Logistics – Exelis

Customer Profile

Exelis is a leader in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) related products and systems and information solutions, supplying military, government and commercial customers in the United States and globally. Originally a spin off from ITT Corporation, Exelis is now a part of Harris Corporation. Harris Exelis is ranked among top 10 defense contractors in US and provides its services to various federal agencies of US like US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, NASA etc.

Business Challenge

Exelis needed to develop an Airline Operations and Fleet Management System for its commercial customers. This flight tracking and situational awareness system should be able to provide a real-time view of airway and airport activity allowing safer and efficient operations.

Other requirements for the system as laid by their customers and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) included rapid and detailed access to aircraft surveillance data (radar, automatic dependent surveillance) in case of accident and incident investigations as well as review of incoming Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) anti-collision system notifications from aircraft operators. They also required real-time, 24/7 rapid-update information like gate-to-gate flight status information for improving decision-making and operations.

Solution

In order to provide such real-time, uninterrupted and accurate data, Exelis developed the Symphony^® OpsVue^™ project, an Airport, Airline Operations and Fleet Management Suite using

Fiorano ESB. Built upon a synthesis of air traffic control surveillance sources, OpsVue^™ allows access to LIVE 24/7 rapid-update data that exactly matches the requirements of Exelis's customers. The OpsVue^™ allows you to see the entire airspace as well as ground operations together with the landing/takeoff activity on an airport with the help of various monitors.

Powered by Fiorano ESB, Symphony^® OpsVue^™ system now seamlessly integrates comprehensive aircraft surveillance data available from multiple sources to provide a complete picture of activity on the ground and in the sky. It is the first system of its kind to leverage real-time data from the surveillance system.

Fiorano Services are also used to collect WSI weather data feeds and to subscribe to METARs (Meteorological Terminal Aviation Routine Weather Report) & TAF (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast) and to receive reports containing the Weather observations and forecasts of airports. This data is exposed through Fiorano as a webservice to deliver METAR and TAF data upon request, given an airport ICAO code as input. This service is also used by other Exelis systems.

Benefits

Exelis is most impressed with the speed with which new solutions could be developed and deployed using Fiorano ESB.

Fiorano SOA platform is used by Symphony^® OpsVue^™ project to perform the following:

• Connect to flightstats.com to get PHL fights gate assignments, Arrival, Departure information
• Build a wrapper to subscribe to VAS feeds
• Combine above points to provide an aggregate data feed which are then published on to a JMS Queue and are simultaneously written into the Oracle database
• Increase the amount of data available to airport and airline customers and adds 2D and 3D replay of real-time airport
• and airway activity
• Provide unprecedented level of real-time situational awareness
• Enable better tracking of aircraft and ground vehicles for safer, more efficient operations across the country
Enable collaborative decision-making among pilots, controllers and airport staff by allowing users to track aircraft and vehicle movement; monitor performance and irregular operations; and manage arrivals, departures, push back and de-icing times, and compliance with passenger bill of rights
• requirements
• Monitor its aircraft on the airport surface in the taxiway, ramp or gate at any of its primary and diversion airports with a single web-based application

Result

The OpsVue^™ Solution today caters to more than 65 diverse customers of Exelis, ranging from general aviation airports to flight schools to the world's busiest commercial airports. A few airports using this are John F. Kennedy International Airport, NY, McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada, Los Angeles International Airport, California, LaGuardia Airport, NY, Orlando International Airport, Florida, Midway Airport, Chicago, Illinois and many more.

About Fiorano Software

Fiorano Software (www.fiorano.com) is a leading provider of enterprise class business process integration and messaging infrastructure technology. Fiorano's network-centric solutions set a new paradigm in ROI, performance, interoperability and scalability. Global leaders including Fortune 500 companies such as Boeing, British Telecom, Credit Agricole Titres, Lockheed Martin, NASA, POSCO, Qwest Communications, Schlumberger and Vodafone among others have used Fiorano technology to deploy their enterprise nervous systems.

To find out more about how Fiorano can help you meet your enterprise integration objectives, visit www.fiorano.com or Email us, we will contact you!