Joe Chiu Offers Insights to What It Means to Transform the Changi Experience

TRANSFORMING THE CHANGI EXPERIENCE: The Sky’s the Limit

JOE CHIU

Senior Member, SCS Vice-President, Digital & Data Management Systems, Changi Airport Group Earliest Tech Experience: The electronic table tennis simulation game Currently Watching: Key Opinion Leaders’ sharing on topics ranging from politics, climate change and economics to digital disruption Was Reading: Working with AI by Thomas H. Davenport & Steven M. Miller App You Can’t Live Without: Google Search and Google Maps Favourite Way to Relax: Light jogging while listening to music Pet Topic at the Moment: FIFA World Cup 2022

During the peak of the pandemic, operations at Singapore Changi Airport was severely affected. After the Singapore government eased most of its COVID restrictions in March 2022 and with the reopening of global borders, air travel accelerated. Joe Chiu, VicePresident of Digital & Data Management Systems from Changi Airport Group (CAG) shares with The IT Society how Singapore Changi Airport leverages technology to keep its operations adaptive and competitive in this volatile and uncertain world.

Q: Question, JC: Joe Chiu

Q: What are some significant tech changes and shifts at the airports in the last decade?

JC: In the early days, most IT solutions were developed and deployed using the monolithic architecture design, in which one vendor will be appointed to implement the end-to-end solution, ranging from user interface/user experience (UI/UX) to the web, application, database layers and hosting of the platform.

Since then, things have changed. Building IT solutions in silos is no longer optimal in terms of cost effectiveness, time-to-market, and user experience. To ensure alignment between business and operational needs as well as deliver a more stress-free, personalised and positively surprising experience to our passengers and customers, CAG has been advocating decoupled and enterprise architecture design to meet the dynamic demand.

While business and product users continue to develop applications and UI/UX that fulfil their specific use cases, the IT team focuses on developing and deploying common middleware and backend systems that can be scaled, secured, and configured to meet business needs across various clusters and departments. Such a design has proven to be not only more cost effective, but also more efficient.

Q: How has leveraging technology enabled CAG to scale up and down quickly while ensuring smooth operations during the pandemic?

JC: Since 12 years ago, CAG has started moving systems to the cloud to enable better scaling, higher performance and controlled access. Thus, when the pandemic hit, we were able to use common middleware – like microservices, identity management, content management, customer relationship – and backend platforms such as hosting servers, managed services, and data platform to respond to changing circumstances quickly. For example, to support the reopening of Terminals 2 and 4, we needed to reinstate and reactivate digital related channels, including web portal, mobile app, digital content, maps, and routing services within a short time. And we were able to accomplish that in a timely manner, thanks to the decoupled architecture design, with redundancy and scalable infrastructure that were in place.

Conversely, the pandemic has also shifted CAG’s digital transformation programmes to a higher gear. On one end, we had to support our staff so that they can work remotely; on the other, we had to keep up with the engagement of our passengers and customers through innovations and continuous improvements. To meet these business and operation needs, we established clear priorities and design considerations that are in line with our innovation practices such as customer over product, experiments over certainty, community over silos and agility over perfection. In addition, CAG came up with innovation framework and governance on how to move from envisioning a minimum viable product (MVP) to realising it, and eventually operating it in a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) manner.

Q: How did you manage to coordinate these with your team remotely during the pandemic?

JC: Like other organisations, we had some staff turnover during the pandemic. So, we found ourselves having to maintain service at the same high level with a leaner team. Adding to that, it was hard to hire people because there was a general shortage of tech people globally.

Fortunately, two things were in our favour. Our decoupled architecture of middleware and backend systems made scaling possible – even with our smaller team. Then, more importantly, CAG’s lead-by-example and hands-on approach of the leadership team meant that we are always ready to roll up our sleeves and go down to the ground to resolve customers’ pain points or work alongside our vendors to troubleshoot issues and enable service recovery.

Q: For customers and passengers, how does CAG’s digital transformation benefit them?

JC: If you were to look at our service DNA, positively impacting our customers and passengers’ experiences is one of our ultimate goals. Naturally, many of our digital initiatives are designed to facilitate their ease, convenience, and enjoyment when they travel through our airport or visit our shops, amenities, and attractions.

One such tech application deployed and well-known to our passengers and customers is the instant feedback system. With its many touch points across retail shops, counters, and toilets, we collect valuable feedback and redirect them in the form of alerts and reports to relevant parties for prompt corrective actions. Additionally, through analysing the collected data, we are able to identify areas for improvement and share them with our airport community. The net effect of this system over time is a cleaner and more welcoming environment for the passengers and customers.

In other instances, we support our business and product owners by performing advanced analysis on the operational and transaction data collected and generating timely and relevant dashboards and data to assist them with critical decision-making. We also provide a common set of digital content and data middleware that allows them to easily plan, develop and deploy their MVP using agile and DevSecOps approaches before embarking on full-scale development, implementation, and operation.

Q: What can we look forward to at CAG in the near future?

JC: Sustainability is increasingly becoming a big topic for governments, businesses, and people. Likewise, CAG is strategising, planning, and deploying new technology and applications with a view towards protecting and minimising adverse impact on the environment. Among which, we will explore how we can use technology such as artificial intelligence, datafication and predictive analytics to maximise resources and reduce waste and pollution.

That said, digital transformation is a journey. Particularly, to better serve our passengers and customers, we will continue to enhance our existing services as well as develop new ones to bring them greater accessibility and convenience.

“Our people are at the heart of CAG’s digital transformation. Bringing autonomous and cross-functional teams together to brainstorm solutions, implement minimum viable products, run experiments at speed and scale in an agile manner and measure success using predefined key performance indicators, are critically important in enabling CAG to develop and build capabilities and competencies in a sustainable manner.”

NOT AN AVERAGE JOE

Inspired by the notion of minimising contact at touchpoints in the airport (e.g. contactless check-in kiosks and passenger lifts) during the pandemic, Joe converted his home into a smart home, in which all home appliances could be enabled or disabled via mobile devices, digital watch as well as human voice.

Why did Joe do it?

“I am passionate about what, why and how IT can change lives. Oftentimes, we think technologies only apply at workplaces. Truth is, we can apply them equally at home to empower convenience, and in a personalised way. Working from home for over two years during the COVID period provided me with the opportunity to test out and apply tech ideas in real life.”

How did Joe do it?

“I read and watched many DIY videos. Then I studied sensor circuitry, and bought, wired and soldered electrical components. Using self-assembled Wi-Fi infrared sensors, I captured and digitalised remote controller analogue signals and played back with sensors. Now, I can turn on/off and change settings of analogue appliances like ceiling fans, TVs, lights, sound and air-conditioning systems using mobile applications or voice on smart home devices like Alexa and Google Home.”

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