• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.60-67
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• 2017

A baggage handling system (BHS) in airport is an unified system for moving the passengers' baggage in designated time. Input baggage from the check-in counter travels to the baggage claim area or cargo handling terminal through this system. In particular, entryway BHS consists of conveyors, X-ray and sorters such as tilt-tray to send the baggage to departing airplane and it could have various problems for handling certain amount of baggage in restricted time such as baggage jamming at certain merge point. This causes systemic error such as delay of the time, omissions of the baggage and even breakdown of the equipment and inefficiency. Also the increasing maximum time of the baggage passing through the BHS could delay the flight schedule and finally decrease the service level. Thus, the algorithm for controlling the flow of the merge is essential to the system. The window reservation algorithm is the one of the most frequently used methods to control the merge configuration. Above all, the reserve location, so called reserve ahead point, that allocates the window is important for the performance of the algorithm. We propose the modified window reservation algorithm and the best reserve locations by changing the reserve ahead point in the induction conveyors. The effect of various reserve ahead points such as the capacity and utility of the system were analyzed and the most effective reserve ahead point combination was found. The total baggage processing time and the utilization of the tilt-tray are properly considered when choosing the optimal Reserve ahead point combination. In the layout of this study, the configuration of four conveyors merged into one tilt-tray is studied and simulation analysis is done by AutoMod(R), 3D simulation software. Through the simulation, the window reservation algorithm is effectively operated with the best combination of reserve ahead point which reduces the maximum baggage travel time.