L-3 to supply Kansai Airport with screening equipment
Eight VIS 108 and four eXaminer 3DX explosives detection systems on their way to Japan; VIS 108 a popular choice for airports; sales vindicate 2002 purchase of PerkinElmer’s Detection Systems division
Industry heavyweight L-3 announced last week that it had won a contract to provide luggage screening equipment to Japan’s Kansai International Airport, the second largest in the country. The New York City-based company will provide eight VIS 108 advanced technology systemss and four TSA-certified eXaminer 3DX explosives detection systems. The former, which screens 1,800 bags per hour, is already in use at Tokyo Haneda airport, the busiest in the world.
In recent years, L-3 has signed similar deals with Mexico, Poland, Austria, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore, to name just a few. In a 2002 report, R. Winn Hardin explained why L-3 had achieved such success: “A cost analysis against human inspectors and more-accurate but higher-priced and significantly slower three-dimensional computed-tomography inspection systems determined that the VIS-108 inspection system would pay for itself in reduced acquisition and maintenance costs within 1.5 years.” The VIS-108 screener was the flagship product of the Detection Systems division of PerkinElmer, purchased by L-3 in 2002 for $100 million. It looks like a good deal all around.
-read more in this press release; see company Web site
