BAGGAGE HANDLING TECHNOLOGY AUTHOR Joe Petrie Drive Reliability in Your Baggage System New innovations in baggage handling system drives provide more reliability and predictive maintenance to keep luggage moving. UPGRADING AN airport baggage handling system offers airports a unique opportunity to address operational reliability, sustainability and a better passenger experience knowing luggage will get to the travelers in a timely fashion. Energy efficient components are becoming more prevalent in baggage handling systems. Efficiency is a quantifiable standard established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The standard NORDAC ON was developed to meet the special requirements of horizontal conveyor technology, as well as for the interaction with the new IE5+ synchronous motor. NORD DRIVESYSTEMS defines five International Efficiency (IE) classes for single-speed electric motors, related to efficiency, power output and size for motors. Picking a motor type for your drivetrain can be difficult, as each has advantages and disadvantages. Reliable Systems Keep Bags Moving Airports and airlines need to keep their baggage handling systems online to ensure traffic keeps moving and delays aren't created by broken systems. " What I'm seeing is everyone looking to put their best foot forward, " said James Chandler, key markets manager for Nord Drivesystems. " How efficient can I be? Is it from a retrofit or is it looking at a full CAPEX project to renovate or upgrade the complete system? In many cases, airports are taking a deep dive into looking at how they upgrade and be efficient. " Chandler said U.S. airports want a network connection of their systems to keep on top of their performance and provide a tool for predictive maintenance. This gives customers and end users oversight of their systems. Visibility also helps with efficient commissioning and seeing what drives are up and which are down and more. Monitoring these elements provides feedback on how a system is performing and data trends will show when an item needs to be addressed before failure. " It's not just all about more efficiency. It's all about durability and uptime, " 10 \ AIRPORT BUSINESS / JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022