Project AZW - One year later

It’s hard to believe it’s already half way into the second year since the AZW automated parking system started in service.

When all of the urgencies, challenges and celebrations for major projects are over, we tend to focus completely on the immediate urgencies and challenges.

However, looking back and taking the measure of a project is the way we progress and improve. We do so here for the AZW project.

Background

The AZW installation is a Skyline T-Park (tower-style) automated parking system with 128 parking spaces. The customer is a car dealership who uses the T-Park to hold additional inventory on his property. Besides parking spaces, the installation also contains additional office spaces and an automatic car wash. The car washing system automatically queues cars for washing taking them from their parking spaces washing and returning them to their spaces. The car wash is also accessible externally.

The system was successfully handed over to the client in June 2013 in record time – taking only 10 months from final design to handing over the working system. A first inspection was carried-out in November 2013 and a full service program was conducted in June 2014.

How Did We Do?

How did we do? According to Skyline CEO, Richard Denzler, “Overall, after resolving the usual fine tuning tasks, the AZW installation has been everything we expected...easily meeting all of our goals for industry-leading performance and reliability”. The reality is that the AZW installation is setting high standards in the world of automated parking systems.

Performance – Fast...Faster...Fastest

A primary measurement of performance for automated parking systems is “cycle time”. That is the time it takes for the transport system to pick up an incoming car and move it to a parking space. Cycle time also applies to car retrieval: the time it takes for the transport system to pick up a parked car, move it to the driver at the exit bay.

The average cycle time for the AZW system is sensational at less than 60 seconds... up to 3 times faster than the industry-recommended cycle time of between 2 to 3 minutes. This verified level of performance proves the AZW
Skyline automated parking system ranks as one of the fastest in the world.

Availability – High and Higher

All parking system must have high availability. The goal at Skyline is that our APS always be ready when a customer needs to park or retrieve a car. This means that we must exceed recommended industry standards for availability and reliability performance levels for automated parking systems...however, that’s our goal.

Many factors can influence availability including durability, simplicity, and ease of maintenance, robustness, and redundancy. Skyline takes all of these into consideration in its designs. Minimizing the number of critical parts reduces the number of things that can break, malfunction, require maintenance or wear out. Skyline’s vehicle conveyor system, for example, is a perfect example of simplicity and robustness.

This philosophy has enabled the AZW installation to achieve 99% availability to date – again, probably one of the highest levels of reliability and availability for an automated parking system in the world today.

Proof in Numbers

An average cycle time less than one minute and 99% availability are fantastic numbers for an automated parking system. But we have other measures of our success as Richard Denzler confirms: “AZW often attracts multiple visitors each week... international and local customers, designers, property developers and interested parties. Universally, visitors to AZW are openly impressed by the robustness, simplicity and speed of the system.”

The AZW Skyline automated parking system has been a great success. The industry-leading AZW installation raises the bar for Skyline APS; requiring ever better benchmarks for the parking industry.

About Skyline Parking AG

Skyline Parking AG designs and supplies the most space-efficient and fastest fully automated parking systems. Skyline’s systems provide high returns while being an environmentally and user-friendly answer to the growing scarcity and cost of urban space, worldwide. The broad range of products, means that Skyline Parking has a solution for virtually any location, problem and requirement.