Originally Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) was a simple concept indeed. Realizing that a lot of problems in air traffic management came from the simple fact that many of the partners simply did not talk to each other, it was easy to reach the conclusion: make them work together, stop decisions being made in isolation, improve decisions by making them the result of a collaborative endeavor.
It was not easy at first and people invented all kinds of reasons for not doing it… most of the reasons given were simply not valid. We will be bringing you a short history of CDM later and you will see why I am saying this. To a large extent thanks to a small group of enthusiasts (the famous original CDM group in the US), more and more airlines and airports realized that working together was far more beneficial than hiding behind ill-defined concepts of commercial sensitivities.
CDM took off in the US as well as in Europe, albeit in slightly different forms. With most of the problems at the time being en-route in the USA, CDM there grew primarily to improve that situation. In Europe meanwhile, airports were seen as the best proving ground for collaborative decisions and a sub-culture of CDM grew up, referred to as Airport CDM or A-CDM.
EUROCONTROL, the European agency for the safety of air navigation, went after CDM with gusto and they developed a series of CDM applications, each designed to address a particular air traffic management decision making shortcoming in the airport context. These include calculation of taxi times, decision making in adverse conditions (fog, snow, etc.), collaborative pre-departure clearances and message exchanges with the Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU, the European equivalent of the FAA’s Command Centre).
These applications are not a piece of software as such. They describe the functional requirements that need to be implemented in order to realize the given functionality, like taxi time calculation and so on. If you look at those requirements, you realize just how far CDM has come from the original simple concept.
Airports are not the easiest places when it comes to introducing new IT systems. Especially in the past, most everybody operating at an airport will have had their own systems, many custom built with interoperability not on the agenda… Some airports themselves had several systems that were not compatible with each other. An IT manager’s nightmare.
CDM arrived into this type of environment, wanting to tie everything together, facilitate information exchange and even talk to the outside world in a
seamless manner. At first there were no standards to follow, so each airport trying its hand at CDM implementation went its own way, creating yet more, albeit bigger, islands of less then completely interoperable systems. Some airports were more successful than others, but they all made significant progress with reaping some of the benefits of collaborative decision making.
Of course not every airport can afford to build its own CDM system. This is a problem because the more the number of airports that use CDM, the better the overall air traffic management system becomes. Even airports with more money will sometimes think twice before spending funds on an own development.
Can you go out and buy an airport CDM system? There are several products on the marker claiming to be CDM systems but very few of them actually incorporate the full functionality described in the EUROCONTROL CDM documentation.
One system that is guaranteed to do everything airport CDM experts have come up with is the BluePower CDM Toolbox, developed by BluSky Services.
This core software module in the form of a workflow system contains all the functionality required for information sharing and other CDM concept elements. The core software can be customized according to local circumstances and requirements, including the interfaces with existing systems and user interfaces. It can be implemented as a stand alone system, or integrated with existing systems, or a combination of both. The corresponding user interface can be easily customized for local requirements and for the needs of the different partners. This is done without compromising the functions and visual elements on which the common situational awareness, the basis of collaborative decisions, is predicated.
The BluePower CDM Toolkit can be combined with a full package of training, local requirements analysis and implementation project support. Completely scaleable, it is suitable for all airport sizes and complexities. The product is also future proof. Its workflow based concept ensures that future functions can be added with minimum effort. In terms of pricing and cost of ownership, the BluePower CDM Toolkit is the most cost effective solution in practically all circumstances.
Visit EUROCONTROL’s CDM portal here. Visit BluSky Services here.