EUROCONTROL

Ultimately, alongside the NMOC (Network Manager Operations Centre), the IT front-end support, the IT service supporting the operations headquarters, also moved. A training room with twelve workstations and a teacher’s desk was added, identically equipped as the main room. There are several offices for executives and directors on the first floor. And for the tech enthusiasts: the racks and cables in the basement are quite impressive. “The pitch in March 2022 marked the beginning of a project in which EUROCONTROL placed full trust in us,” says Jan De Keyser, Managing Director at Whitemilk.

Meanwhile, the biggest challenge for Matthis Birenheide was figuring out how to support the current operations while also preparing for the future. “Especially for the front-end support, the change was massive. But the beauty was that they were very open to it from the beginning. Our research indicated that we needed to go for a single console concept, so we wanted to know how many screens they needed. At that time: a lot! They were used to working with two rows of about thirty screens. That's how it had evolved over the years. But in the new concept, that wasn't an option. The team never made an issue of it and was immediately ready to rethink their way of working.” For the displays on the desks EUROCONTROL relied on EIZO again, which was already the standard monitor in their offices for years.

The state-of-the-art building would house a state-of-the-art control center. Featuring 121 ergonomic desks, over 300 screens, 6 large LED walls, a UniSee Wall, OpSpace, TransForm N, touch panels, and more. In this critical European infrastructure, key considerations included redundancy for high availability, the highest-level security (from windows to strict access control and resource availability for different departments), and maximum flexibility. Flexibility in every conceivable way, from the sources displayed on the video walls to the operator workstations. Or flexibility in terms of scalability: as the number of flights continues to rise (with up to 16 million yearly flights by 2050), and data exchange becomes even more extensive, EUROCONTROL aims to be well-prepared.

One of the challenges EIZO solved with their monitors was to have access to all applications on every desk and to switch easily. “In the past, each desk had dedicated computers specifically equipped for certain functions linked to our data center. Now, we wanted a clean Ops Room, without large computers and with all the flexibility,” explains Matthis Birenheide. “In essence, you can perform any task from any console. This led us to the single console concept: all workstations are the same, with exactly the same number of screens.” Front-end operators in a control room are typically bombarded by a vast amount of information. “With our systems, they choose the form and size in which information is displayed. Using the same mouse, they can manipulate and interact with different sources or drag something from the large screen to a small display,” explains Jonas Standaert the OpSpace solution.

It was clear: the equipment in the former operations center was no longer ideal. Over the course of 25 years, new equipment had been added without giving sufficient consideration to ergonomics. "Ergonomics is often underestimated in a 24/7 environment. People work in a stressful environment, but with different workloads. At one moment they have to work attentively and intensively, while at another moment it is much quieter and more relaxed. All these facets need to be taken into account when creating the right sightlines and passageways and ensuring that people can sit comfortably at their desks. Unfortunately, back, shoulder and neck problems are very common in this type of environment," notes Steve Beeckmans. It became a search for the best possible compromise between functional and ergonomic requirements. The EIZO monitors are perfectly adapted to 24/7 environments and offer a long service life as well as the technology to prevent eye fatigue. In addition to the technical aspects, the monitors offer a very sustainable and energy-saving solution, and this was certainly a key theme in EUROCONTROL's approach to the new Network Manager Operations Center.

The actual installation time was around 2.5 months. This is quite remarkable for this scope and complexity. From October 30 to 31, 2023, there was a seamless transition for the operations team. We are ready for the next steps in the coming years, ready to provide customer-oriented services for the operational stakeholders. "Yes, definitely. We are now ready for the future," says Matthis Birenheide.