Recently, I was at Newark airport, terminal C. From the terminal, only one airline operates United Airlines. This exclusive use of the terminal by only one airline has its own side effects:
- A large number of people at the terminal as United is one of the biggest airlines in the USA
- Issuing of the boarding pass and collecting luggage items for check-in is centralized as per the flying classes. A large number of counters (manned as well as self-service) are dedicated to each flying class – Economy, Business, etc., located in clusters.
- Security gates are also centralized as per the flying classes. There is a separate set of security gates for each flying class and as per airline loyalty point status.
Centralizing the services combined with very effective crowed management by erecting artificial barriers to force queuing has resulted in very efficient (faster processing of passengers) and productive (a small number of personnel managing a huge number of passengers) system. The whole system works like a well-oiled machine.
When I was passing through the system, I was admiring its efficiency and productivity but somewhere I was not feeling happy. I was getting a feeling that to achieve a high level of efficiency and productivity, a human touch is lost or even not considered while designing the system. Passengers were treated like people in a prison camp – to be controlled and pushed in a certain direction on a continuous basis. I felt like cattle that are managed by people on the horseback. Though the whole system was super-efficient, it left a bad taste. After this experience, I realized how cattle feel when we treat them like cattle.
When do we design a system which involves human beings do we consider only efficiency and productivity? Do we need to consider something more beyond efficiency and productivity numbers?
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