A stochastic computer simulation of an airport baggage facility

Proposes improving the efficiency of the operation of the baggage facility at American Airlines for O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Constructs a conceptual model of the existing bag room according to physical and operational data collected from maintenance reports, videotapes of conveyor belts and observation by the analysts. Sources of error resulting in flight delay or mishandled baggage include misreading of the bag tag which sends the bag to the wrong pier,overloaded piers which cause the bags to be rerouted to the recirculation area to be re‐encoded and re‐sorted and a random bag jam causing breakdown of a conveyor line. Four competing alternatives were simulated: the current bag room, the current bag room without the mail operation, an expanded system with additional baggage transfer points and baggage drop areas, and an expanded system without the mail lines. The result of the comparison of the alternatives based on the average of the mean travel time suggests that the current bag room is the best followed by the current bag room without mail.