Access to any airport is tightly governed. When you’re one of Europe’s busiest airports and a high-profile piece of national infrastructure, you cannot have unauthorized people wandering about.
At Copenhagen Airport, we have more than 20,000 people cleared to access the airport. These might be security staff, baggage handlers, IT service providers, catering teams, and others. As the airport has grown, so has the number of on-site workers.
[Find out what digital workflows are and why they’re important.]
Approving ID cards
With more than 1,300 partners involved in the smooth running of the airport, ID cards are one of the most visible touchpoints of working life at the airport. Everyone needs a current ID card.
Due to high turnover of some of our commercial partners—cleaning contractors or security teams—there are always new applicants. Although we have more than 20,000 authorized persons on-site, we process around 10,000 requests each year.
Approving each of these employees involves working with the police and our partners to conduct background checks. Until recently, managing this access was an entirely paper-based process.
Each morning, I faced banks of filing cabinets stuffed with paperwork. It could take three weeks from application to background checks to approval. There had to be a better way.
Improving efficiency
Copenhagen Airport adopted ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) and digitized the approval process. Today, it’s online, transparent, secure, operationally efficient, and service-focused.
Thanks to ITSM, our partners can see when ID clearance is due to lapse. We can also notify our partners in advance. It’s easier to spot common problems or delays in the system, and we can quickly work to rectify them. In addition, we can help our partners remove paper from their processes.
Digital workflows have had a major impact on efficiency. In reality, however, this approach should be standard. After all, our workforce is used to completing forms online or via mobile apps, many of which require the input of sensitive data.
5 advantages of digital approvals
At Copenhagen Airport, we want to be a modern, progressive place to do business. Digitizing the ID approval process has helped toward that effort. We’re consistently rated one of the world’s most efficient large airports.
Besides no longer seeing filing cabinets stuffed with paper records, we’ve realized five other benefits of digitization:
1. Integration
Our ID card management is integrated with a wider ecosystem of commercial partners and suppliers. How we manage this integration, and these partnerships, is critical to operational efficiency.
2. Visibility
Having the ID card process on the Now Platform gives us visibility across our partner ecosystem. It also ensures one of the fundamental aspects of our operations—security clearance—is managed consistently and fast.
3. Speed
Because airport access is dynamic, we need to be able to process requests quickly and securely. Today, if there are delays in ID card approvals, they’re not with us.
4. Strong audit trail
With digital rather than manual, paper-based inputs, forms are more consistent and have fewer errors. Where errors do occur, they’re easier to trace.
5. Better service
The biggest advantage is the change in ambition. We can provide better service by being more proactive with our partners.
See the benefits of the Now Platform for yourself. Get an ITSM demo.
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