Responsible for 25 million passengers annually, Finavia started developing real time capabilities instead of conventional financial reporting. The most essential feature of the realtime data platform created by Solita for Finavia is not that all data can now be found in one place, but the fact that it can be shared, combined, and requested. The diverse data handling puts Finavia’s value promise ”For Smooth Travelling” to practice.
Finavia
Realtime data for Finavia’s day-to-day business
From conventional reporting to a realtime Data Hub
Finavia has used a very conventional reporting method for financial data until recent years. The Group operates 21 airports with a passenger volume of 25 million in 2018. Helsinki Airport accounts for more than 20 million of these.
The new Data Hub is based on the two main airport processes: aircraft turnaround and the passenger’s path. At the same time, the focus shifted from reporting to data, which is now at the centre of the process.
Instead of Business Intelligence, today we talk about data assets and their utilisation.
The key element of Data Hub is not that all data has been brought to one place, but the fact that it can be shared, combined, and requested.
Building on a solid foundation
The change in the approach led to a situation where day-to-day use cases started to emerge from Finavia’s business. The first ones involved the management of information display screens and luggage. All of these are closely related to Finavia’s value promise ”For Smooth Travelling”. This promise has been at the core of all data processing from the start.
The data for Data Hub comes from almost 30 very different sources, with flight data being among the most central. Data is also imported from, for example, IoT sensors, RFI tags and customer feedback terminals. Experienced IT experts work in the background to make sure that the information architecture and the bigger picture are managed smartly.
Data for hub users
Data Hub’s realtime PowerBI reports have 150 users who are able to react quickly and timely to exceptional situations as data is displayed automatically without the user needing to open a separate report.
In other words, the key element of Data Hub is not that all data has been brought to one place, but the fact that it can be shared, combined, and requested. Data Hub has become such an important part of life for Finavia workers that they even refer to the process as ‘hubbing the data’.
Solita’s role in building the foundation
Solita has been an important partner to Finavia throughout the Data Hub development process. Solita has had full responsibility for both building and developing this foundation. All products that the data from Data Hub will enable in the future are based on the firm footing built now.
Results
- A shift in thinking where Data Assets are now in focus, instead of BI reporting
- A solid foundation that allows the creation of new use cases
- 150 active, new users
- Transparent, realtime data
- Fact-based support for prompt decision-making
Technologies:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Snowflake
- Solita Agile Data Engine (ADE)
- Microsoft PowerBI
