projects. Thus, for both cost and compliance reasons, both kinds of activities—strategic and routine—must be governed effectively in an integrated fashion, with common visibility and control for both.
IT Supports Corporate Governance:
Corporate and IT governance are now intimately intertwine. In an era where technology is critical to business, corporate governance is incomplete without adequate IT governance.
IT governance is the CIO’s responsibility, and it is carried out at the department level. CIOs whose departments practice sound IT governance are better prepared to meet the demands of board-level IT committees However, CIOs must establish and deliver IT governance whether or not their board operates a technology committee. IT governance helps CIOs ensure that their technology investments and daily IT activities align with top-level objectives. Ideally, boards should have a group dedicated to IT governance. In those cases, the CIO must be prepared to work with and answer to an IT oversight committee—just as the CFO works with and answers to the audit committee.
An effective IT governance framework can be the single most important predictor of getting value from IT. As a result, IT governance must be more coordinated and more transparent. To optimize IT’s business outcome, IT governance must reflect and incorporate business language, priorities, and processes to gain buy-in from the business-side leadership. It must also include an engaging, meaningful, and transparent way for business-side leaders to participate. IT must speak the language of the business in describing how IT can improve operating margins and return on investment and how it can help achieve the company’s strategic priorities.
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