Maintenance requirements for AIT?

Has there been any reports of the maintenance requirements and costs (either preventative, or repair/replace) of any of the AIT technologies?

These units have been implemented rather recently, so their up-time will be predictably high. Yet was wondering what their reliability was, at least in regards to costs (hey, we are paying for these, after all). Are they based on currently implemented technology (eg: hospitals, industrial, etc), easily maintained and/or repaired, are they modularized for servicing back at the plant, etc?

Are there any concerns that we're going to start seeing these out-of-service for use-based maintenance, field-calibration, repair, etc? Has the TSA indicated what they're going to do with the WTMD (leave them at the airport storage) in case there's a strategic need to over-populate the lanes, etc?

The WTMDs appears to be (technologically) simple (including field calibration by the TSOs), and the reports on the puffers speak for themselves. Thoughts on the operation impact of AIT reliability and predictability?

In one long thread there was a post from someone claiming to work for the company producing the AIT machines (an engineer, I believe). He said that TSA chose not to purchase the recommended maintenance package which the manufacturer can provide.

Eghads! Technology this new, and they're not buying into the maintenance contracts?!

From a cost-perspective, it would be interesting to see the operational requirements of AIT. Is there a minimum warm up time (two hours to warm up, and the TSA only arrives one hour before the first departure? ski), cool down time, how do you calibrate the unit (toss in two chicken breasts, one with skin, and one without?!), what's the response time of service personnel, is there an MTBF available, etc?

If they're going to use these things as heavily as they claim, either the technology is a lot simpler them I perceive to believe them to be, or their maintenance costs and/or down-times are going to be horrific.

I don't think you'll be seeing them out of service for that, unfortunately.

This is one reason I will not go into one of these medical devices. First, are they safe? Who knows. Secondly, are they properly maintained?

Again, no idea. We'll just have to trust "them," right? As they bypass security...

From March:

The decision to deploy 1,800 AITs represents investment of about $300 Mln over period 2010 � 2014 (procurement only, not including training, installation, and maintenance costs). Staffing these machines will cost another $220 Mln. Training, installation and maintenance cost will likely add another $150 Miln into equation, bringing total the bill for deployment of new screening machines to about $700 Million over six year period.

In the 2011 appropriations bill they state they renegotiated the warranty on the units from one year to two years, that may be why there is not a service contract on them, they are under warranty

SCREENING TECHNOLOGY MAINTENANCE AND UTILITIES

The Committee recommends $323,325,000 for screening technology maintenance and utilities, $8,800,000 below the amount requested in the budget and $6,700,000 above the fiscal year 2010 level. The recommendation does not include $8,800,000, as requested, for maintenance of new AIT units. This amount is no longer necessary in fiscal year 2011 due to TSA's re-negotiation of warranty contracts from 1 year to 2 years

I would expect then, as each machines comes off it's warranty the costs will explode to keep them working.

No, shortly before they are off warranty, there will be a new, one-off threat that they coincidentally would not have detected. Equally coincidentally, a Chertoff client will happen to have a new piece of technology that will allegedly be capable of detecting the new threat. For a price, of course. I suspect it will be body-cavity related.

Two years should give Chertoff's clients enough time to roll out the NoS everywhere - just in time to be discovered to be obsolete.

Thanks for the update, great numbers!

Any word on their predictability, up-time, MTBF, etc?

As we're hearing reports of WTMDs being removed, if the AIT devices start getting "finicky", do we presume that in the future, it'll be "wait in line for the AIT, or come over here for your immediate pat-down"?

At the rate AIT is being implemented, I figured it to be more like Q2/Q3 of '11.

I wish they would just route anyone who is opting out (voluntary or medically involuntary) to a separate line. TSA would be afraid that would encourage opt-outs; like everyone else, they seem to forget that there are involuntary medical opt-outs.

Agreed. I outlined such in another thread too:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-view-wbi.html

The cost of the scanners is $$$$, maintenance $. They will want to spend for new toys, and perhaps the manufacturers will claim some sort of "privacy-enhanced" scanner to give to lobby-inspired contractors.

Here is the famous photo of Obama with the CEO of (parent company of) Rapiscan.



No, no, no!!! You don't want this -- what they would do is make the opt-out scan line move really, really slowly. Or, if you get to the scanner and choose to opt out, they might force you to go to the END of the slow opt-out line. I feared they would do this on NOOD but they just turned them off instead.

Thus if you were running late for a critical business meeting you might HAVE to take the nudescope or miss a flight. Not cool. Delaying EVERYBODY for the ridiculous groping is the best strategy to encourage pushback, and hopefully change in policy.

Hate to break it to ya, but that is Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India. The CEO of OSI Systems (parent of Rapiscan) is Deepak Chopra, who is also Indian, but not quite the same. I am tempted to make a pointed comment as to the stupidity of the average american who posted this, but I realize that I'm of Indian origin and probably know more about it than the average american does.

THIS is Deepak Chopra:

Thanks, responded in other thread too.

As to stupidity, it is not too cool to say that, but your point is taken... Very easy to pick on us -- everybody in Bhutan knows who the president of the USA is, but not the reverse... it is partly a national self-absorption but also just based on relative influence around the world. I'm sure you follow cricket, but I wouldn't call you stupid if you didn't know our (american) football teams etc., etc.

From cross-referencing news articles from respectable sources, it appears that only the picture is misleading and Chopra did accompany Obama. Can you confirm?

Confirmed on the OSI's own website and Washington Post / numerous other news outlets.

Update:

It appears that only the picture is misleading / incongruous, which was reflective of his overall trip and not the CEO. Obama did indeed have ties and travelled with the chief of OSI (which has subsidiary Rapiscan).

http://investors.osi-systems.com/rel...leaseID=530184

Well, I know the president of Bhutan and every single football team in the country (and I assure you that the Panthers SUCK) and I would be more quick to pin the ignorance (better wording than stupidity) on the broken education system in the US (when my cousins in India told me that it was "cool" to be smart in India, I almost wish I was educated there instead of the US).

Yes, Chopra did accompany Obama and they gave a press conference together on it. However, there weren't any pictures that I could find online of them together, searching both in Hindi (language of India) and English, so I'd assume that the picture is showing that the press conference happened during a diplomatic summit in India. It really did need a caption though

Yeah, the American anti-intellectualism is ridiculous, but fortunately is uniquely American. India, Europe, and Asia rightly prizes intelligence.

In America, it's cool to be smart only to the extent it can make you MONEY.

Bhutan doesn't really have a president, but I assume you meant King, or else perhaps the prime minister? Very long story how I became quite familiar with politics there in travels.

Agreed, "willful ignorance" is probably the best term. ^