It’s no easy task to prepare a city for such big-scale events, but it’s a great opportunity for host cities to boost their economy and make a lasting impression on visitors. For most, the airport will be their first impression of the city, so host cities have vamped-up their airports with the help of steel.  

Take a look at the airports expecting the most traffic in the beginning of the year:

Guarulhos International Airport – Brazil

Every year, from February 24 to 28, the people of Rio de Janeiro hold the Carnival, which unofficially lasts from the end of December to March in the form of hundreds of street parties called blocos. In 2017, more than 1.1 million people showed up for the Carnival from all over the world and spent about USD 782 million during their stay. The Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) is the busiest airport in Brazil, and traffic has tripled from 12.9 million people in 2004 to 39.5 million in 2014. To accommodate the growing number of passengers, the airport has undergone several additions and renovations in the past couple of years.

Terminal 3 at Guarulhos International Airport opened in 2014 ahead of the FIFA World Cup. (Source: Passenger Terminal Today)

Ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, GRU built the 192,000 square-meter Terminal 3 to increase its passenger capacity by 12 million, bringing up the total capacity to 42 million. Terminal 3 consists of 2 main buildings made up of 40 metal modules weighing 70 tons each, held together by concrete pillars.

Then, in 2016, Terminal 2 was renovated ahead of the Summer Olympic Games to fit modern airport standards. With a budget of USD 50 million, architects took existing facilities that were close to 30 years old and rebuilt them into the modernized Terminal 2. The new terminal now accommodates plenty of retail space and a massive food court, and non-aeronautical revenues make up 51 percent of the airport’s entire revenue.

It seems the airport, and the city, made a lasting impression as last year, over 94 percent of tourists that took part in a survey said they would make another trip to the city and over 91 percent responded they would recommend Rio to their friends.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport – USA

The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) is another airport that sees millions of visitors every year during the month of February. Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, landed on February 13 this year, marking the end of a month-long celebration. It’s basically the American version of the Rio Carnival, and social crews or Krewes organize different parties all over town. The event draws about 1.4 million participants on average.

The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport’s North Terminal is scheduled for completion in 2019. (Source: Atkins)

Starting in 2016, MSY is working to complete a 972,000 square-foot North Terminal by February 2019. The project will cost about USD 1 billion to construct. When finished, the new terminal will include 35 new gates, a massive parking garage for 2200 cars as well as a central utility plant.

Besides increasing the passenger capacity, the project created about 64,000 jobs and generated USD 6.4 billion in local spending and USD 2.4 billion in local earnings. The project is also responsible for tons of steel consumption in the form of beams, bars and panels. On November 17, 2017, workers erected a steel beam at the highest elevation of the new terminal, signaling the project will most likely be completed on schedule.

Incheon International Airport – Korea

It’s not every year Korea gets thousands of visitors in the month of February, but as the host for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Incheon International Airport (ICN) is bustling with passengers. Global passenger flights were up 15 percent this year compared to last year, and up 24 percent in the U.S. alone. In Vietnam, bookings were up 550 percent from the previous year, the Philippines saw a 200 percent increase and Canadians booked 40 percent more flights, all in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Incheon International Airport’s second passenger terminal opened on January 18, 2018. (Source: Medium)

To greet the growing number of passengers, ICN completed its second terminal earlier this year using POSCO’s 446M steel. The same type of steel was used to build the first passenger terminal in 2001, but this time, architects decided to apply a special process called Bead Blast to create a rough texture on the roof of the terminal to minimize reflectivity as it can interfere with sight during take-off and landing. The steel also contains high amounts of chromium (26%) and molybdenum (2%), making it extra corrosion resistant.

As the #1 ranked airport in service quality for the last 10 years, ICN will now be able to service more passengers, 72 million to be exact, and 5.8Mt of cargo every year.

SEE ALSO: POSCO’s World Premium Stainless Steel Products, Preferred Option for Strength and Beauty

Airports play a central role in the tourism industry of its respective country, and the national economy as a whole. Steel continues to be the most widely-used construction material for the building and renovation of bustling airports around the world, and will continue to help cities make a lasting impression on all its visitors.

Cover photo courtesy of Wilmotte & Associés.

While consumers are able to see benefits added to their daily lives with IoT, it is the adoption in the industry and manufacturing sectors that are seeing the most significant economic gains, reductions in waste, and higher quality production. IoT is expected to see massive growth in the next ten to fifteen years, and most of that growth is expected to come from enterprise adoption, or what is now called IIoT, the industrial internet of things.

Below we take a look at how businesses are implementing IIoT and how it is revolutionizing industries all over the world.

Volkswagen Truck & Bus Launches RIO Platform

Beginning in 2017, Volkswagen Truck & Bus began offering its  RIO platform, an open and cloud-based “operating system.” RIO is unique in that it can connect multiple pieces of the global supply chain regardless of brand. Because the shipping and logistics industries utilize many different brands and types of equipment, it has been difficult to make the process more connected and more sustainable – but RIO does just that.

Shippers, dispatchers, carriers, drivers, and recipients can all be connected with a uniform logistics platform that includes forecasting features. RIO looks at information from traffic, weather, and navigation and combines it with information from tractors, trailers, bodies, drivers, and orders so that it can offer recommendations in real time.

Volkswagen Truck & Bus utilize IIoT technology to help compile information across multiple brands and types of logistics equipment. (Photo courtesy of Volkswagen AG)

In utilizing IIoT technology, Volkswagen can streamline the vast information sources across brands that will help improve the transportation and reloading process. As Volkswagen Truck & Bus CEO Andreas Renschler noted, this is not just good for efficiency and the company’s bottom line, it is also good for the environment. Being able to real-time decisions through multiple sensors and input, there will be fewer empty trucks on the road and far less waste.  

Caterpillar IIoT Saves Money, Increases Uptime

In the U.S., construction and mining equipment company Caterpillar is utilizing IIoT to help customers monitor their equipment to increase efficiency. Partnering with Uptake, a predictive analytics firm, Caterpillar sends data gathered from sensors on its products and sends it into the cloud for diagnostic analysis. Caterpillar then provides its customers with vital information related to their equipment so that they have the ability to plan maintenance schedules more efficiently. If customers can know that several parts are likely to need to be replaced, these can be fixed all at once while the equipment is offline instead of having each one break individually while in use. This ultimately helps prevent costly downtime providing customers with uninterrupted productivity.

Caterpillar also integrated advanced IIoT systems in their Marine Division to help monitor almost every aspect of their tugboats and shipping vessels. The generators, engines, GPS, air conditioning systems, and fuel meters are all connected and providing valuable data for the systems operators.

Caterpillar’s IIoT systems can now look at GPS and weather information to help guide the ship operators in how much power to use when operating their vessels. Also, when Caterpillar looked at performance data and hull cleaning correlations, they learned that dirty hulls were costing more than $5 million per year in decreased performance. By changing the cleaning schedule from once every two years to once every six months, they were able to save $400,000 per year per ship.

POSCO Implements AI Into Its Smart Factories

POSCO’s Gwangyang Works is one of the top automotive coated steel plants in the world, providing 10% of global supply. During automotive steel production, one of the most critical steps is the coating weight process. When coating weight is controlled manually, quality deviates depending on the skill level of the worker, inevitably resulting in significant amounts of wasted zinc, so POSCO implemented IIoT technology to improve efficiency and product quality & consistency.  

POSCO workers monitor the optimal coating weight predicted through IIoT and AI. It is now possible to collect hundreds of different types of data and make adjustments in real time for complex coating weights

This highly-sophisticated technology helps keeps the thickness of the coating layer consistent – even when operating conditions change suddenly. They have installed a data integration infrastructure that uses an automated control technology that predicts the coating weight of zinc in automotive steel to precisely control the Continuous Galvanizing Line (CGL). In combination with the coating weight system, they have also created a data pre-analysis system that can preemptively detect abnormalities. The implementation of this technology has helped to increase the quality of POSCO’s automotive coated steel while also decreasing production costs.

Advancements in IoT technology are changing the way people live, but behind the scenes, at manufacturing facilities around the world, IIoT is having an even greater impact. Companies like Volkswagen, Caterpillar, and POSCO are leading the way to create more efficient and sustainable production methods using IIoT.

Read on to learn more about these three rising talents from Korea’s national teams.

Up-and-Coming Table Tennis Champ, Jihee Jeon

Since the Seoul Olympics in 1988, China has dominated table tennis with their successive gold medal wins. However, by challenging China, Korea has been able to grow legendary table tennis champions, including Namkyu Yoo, Junghwa Hyun and Seungmin Ryu.

From the emerging group of players, Jihee Jeon from the POSCO Energy Women’s Table Tennis Team is a standout. As a member of the Korea national team, Jeon displayed her prowess in the sport at this summer’s Olympic games.

Jeon, who was born in 1992, used to be a member of the Chinese national junior team but became a naturalized Korean citizen in 2011. She decided to come to Korea because of her desire to play internationally. She was an outstanding player in China as well, but would have had to compete against 30 million players for a spot on the national team.

After arriving to Korea, she has been leading POSCO Energy Women’s Table Tennis Team onto winning major international games. The games she has participated in include the Spanish Open, Czech Open, Argentina Open, Chile Open in 2015, and the Hungarian Open and German Open in 2016.

By placing first and second in all her games and building up an adequate number of points, she was able to qualify for the Olympics by ranking 11th in the world overall. POSCO Energy supported Jeon for her debut at this summer’s Olympics.

Seulchan Lee, Jeonnam’s “Chan-dragon”

Under the leadership of coach Taeyong Shin, the Korean national football team performed with remarkable results during their matches at the Olympics.

Do you remember the player who assisted Hyunjoon Seok’s goal during the pivotal game against Germany? After the 41st minute in the second half, Seulchan Lee served as the hero of this dramatic play by helping Seok score his goal.

Lee is a 22-year-old player who started his career with Jeonnam Dragons in 2012, which is based in his hometown, Gwangyang. He has a long history with Gwangyang, graduating from the town’s elementary, middle, and high schools – and now, ultimately playing for the Jeonnam Dragons in the K-League.

Although small in stature (he is 172cm and 65kg) with a round and friendly face, his ability should not be overlooked. Because of his strong defensive skills, he played as a fullback in the Olympics this summer.

With great determination and remarkable skill, there is no doubt that this will be the last we will see Lee play at a major international event.

A Skilled Striker, Changjin Moon

Known as “a royal prince of coach Taeyong Shin,” Changjin Moon has been acing the field during the Olympic football trials.

The 24-year-old from Pohang who usually plays for the Pohang Steelers as a main striker, is regarded for his offensive skills and precise goal-shooting. He graduated from Pohang Jecheol middle school and technical high school, and played for the Pohang Youth Club. To maintain his hometown spirit, he now plays for the Steelers.

He showed promise as an attacking midfielder during the Olympics this season, scoring goals in warm-up matches against Denmark and Sweden. We will be sure to keep an eye out for his remarkable football skills in future events.

We were only able to catch a glimpse of these three players’ exceptional skills during the games this summer, but with their natural ability, training and hard work, Jeon, Lee and Moon are not names to be ignored in upcoming seasons. Following high expectations, these stars will only become brighter in the time ahead.

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