Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
The real estate developer Benjamin Goldman Nachlass has developed and built a new air cargo facility with an integrated office building within the CargoCity South at the Frankfurt/Main Airport. The facility allows the handling of air cargo on two floors with a total area of about 20.000 square meters. Due to the lack of peripheral areas, the building provides connections to the landside traffic zones on one side only for its cargo facilities.
Against this background the Fraunhofer IML Project Center Aviation Logistics has been assigned to develop, tender and control the implementation of the required system technology that is needed for an optimized handling of Unit-Load-Devices (ULD). The ULD-System had to be designed for being applicable for the connection of the landside traffic zone as well as for the linkage between both facility floors. Furthermore the system had to consider storage space serving as an interim buffer for handled ULDs.
The designed ULD-System had to be adapted to the overall constructional conditions of the cargo facility and to the individual requirements of every potential future tenant and its handling processes. In a next step, design variations were created and optimized. After the selection of a preferred alternative and as a part of the tendering process, the requirement specifications were created. Each individual offer and presentation of the bidders were compared with the help of an evaluation matrix. Subsequently a recommendation was given to our customer based on the results of the evaluation.
During the realization phase manufacturing details were set, together with the technology supplier, in close cooperation with the department in charge for the detailed construction planning of the cargo facility. After the approval of the functional specifications and the manufacturing of the cargo handling equipment, the installation of the ULD-System had been supervised by the Fraunhofer IML. Subsequently to the coordination of the initial operation and acceptance approval of the ULD-System, the remediation of deficiencies has been supervised and coordinated with the supplier.