OKI and 3M Rochford Thompson win CUSS kiosk contract at Narita Airport

9 October 2007

Japan’s leading kiosk terminal vendor OKI has won a contract to provide Japan’s Narita International Airport and Chubu Centrair International Airport with Common Use Self Service (CUSS) kiosks – built around unique scanning technology provided by UK-based 3M 3M Rochford Thompson.

Working in partnership with 3M Rochford Thompson and ARINC, the world leader in transportation communications and systems engineering, OKI has installed more than 200 CUSS kiosks in Japan, to read customer documentation accurately and issue boarding cards. The systems reduce queues, are significantly less labour intensive, improve passenger throughput and delays, and provide accurate levels of security.

“Combining Rochford Thompson’s technology and OKI’s kiosk terminal known for its user-friendliness and fast processing speed, the customer feedback from the airlines using this equipment has been superb,” said OKI Electric Industry Sr. Manager of Enterprise Solutions Division, Hajime Maruo.  

“From a technical standpoint, 3M Rochford Thompson scanners work seamlessly with ARINC’s CUSS application to ensure that passenger data is processed quickly and accurately at all times. This is especially critical when a kiosk serves multiple airlines,” said Randy Pizzi, ARINC’s Vice President and Managing Director (Asia/Pacific).

With the airline industry facing issues relating to increased footfall and congestion, the next generation of 3M Rochford Thompson scanning technology, used in CUSS kiosks, may prove to be an effective part of the solution.

The RTE8000 scanner at the heart of the system is compact, so the kiosk design takes up relatively little floor-space. With Active Video technology, even if customers fail to correctly orientate their documents in the scanning window, an accurate ‘read’ will still take place.