Prod. Eng. Res. Devel.

(2010) 4:371–377
DOI 10.1007/s11740-010-0245-2

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

Planning and realization of an innovative airline catering

production plant: industrial case study
M. Gschirr

Received: 1 February 2010 / Accepted: 9 June 2010 / Published online: 19 June 2010
 German Academic Society for Production Engineering (WGP) 2010

Abstract ifp, a consultancy for production and logistics, in-flight service solutions and managers of complex supply
was involved into the planning of a new ‘‘greenfield’’ chain and logistic processes. Flight catering is probably one
production plant for one of the world’s leading airline of the most complex operational systems in the world [1].
catering companies. The overall project objective was to In spite of crisis like the 1970s Oil Crisis or the September
design a future-proof production plant being prepared for 11 Attacks traffic data in general are showing a significant
prospective customer requirements in a growing but vola- growth of airline business and passenger counts over the last
tile market environment which is getting more and more decades. This long-term trend is expected to continue in the
complex. The focus was to develop and introduce inno- future, though the growth rate highly depends on the pro-
vative lean production processes and an organizational spective global and regional development, like shown in the
structure which amongst others can be reconfigured and scenarios of the CONSAVE (Constrained Scenarios on
adapted quickly to changed boundary conditions. An Aviation and Emissions) report (Fig. 1).
appropriate flexible new production planning and control In contrast to this existing long-term trend in business
system was developed to support the new processes. As a development one can see temporary challenges like the
result of the project an impressive catering facility was put current economic crisis with a strong impact on aircraft
into operation—currently one of the largest in Europe. movements and passenger counts.
‘‘Looking into the near future considerable challenges
Keywords Production management
Factory planning
are ahead due to the drastic shrinkage in demand for airline
Production and logistic processes catering. In addition to the volume impact caused by
decreasing passenger numbers, the airline catering industry
in general is confronted with its customer’s requests for
1 Introduction—airline catering business and market reductions in service levels and prices’’, says Walter Gehl,
environment CEO of world’s leading airline catering company LSG Sky
Chefs.
The airline catering industry is serving the airlines and their This changed reality requires flexible business models
passengers onboard with a wide variety of meals—ranging and in particular reconfigurable and agile airline catering
from a simple beverage in short-haul economy class to a production plants.
seven-course gourmet meal in long-haul first class. But
today the airline catering companies are not only producing
meals—they have developed into providers of complete 2 Establishing general conditions for a successful
project

M. Gschirr (&) 2.1 Business plan

Ifp consulting, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Milberg Institut für
Produktion und Logistik GmbH & Co. KG,
Richard-Reitzner-Allee 8, 85540 Munich, Germany The mission statement for the whole planning project was
e-mail: martin.gschirr@ifpconsulting.de to develop the world’s best catering facility by using

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innovative solutions and allowing flexibility and agility for necessary for the project to develop several base scenarios,
the future. representing different situations in passenger and airline
This missions statement was backed up with project traffic growth. Additionally the future growth in airline
targets in a comprehensive business plan which contained traffic is not uniformly distributed over the world. There is
information regarding the expected market situation, an less domestic (Germany) and short-range (roughly Euro-
operational plan (with staffing details and increase in pro- pean countries) growth estimated than long-range growth.
ductivity claimed with the new production plant), a finan- Especially flights to the Middle East and Asia seem to grow
cial plan (with investments, funding and payback period) above average. This had to be considered for the planning.
and a project risk analysis.
For a successful project it is very important to have 2.2.2 Prospective service level scenarios
clearly defined project targets from the beginning on. This
enables all members of the project team and all contractors A service level (Fig. 2) can be defined as a specific catering
to act in concert and to veer towards the right direction. configuration subject to different classes (first, business and
economy class) and different flight ranges (short, mid and
2.2 Major influencing factors to the project long range). Based on detailed market research a reduction
in service level was expected, e.g. in one future planning
Airline catering business has to handle two major influence scenario there were no sandwiches in business class on
factors: short range flights and only so-called mealboxes with
convenience food in the economy class long range instead
• Future airline traffic and passenger count development.
of classic meal trays. Airlines and passengers are investing
• Prospective service level scenarios.
less money into catering.

2.2.1 Future airline traffic and passenger count 2.3 Scenario definition and project planning data base
development
Based on these two major influence factors different
As already mentioned (see Fig. 1) it is difficult to predict planning scenarios were built up for the project, in com-
future passenger demand deployment. Therefore it was bination with the defined project targets efficiency, flexi-
bility and elasticity (Fig. 3).
It is essential that the whole project team can rely on the
planning scenarios. All parties were involved in the defi-
nition process of the general planning scenarios—this led
to high acceptance.
Of course, like in every complex planning project,
scenarios changed within the planning period. But it is
important that scenarios are not changed day by day.
Changes should be collected and implemented in reason-
able steps. Like the planned production plant itself it is
Fig. 1 Long time passenger demand deployment from 1970 to 2050 [2] important that the project team is acting efficient, flexible

Fig. 2 Prospective service level

scenarios Presentservicelevel Possible future service level

Short Long Short Long

range range range range

First First
- Premium - Premium
class class

Classic Classic
Business Business Beverage
class
Sandwich meal
business
class ! only
meal
business

Economy Classic Economy Mealbox

Beverage Beverage
class only
meal
standard
class only ! Sandwich
only

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Prod. Eng. Res. Devel. (2010) 4:371–377 373

• Full leverage of the supply chain efficiencies possible?

• Necessary capital employed (e.g. investment)?
• Optimized processes and material flows realizable?

Efficiency

Operating a value chain that is capable of

delivering results beyond target margins.
(material flow, process, capital)

Elasticity Flexibility
Being able to adjust the value chain to sustain Being able to fulfill various and constantly
constant profitability in spite of various short- changing customer requirements while
and long-term dynamics of the business. maintaining efficient operational value chain.
(volume dependency) (product dependency)

• Modular setup to adjust value chain to volume • Easy and flexible change of products possible?
changes? • Value chain adaptable to changes of product
• Asset sharing possible? properties?

Fig. 3 Decision criteria for the selection of planning alternatives

and agile with changes during the planning process, too. unloaded, sorted and transported to the corresponding
Only this will lead to the best possible planning results. production areas. All meal trolleys have to be stripped
All the planning data and scenario information were and the single components like trays, dishes and cutlery
organized in a planning database. Therefore ifp consulting are cleaned in the dishwash area. Depending on the flight
used its unique and comprehensive project database. This plan trolleys for the upcoming flights are produced in the
enabled the project team to always have the most relevant different production areas, e.g. Beverage area for drinks,
planning figures available at a glance and to recalculate and Tray set-up area for meal trolleys or Dry-Goods area and
adapt changes in the planning situation very quickly. Fur- Equipment area for other goods. After production all
thermore it was easy to analyze different scenario config- trolleys for a flight with everything that is required
urations and to run queries providing decision and planning onboard find their way to the outbound ramp, are loaded
relevant reports and information. onto highloaders and then transported to the aircrafts right
before departure.

3 Development of an innovative process model

3.2 Airline catering processes—a big challenge
for factory planning
‘‘Sustainable economic growth is generated by
innovations.’’
A special characteristic of the airline catering industry are
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Milberg
processes with very short lead and response times—no
Supervisory Board Chairman of BMW AG, Founder
meal, tray or airline catering trolley is produced more than
and partner of ifp consulting
24 h before departure of a flight (especially due to food law
Compared to well known industries like the automotive requirements) and airline customers can change the whole
or mechanical engineering industry the airline catering catering configuration for a flight up to 30 min. before
industry is characterized by a lot of specific process departure.
requirements. This makes planning very complex and Additionally the business is characterized by continuous
challenging—probably more than in other industries. changes—short-term intraday changes (e.g. aircraft chan-
ges or delays), long-term strategic changes (e.g. disposable
3.1 Airline catering process flow meal boxes instead of classic reusable meal trays) as well
as uncertainties (e.g. catastrophes like September 11
The airline catering process is fairly linked to the airport Attacks with heavy economic impact to airline business).
and flight operations. The process can be described as This leads to special requirements in terms of the process
follows: flexibility and changeability as well as the production
After arrival of an aircraft at the airport the used planning and control system.
catering loading is unloaded and brought back to the Therefore an appropriate new and innovative process
catering facility by special airline catering lift trucks model was developed which provides agility and
(highloaders). In the inbound area the used trolleys are flexibility.

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3.3 Process engineering—development of the new flights. It was not possible to realize this number of ramps
process model in a reasonable building.
Due to these facts it was not feasible to continue with
As a first step the actual process of the existing production the existing processes. Therefore the targets for an opti-
plant was analyzed. In summary the process was charac- mized, innovative and flexible production process were
terized by defined—according to lean principles and value chain
orientation (Fig. 4).
• ‘‘Push’’ control of the production - from inbound up to
To achieve the targets, the whole existing catering
the outbound area
process was redefined. Compared to the current control
• High total buffer stock
with push principle, the future production will be based on
• High handling efforts in the value chain due to many
pull-strategy (Fig. 5).
buffer areas
With the pull principle, production orders are released
• Long distances between the single buffers and therefore
by demands. Hence dispatching is no longer deterministic,
inappropriate material flow.
but order related and the trigger for the production release
Additionally, with the existing control and supply sys- is the single flight event. Only things are produced which
tem there would have been an enormous additional demand are already required for a specific and released upcoming
of loading platforms for serving the increased number of event. This avoids over-production and high stocks levels.

Overall control effort

• low personnel expenses

Small control effort • low invest into IT-systems

Production processes

High productivity Targets of Low inventory stock

Optimal use process control Optimized

of resources Consumption rate

• low personnel expenses • low demand of

• low equipment invest production space

Base Guarantee product

quality
• low waste of material
• low waste of resources

Labor costs
Material costs

Fig. 4 Targets for the new production process

Fig. 5 Lean process model for Current process (mainly push) Target process (mainly pull)
future production—Transition PUSH PULL PUSH PULL
from push to pull
Transport
Transport

Buffer

Buffer
Buffer

Beverage Beverage
Transport

Buffer

Buffer
Unloading/Sort

Unloading/Sort
Transport
Buffer

Dry-Goods/ Dry-Goods/
Transport

Transport
Transport

Transport
Loading

Loading
Transport

Transport
Buffer

Equipment Equipment
Buffer

Buffer
Transport

Buffer
Transport
Buffer

Buffer
Buffer
Buffer

Dishwash Dishwash
Transport
Buffer

Meal production / Meal production /

Tray setup Tray setup
Transport

Buffer

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Furthermore the process is characterized as follows:

• Central ‘‘Push-Pull-Break’’ after Inbound area (incl.
Dishwash area)
• Elimination of unnecessary buffers and process
interruptions.
• Clear material flow and reduced handling efforts
(avoiding double handling)
• Leveled and smoothed production
• Flexible work organization by using standardized
processes and layouts.

3.4 Gaining acceptance for the new processes

Fig. 6 3D-Visualization of the airline catering production plant
in operative level

One important thing is to get the acceptance of the future

process owners. This was amongst others achieved by a 4.2 Innovative technical solutions supporting lean
business game which was played together with relevant production and ensuring efficiency and flexibility
key players. It showed in an interactive and transparent
way how the new production plant will operate. Without Numerous pioneering technical solutions were introduced
such a game it would have been more difficult to achieve a in the new building. They not only guarantee short cycle
high level of understanding and acceptance. times, high efficiency and flexibility—they also assure
transparency as well as environmental and employee-
friendly processes. Following two examples of smart
4 Transformation of the process model technical solutions.
into an innovative airline catering production plant
4.2.1 Innovative and sophisticated cooling technology
4.1 Factory planning using virtual production tools
In the Beverage area three cooling tunnels were installed
During the whole factory planning process the discrete event to ensure fast, flexible and efficient cooling of drinks.
simulation software ‘‘Plant Simulation’’ was used to support With common processes it was necessary to cool down
the planning process. Through the use of simulation it was the beverage trolleys in big chill rooms. This led to long
already in the early planning phase possible to check the throughput times, large buffer sizes and non-flexible
behavior of the whole production system when changing processes while at the same time consuming a lot of
boundary conditions and production parameters. Simulation energy. With the cooling tunnels buffer sizes and process
managed to identify the appropriate production system with times were reduced significantly and flexibility was
corresponding production planning and control strategy and increased.
provided important planning data like material flow infor-
mation, buffer sizes, number of loading platforms, required 4.2.2 New way of placing the loads for long-distance
transport equipment, optimum lot sizes, throughput times flights on the outbound area by using revolutionary
and machine utilization. Moreover, simulation allowed cooling sheds
analyzing the influence and sensitivity of extreme worst and
best case scenarios (e.g. regarding different passenger and The load for every long-haul flight is arranged at one of the
airline traffic growth scenarios) to the production system. 116 cooling sheds located on the outbound ramp. Every
This helped to develop a sustainable factory layout which is shed is 7 m long by 2.20 m wide with 2 roll-up doors and
agile and flexible enough to handle future uncertainties. can accommodate a whole truckload. Special ramp moni-
As a result of several months of intensive and detailed tors show which sheds are allocated to which flights.
planning a material flow optimized layout was devel- Before the load is put inside one of the sheds, transport
oped—based on the lean production philosophy (Fig. 6). employees record each individual piece of equipment with
The layout supports the defined production and logistic a scanner to guarantee the right trolley on the right plane.
process targets in the best way and at the same time meets Additionally the scan is automatically activating the cool-
all the specific requirements of the airline catering industry ing system of the shed if a trolley requires to be cooled—
(e.g. security regulations, food safety and hygiene). this ensures proper cooling in terms of product quality

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while at the same time saving energy, because cooling is 5.2 Innovative production planning and control system
only activated if really necessary. Moreover the cooling for airline catering
sheds allow process flexibility and agility. The production
control system is managing the allocation of the sheds As already mentioned, in contrast to the current push
automatically in an optimized way. production the future production is controlled by pull
strategy. This fundamental change also requires a modified
production planning and control process.
5 Development of an appropriate production planning The production planning (14 days up to 1 day before
and control system departure of a flight) runs through the successive steps of
production program planning, target quantity planning and
5.1 Production planning and control in volatile market capacity planning. Production planning delivers various
environment production relevant documents which are handed over to
the operation level for execution.
Within turbulent market environments there exists a high The production control (1 day before departure up to
probability that information are no more up-to-date if they scheduled departure time) deals with the short-term (day-
come to operational level [3]. to-hour) control of production orders. This includes espe-
This is a major challenge airline catering has to handle cially the sequence planning of orders, the production data
because of its short-term changes (e.g. aircraft changes, acquisition (PDA) and, specifically in the airline catering
delays, change in passenger count etc.). industry, the reacting on unplanned short-term problems
Generally it must be the target to increase the respon- and changes.
siveness of production. Therefore it is necessary to shorten For the airline catering especially the operational ‘‘daily
response time within the planning and control, to extend business’’ and therefore the production control (Fig. 7) is
the short-term options for action and to actively support the the major challenge to cope with. Some outstanding control
production units. This requires reductions in terms of time features of the new production planning and control system
and costs as well as business integration in the whole are described in the following.
planning chain [3].
The objective for the new production plant therefore was 5.2.1 Intelligent generating of lot sizes and order
to develop a lean, flexible and versatile production plan- sequencing
ning and control system. Because of the special require-
ments of the airline catering industry no default production The production control supports the production areas in
planning and control software solution was available on the generating optimal lot sizes and order sequences regarding
market, so ifp consulting developed a brand-new concept the numerous specific requirements of airline catering.
customized for airline catering needs. This concept was Thereby the on time completion of all products has a top
realized and implemented together with a well-known IT priority—a delay of only a few minutes may already end up
partner. in a delayed flight. A complex algorithm determines the

Handover of Flight within the Departure of

Implementation of
flight from airport responsibility of flight
changes
to airline caterer airline caterer

-14 days -2 days - 1 day < - 1 day 0

Production planning Production control

Flight Flight re- Flight is Flight is Flight is Flight is

generated generated planned released produced delivered

Fig. 7 Timeline for production planning and control

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Prod. Eng. Res. Devel. (2010) 4:371–377 377

best possible lot sizes in the respective production areas, is on the one hand intelligent enough to execute essential
the production sequence and the appropriate capacity. tasks automatically but on the other hand operators have
Using the new production control system, the production in the flexibility and agility to handle everything manually in
the future is not only much easier, more comfortable and case of uncertainties.
efficient but also more flexible and transparent.

5.2.2 Order monitoring 6 Summary

A precondition for monitoring the production processes is As a result of the project an impressive catering facility
an operational data acquisition to get a feedback about the was put into operation—currently one of the largest in
current situation. In the new production plant there are Europe with a capacity of 80,000 meals/day.
several booking points to monitor the material flow of An integrated pull-principle was introduced while
goods. At these locations the goods are identified and throughput times and handling efforts could be reduced
documented by scanning a barcode. The monitoring is not significantly compared to the existing production plant.
only used for production control and production monitoring With simulation it was already possible in the conception
purposes, but also for traceability and quality control. phase to verify the target achievements.
New and innovative ways of handling, preparing and
5.2.3 Control of the outbound cooling sheds providing the goods were developed and compared to other
existing catering facilities business in done in a complete
The control and monitoring of the outbound sheds is one of new way—lean, agile and efficient.
the most important components of the production control Moreover the facility is flexible, reconfigurable and can
system. The outbound shed control is managing the allo- be adjusted to future demands—by processes, production
cation of the sheds and sets the pull signal for generating planning and control as well as building extension
production orders, if a new flight event can be produced possibilities.
due to available space for placing a load in the outbound
sheds. With an integrated monitoring function it is possible
to get information about allocation of sheds and flight loads
at any time on any computer running the production and References
control system.
1. Jones P (2004) Flight catering, 2nd edn. Butterworth-Heinemann,
Summarized, with the new and innovative production Oxford
planning and control system a new way of doing business 2. Berghof R, Schmitt A (2005) CONSAVE 2050 constrained
was established. The people in the production area were scenarios on aviation and emissions—executive summary. German
empowered—shift leaders can release production orders Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne
3. Westkämper E, Zahn E (2008) Wandlungsfähige Produktionsun-
and batches according to the current production situation ternehmen. Springer, Berlin
and boundary conditions by themselves. Response and
throughput times were improved considerably. The system

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