PLATO Helps Athens Win Gold: Olympic Games … Modeling for Organizational Change and Resource...

Vol. 36, No. 1, January–February 2006, pp. 26–42issn 0092-2102 �eissn 1526-551X �06 �3601 �0026

informs ®

doi 10.1287/inte.1060.0189© 2006 INFORMS

PLATO Helps Athens Win Gold: Olympic GamesKnowledge Modeling for Organizational

Change and Resource ManagementD. A. Beis

Technology Division, Athens 2004 Olympic Organizing Committee (ATHOC), International Olympic Broadcasting Building,37 Kifisias Avenue, 15123, Marousi, Greece, [email protected]

P. LoucopoulosInformation Systems Group, School of Informatics, University of Manchester, Manchester M60 1QD, United Kingdom,

[email protected]

Y. PyrgiotisAthens 2004 Olympic Organizing Committee (ATHOC), Greece, [email protected]

K. G. ZografosTransportation Systems and Logistics Laboratory, Department of Management Science & Technology,

Athens University of Economics and Business, 47A Evelpidon Street, 11362 Athens, Greece, [email protected]

Planning, designing, and implementing systems to support venue operations at the Olympic Games is compli-cated. The organizing committees must create designs that result in reliable, high-quality venue operations atreasonable cost. The organizational backdrop is unique. The organizing committee has a limited lifetime, it hasno organizational memory, any learning disappears with its dissolution, and during its lifetime it must changerapidly from a function-oriented entity to a process-oriented one. The Athens 2004 Olympic Games OrganizingCommittee (ATHOC) used innovative techniques from management science, systems engineering, and informa-tion technology to change the planning, design, and operation of venues. We developed the Process LogisticsAdvanced Technical Optimization (PLATO) approach for the games. In the PLATO project, we developed asystematic process for planning and designing venue operations by using knowledge modeling and resource-management techniques and tools. We developed a rich library of models that is directly transferable to futureOlympic organizing committees and other sports-oriented events. The direct financial benefit to ATHOC wasthe reduction of the costs of managing venue operations by over $69.7 million. The success of the games raisedGreece’s international profile in terms of capabilities in managing large and complex projects which, in themedium to long term, will yield financial, political, and social benefits. Internationally, the PLATO legacy ofits Olympics knowledge base will enable future organizers of large-scale events to reuse and customize theknowledge to gain benefits and reduce the financial burdens on governments and society.

Key words : decision analysis: systems; simulation: application.

In the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, in 16 days, over2,000 athletes from 28 different sports took part in

300 events across 36 venues located in the greaterAthens area. They were watched by 3.6 million tick-eted spectators, 22,000 journalists and broadcasters,and 2,500 members of international committees. TheAthens games had an accumulated 34.4 billion globalviewing hours, 1 billion more than those in Sydney.The Athens Olympic Games was the biggest sportsevent to date.

With a budget of $2.5 billion for the AthensOlympic Games Organizing Committee (ATHOC)

and $5.5 billion for the Greek government, and aworkforce of over 130,000, including security person-nel, the committee’s task was to ensure the efficientand effective management of the games in all compe-tition venues (stadia, competition halls, courses, andso forth) and to coordinate them with noncompetitionvenues (the airport, the Olympic village, and otherfacilities) and the city’s infrastructure (such as trans-portation and city operations).

ATHOC had to plan, coordinate, and design sys-tems for the 36 venues that would be delivered by

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Beis et al.: PLATO Helps Athens Win GoldInterfaces 36(1), pp. 26–42, © 2006 INFORMS 27

external contractors, operated by volunteers and paidstaff, and managed by ATHOC personnel.

ATHOC needed a holistic solution to the problembecause of the interdependence of processes, actors,and venues. The PLATO project’s focus was not asingle localized problem requiring optimization butrather a wide spectrum of problems requiring thedevelopment of methods, techniques, and tools toachieve the following objectives:

(1) To facilitate effective organizational transforma-tion,

(2) To help decision makers plan and eventuallymanage resources in a cost-effective manner, and

(3) To document knowledge about Olympic Gamesvenue operations formally so that ATHOC and futureorganizers can reuse it effectively.

The PLATO project was launched in the summerof 2001 by ATHOC’s technology directorate with theendorsement of its board of executive directors. Overthe subsequent 2.5 years, the PLATO project focusedon competition venues and related issues, such asmanaging the accreditation of authorized personnel,transporting athletes, spectators, and other people,coordinating volunteers, and managing city opera-tions around venues. The project involved expertsin modeling, simulation, and information technol-ogy who worked together with stakeholders (personsfrom the 27 ATHOC functional areas).

In summary, the PLATO project—Developed business-process models for the vari-

ous venues,—Developed simulation models that enabled gen-

eration of what-if scenarios,—Developed software that assisted in the creation

and management of these models,—Developed process steps that guided ATHOC

personnel in using the business-process and simula-tion models, and

—Developed generic solutions to transfer knowl-edge about venue operations across ATHOC andpotentially to other users.

A dedicated team of model developers worked withmembers of most functional areas within ATHOC todevelop and validate all simulation models. ATHOCused models extensively to design venue operationsand to determine the resources they required. PLATOdelivered over 25 venue-specific models, six noncom-

petition venue models, and 18 generic models thatdescribe processes common to all venues for large-scale sports events.

Defining the ProblemWe use the term venue operations to mean the sys-tems, actors, and procedures in a venue (a compe-tition venue or a support venue) within spatial andtemporal constraints for different types of service todifferent types of customer groups.

The competition venues were the stadia in whichsport events took place, categorized as simple or com-plex. A complex venue consisted of two or moreindividual competition arenas. The noncompetitionvenues were the Olympic village, accreditation cen-ters, training grounds, the international broadcastingcenter, and the main press center.

Different functional areas of the organizing com-mittee managed the services in each venue for suchcustomer groups as spectators and athletes.

Venue operations are characterized by—An extraordinary volume of demand for services

to be provided in a very short period of time (within16 days),

—Demand that must be accommodated within spe-cific time windows (with no allowance for delays orpostponement of sessions),

—A large variety of types of service to supportmany customer groups with specific requirements.

—Demand for services that has a spatial distribu-tion (many venues for all customer groups), and

—Demand for services that has a temporal distri-bution (many sessions at different venues for all cus-tomer groups).

Designs for systems supporting venue operationsmust address functional requirements (the resourcesand procedures for their management) and nonfunc-tional requirements (the quality of the service pro-vided) (Figure 1). In a generalized abstract sense, wecan express the problem as follows:

Given the temporal and spatial distribution of demandgenerated by the needs of the various customergroups to participate in a variety of sessions (tem-poral dimension of demand) that take place at var-ious venues (spatial dimension of demand), providethe system infrastructure needed to achieve a desirablelevel of service at an acceptable cost.

Beis et al.: PLATO Helps Athens Win Gold28 Interfaces 36(1), pp. 26–42, © 2006 INFORMS

Games day 1..16

Venue 1 Venue 2 Venue 36

Session 1..n

Customergroup 1

Customergroup 2

Customergroup 14

Functionalarea 1

Functionalarea 2

Functionalarea 27

Demand

Resource

Figure 1: For each competition day, customers from 14 different groups imposed demands for service providedby one or more of the 27 functional areas.

The complexity of venue operations increased as thevariability of demand increased. For example, manystakeholders were involved in coordinating the pro-cesses concerned with spectator services; for largevenues, over 100 factors influenced the way a venuecould operate.

The 14 customer groups all had different require-ments and relied on different business processes.We tackled the problem by delineating interplaybetween participation, service type, and functionalareas (Figure 2).

To describe participation, we had to identify anddescribe all customer groups’ processes; for exam-ple, the processes for spectators included security-stop checking, ticketing, merchandising, and with-drawing money from cash machines. These processesfunctioned according to an agreed level of service;for example, a person queuing for security check-ing should not wait longer than three minutes. Thelevel of service achieved depended on allocating ade-quate resources to that process; for example, by allo-cating 20 mag-and-bag security gates to a venueentry. Finally, to manage the resources, we coordi-nated functional area processes; for example, by allo-cating volunteers and security personnel to securitygates.

The Traditional Approach and ItsShortcomingsPreviousolympiadsusedpeer-to-peer transferofknow-ledge in structured stakeholder workshops. ATHOCused this method in the early stages of developinga prototypical design for the Peace and FriendshipStadium (SEF). It intended to use the findings fromthat prototype as an exemplar for all other venues.The outcome of the effort, which lasted six months,was voluminous documentation expressed in text andtables and the consumption of substantial resources(2,600 person/days) for just one of the 36 venues.

The traditional approach relied heavily upon stake-holders’ workshops, brainstorming sessions, andfocus-group discussions, using text documents andarchitectural diagrams of the various venues. Theseworkshops facilitated the exchange of knowledgeamong the functional-area representatives, but thearchitectural and topographical designs, used as acommon reference model, imposed constraints onthinking about providing customer-oriented servicesand led to loss of generality and a focus on spe-cific operations taking place at individual venues. Theresulting voluminous documentation made it unlikelythat stakeholders would come to proper agreement,


Support view : System operation and management

Service view : System functionality and capacity

Strategic view : Customer-centric processes

Customer group

Competition session

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follows

1..nprovides

1..1

has

Noncompetition session

Session

Venue

1..1 is_at

Games day

1..1

1..n

scheduled_for

has

Figure 2: We delineated the relationship between customer group participation and service provision in thevarious functional areas.

associate resources with a required level of service,and coordinate implementation.

We evaluated the effectiveness of the traditionalapproach for ATHOC at the end of the prototypi-cal design phase. We concluded that ATHOC neededa more systematic and systemic approach. The per-ceived shortcomings were (1) a costly planning anddesign process, (2) lack of understanding of the poten-tial cross-functional influences, (3) lack of proper anal-ysis for quantifying resources and expected levels ofservice, and (4) lack of generality and transferabilityof knowledge and expertise within ATHOC and tofuture potential users.

The PLATO ApproachThe PLATO project consisted of three interrelatedmodeling activities: goal modeling, business-processmodeling, and scenario modeling.

We used goal modeling to develop an understand-ing of stakeholders’ goals for the intended systems,synergies between these goals, and contradictions andoverlaps. Goal modeling facilitated our identificationof key choices and objectives and potential costs andbenefits. In PLATO, we exploited techniques fromrequirements engineering on elicitation (Loucopoulos2004), representation (Kavakli and Loucopoulos 2005),negotiation (Easterbook 1994), and validation (Leiteand Freeman 1991) of stakeholders’ objectives. Weanalyzed these objectives to define the relationshipof these objectives to functional and nonfunctionalrequirements for the intended systems.

We used business-process modeling to represent ina consistent and unified way knowledge pertinent tothe application at hand. With business-process model-ing, we focused our analysis and design on the valuechain of customer groups and moved away from


Service facility

Customer process

1..n

1..n

…supported_by...during...

…supports…during…

Resource1..n

operated_using

allocated_to

Functional area

managed_by

Service channel Processing facility Flow facilityHolding facility1..n

uses

Session...has...supported_by...

Link

Figure 3: In PLATO, we considered processing, holding, and flow facilities. Each type of facility supports cus-tomer services offered by the relevant functional area(s).

thinking in terms of functions toward thinking aboutvenues and organizational transformation. We basedthe business-process modeling on system dynamics(Forrester 1961, 1993, 1994; Sterman 2000).

We used scenario modeling to encourage groupbrainstorming, helping participants to imagine alter-native solutions and envision how systems wouldbehave (van der Heijden 1996, Moriarty 1998,Carroll 2002). We used scenario modeling to test mod-els through simulation, which helped stakeholders togain confidence about their choices with respect tolevels of service and resource needs.

The complexity of venue operations (which includepeople’s arriving by various modes of transportation,walking from the venue perimeter to the entrancegates, forming queues in front of the security gates,passing through security screens, walking inside thevenue to take part in a wide spectrum of activities,such as, eating, shopping, and using an ATM, walk-ing to the venue gates, and arriving at their assignedseats) did not allow for analytical queuing-theorymodeling.

The simulation the PLATO team developed wasbased on a metamodel (Figure 3). Central to thesimulation-modeling process was the concept of ser-vice facility, which we defined as the physical loca-tion and the associated resources provided by various

functional areas, that is, technical, human, and infras-tructure. We considered three types of facilities: pro-cessing facilities, holding facilities, and flow facilities.In processing facilities, particular service processes,such as security or accreditation, took place. In hold-ing facilities, such as lounges or locker rooms, variouscustomer groups gathered. In flow facilities, customergroups moved between various venues’ holding andprocessing facilities.

PLATO in PracticePLATO experts developed 25 venue-specific models,six noncompetition venue models, and 18 genericmodels for use by members of ATHOC functionalareas and venue managers. Hundreds of stakehold-ers throughout ATHOC who were responsible forplanning, designing, and managing venue operationsdeveloped and used the models.

We developed the PLATO models in the follow-ing way:

(1) Expert knowledge modelers, working withstakeholders, developed an initial set of goal andbusiness-process models for a given problem appli-cation. PLATO experts created visual descriptions ofthese models using appropriate software tools, forexample, the map facilities of the iThink software sys-tem (Kreutzer 1990/1991).


(2) Representatives of all stakeholder sectionsreviewed and critiqued the models. PLATO employ-ees developed story lines for the business-processmodels to lead stakeholders gradually through thecomplex business processes.

(3) If necessary, we revised the models and con-ducted further workshops until all participatingstakeholders reached agreement about the businessprocesses and their overall goals for support opera-tions for these processes.

(4) Expert modelers developed computer-basedsimulation components for the business-process mod-els with interfaces to help stakeholders use them.

(5) An expert modeler facilitated stakeholders’workshops to use the simulation components to createscenarios. Using simulation techniques, the stakehold-ers could then test their assumptions and observe theireffects on their parts of the system. They could alsosee how their decisions would affect other functionalareas.

(6) We tested the PLATO models and the assump-tions we used, particularly regarding the simulationparameters, by collecting and analyzing data fromsports events (known as test events) that took place inAthens from 2002 to 2003. During the test events, we

Westentry

Irini entrySuperstoreand ATMs Neratziotisa entry ACP

East entry

PlazaNBC

Egress/Ingressmanagement

SpirouLouientry

ACPACP

Figure 4: The Athens Olympic stadium complex (OAKA) contained the main athletics stadium, an indoor stadium,the velodrome, the aquatics center, and the tennis center.

used integrated measures to gather data for arrivaland service patterns for a variety of processes. Weused the values obtained to update the assumptionsfor the PLATO model (ATHOC 2003).

(7) We finished the PLATO models and based onthem, made decisions about the resources each venuewould need.

The Athens Olympic Stadium ComplexSpectators could enter and exit the complex at fivepoints (see Figure 4). Once inside the complex, theycould enter an individual venue or wander in thecommon area to visit various services (ATMs, cateringoutlets, information booths, and shops).

The transportation division created profiles repre-senting the arrival and departure patterns (Figure 5)for the Athens Olympic stadium complex (OAKA)based on the daily competition schedules and theattendance patterns (number of spectators at varioustimes) for the same types of sports events at pre-vious Olympic Games. It derived the temporal andspatial distribution of demand based on the expectedallocation of demand to the various transport modes(metro, train, bus, walkways) serving OAKA, andtheir schedules.


For example, we based the arrival pattern profilefor August 20, 2004 (Figure 5) on the assumption that50 percent of the spectators would travel by metro,10 percent by railway, 15 percent by buses arriving atthe eastern terminal, 15 percent by buses arriving atthe western terminal, and 10 percent by foot.

The arrival pattern represents the distribution ofdemand over time at the unloading areas for the dif-ferent modes of public transportation and the demandfor pedestrians. We defined the arrival pattern as thevolume of passengers in 15-minute intervals, whichis a parameter in the model (users could change itto any other time interval). For the departure pat-tern, we assumed a similar distribution of volumeof spectators across the five modes of transportation,but the flow is the direct outcome of the modeledbehavior of spectators during the time they are insideOAKA.

The arrival patterns at the processing facilitiesbeyond the unloading areas were influenced by (1) the

Spe

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MinutesArrival pattern

MinutesDeparture pattern

1 2 3 4 5 1 1

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2 2 23 3 3

4

4

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55 5

Figure 5: We estimated the arrival (5a) and departure (5b) profiles at thefive transportation unloading and loading areas for the Athens Olympiccomplex based on the schedules and attendance patterns at previousOlympic Games.

arrival pattern of spectators at public transportationstations (Figure 5) and (2) the filtering that took placeat the service facilities based on service rates. We rep-resented pedestrian movements throughout OAKA bypedestrian-stream models using flow, speed, and den-sity equations (Transportation Research Board 2000).

Goal ModelingIn eliciting the goals for this complex venue operationssystem, we tried to understand what determined itssuccessful operation. To do this, we helped stakehold-ers to state their (sometimes implicit) goals and com-bined that knowledge with information from othersources, such as existing documentation and abstractdescriptions of various systems and procedures.

To deal with the complexities of eliciting goals, weprogressed in a stepwise, iterative manner, startingfrom high-level, sometimes fuzzy goals. We then elab-orated on these goals with the help of the functionalareas affected by them.

Using goal modeling, we coordinated differentstakeholders’ requirements, which could be compat-ible or often incompatible. For example, a high-levelgoal of Spectator Services was to move spectatorsout of the venues efficiently immediately after sport-ing events ended, whereas Merchandising wanted toattract spectators to merchandising outlets for sometime after sporting events ended. We quantified thetwo goals as follows: to vacate the common areawithin 45 minutes of the end of an event and toachieve sales of up to 15 percent with a mean waittime of less than 12 minutes.

Business Process ModelingWe operationalized goals by modeling the businessprocesses in detail (Figure 6).

As part of our systemic approach, we analyzed theimpact the processes had on all stakeholders. Thisholistic view resulted in a model involving 384 micro-processes with 110 user-definable parameters thatenabled all stakeholders to visualize alternative sce-narios. The evident complexity of this problem arisesnot so much from voluminous information but ratherfrom the intricate relationships between these micro-processes and the policies that control them. We madeall of these intricacies explicit in the PLATO model.


(a)

(b) Ratest dev

Specs per channelper minute

Facility servicerate

Going tofacilities

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Mean timeat facilities

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omm

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37,500

00.00 348.75 697.50

Minutes

1046.25 1395.00

15:27 04 Jul 2003

Figure 6: This fragment of the business-process model shows two processes in which spectators are involved,“arriving at transportation terminals” and “walking towards the entrance gates.” We represented processes as“pipes” along which spectators flow and their rate of progress by “valves,” which are driven by factors suchas the facility service rate. The lines leading outward from the valves represent information feedback by whichthe states of the stocks are used in policy implementation. For example, we used a pedestrian-flow model onthe geometrical characteristics of the flow facilities, that is, the path length and width, and the desired level ofservice in terms of the density and speed of the pedestrian stream. We used international standards definingpedestrian-movement level of service (Transportation Research Board 2000, DeNeufville and Odoni 2003).

Nothing was hidden or left to intuition. All the peopleresponsible for designing OAKA operations sharedthe model.

The demand is determined in part through the per-cent of spectators per service type, a variable thatexpresses the number of spectators expected at eachtype of service facility per unit of time as a percent-age of total spectator presence. Total spectator pres-

ence depends on overall spectator behavior in thevenue area, which interacts with this model fragmentthrough a number of feedback loops, which results ina profile of potential spectators in the common areawhere services are located (Figure 6).

The supply is determined by two parameters: thenumber of service channels available (for example,10 stands selling food) and the service rate expressed


as spectators per channel per minute service rate (forexample, two spectators served per service point perminute). According to this representation, spectatorsarrive at the service facility and are served follow-ing a normal distribution. We defined the values ofthe normal-distribution parameters based on previ-ous experience and subsequently validated them withdata collected during the test events.

Scenario ModelingGenerating different scenarios concerning each prob-lem studied and simulating the scenarios with thehelp of the process models developed helped stake-holders to reach consensus about the level of servicedesired and the resources needed. As we were devel-oping the models and the stakeholders were becom-ing aware of the different factors influencing each

Figure 7: This interface of a scenario for the services sector allows users to define the arrival pattern and servicerate for each service facility.

problem, the range of possible values for each of thesefactors became evident, giving us starting points fordifferent scenarios.

For example, in the components of the systemmodel that dealt with services (such as ATMs, mer-chandising, and catering), we had a plethora ofstakeholder-defined assumptions regarding the prop-erties of the distributions used to describe the demandand service patterns. In PLATO we developed a mul-titude of models corresponding to a great variety ofservice processes and covering a wide spectrum ofdemand and service patterns.

We developed a scenario-generation module foreach model with an interface that would encouragestakeholders to participate and allow them to describethe parameters of the probability distributions forarrival and service patterns (Figure 7). We defined the


properties of the probability distributions represent-ing the arrival and service patterns based on previousexperience (where available) and subsequently fine-tuned them with data obtained during the test events.

PLATO developed similar interfaces and controlpanels for arrival and departure patterns, for securitygates, and for each stadium inside OAKA. The con-trol interfaces enabled users to store scenarios, thusenabling future users to retrieve any scenario from thedatabase later and to reconsider it in the light of newexperiences.

The software automatically annotated each scenarioappropriately in the database to provide high-levelinformation, such as the date and time of creation,the purpose, and the users. This information enabledusers to retrieve a scenario at a future time to examinethe assumptions made and the behavior of the modelbased on these assumptions.

While stakeholders specified some values, PLATOautomatically supported other factors. During plan-ning, we considered it prudent to put merchandisingfacilities in four geographical areas of the stadium. Wethen had to identify the likely presence of spectatorsin each geographical area, some percentage of whom(according to each scenario) would visit a merchandis-ing outlet.

We handled this problem in PLATO by incorporat-ing a gravity-type model (Drezner 1996) stating thatthe relative attractiveness of each geographical area isproportional to the number of facilities in each com-mon area and inversely proportional to the distanceto this service facility. We embedded this policy in thestructure of the process model (Figure 8). We defined

Area attractivenessfor distance

Cumulativedistances to

all destinationsArea distancefor services

Attractiveness

Cumulativeservice points

Service points

Distance betweencommon areas

pct service pointsper area

Figure 8: In the venue’s common area, there are many different servicepoints that could potentially attract spectators. Part of the process modeldeals with the concept of attractiveness by incorporating a gravity-typemodel.

the attractiveness generically so that the logic wasapplicable not just to merchandising or to a single sec-tor of the common area but to all services and to allsectors.

In the model, we used the term service points to rep-resent the number of service points for each of theseven service types in each of the four sectors of thecommon areas. We defined these points parametri-cally so that users could experiment with 28 differentcombinations of service and common area. In addi-tion, we included in the model the number of specta-tors in the different parts of the common area giventhat at any time they could enter the complex, exit thecomplex, or enter and exit stadia.

This information also formed part of the model andin all models requiring this kind of analysis PLATOautomatically calculated this information accordingto flow-conservation relations (Ahuja et al. 1993)(Figure 9).

We provided further user-defined values within thecontrol interface for specific services (Figure 10). Usersreceive feedback about all merchandising outlets forall the areas for a given scenario.

Specsavailable

Specsavailable

Specs availablefor services

Specs leavingcommon area

for venues

Total specsavailable

Total specsavailable

Specs leavingcommon area

for exits

Figure 9: The process model incorporated logic that dealt with the flow ofspectators in the common domain. We did this by incorporating a flow-conservation relations model.


Figure 10: This user interface shows the results of experimenting with positioning outlets and service channelsin the north, central, and east sections of the common area. The graph shows the results of the simulation runand particularly the load on the outlets on the north side together with the maximum and mean waiting times forthe other sectors. The system allows users to switch between this page and other pages, hidden in this example.The three hidden pages show the results of the experiment for merchandising at the west, central, and eastareas.

The simulation system we developed also offershigh-level views to enable management to observe thebehavior of an entire venue throughout a game day,according to different conditions (Figure 11).

According to the scenario shown in Figure 11, spec-tators arrive at the Olympic complex during the twohours preceding each competition session and leavethe complex during the two hours following the ses-sion. The profile for spectator accumulation in thecommon domain provided useful information aboutthe density of spectators throughout the day andsupported decisions regarding crowd managementand the layout of spectator service facilities. Deci-sion makers used the provided information to designthe OAKA operations to provide smooth operations

on that day. During that day (the peak day of theOlympics), no one reported operational problems.

Generalizing the PLATO ModelsOne of ATHOC’s three major objectives was to impartknowledge about venue operations to the differentstakeholders of ATHOC divisions and to future orga-nizers. Indeed, transferring knowledge from one hostcity to another is a contractual obligation. In thePLATO project, we sought to meet this requirementby developing a library of reusable knowledge com-ponents. We developed 18 generic solutions to recur-ring themes. This library of generic solutions is avail-able for use by future host cities with the guidance ofPLATO experts. In the future, we plan to expand this


Figure 11: The profile of spectators’ behavior for the entire day of August 4, 2004 at four key points of the complex:arrival, presence in the common area, presence inside venues and departure.

library of models to incorporate new information onvenue-operations design.

The idea of generic reusable components, usuallyreferred to as patterns, is a very powerful paradigm,and it has been successfully deployed in architec-ture (Alexander et al. 1977, Alexander 1979), in pro-gramming (Vlissides et al. 1996), in program design(Coplien and Schmidt 1995), in software architecture(Buschmann et al. 1996), in data modeling (Hay 1996),and in business-systems analysis (Fowler 1997, Serucaand Loucopoulos 2003).

The PLATO BenefitsOur development and use of PLATO produced manytangible and intangible benefits with far-reachingimplications, scope, and beneficiaries (Table 1).

PLATO produced important benefits for ATHOC, forthe nation, and for the world. The short-term benefitsfall into two categories:

(1) benefits realized during the planning phase ofthe games, and

(2) benefits realized during the games.The short-term benefits are associated mostly with

ATHOC’s management objectives. They include tan-gible benefits, such as resource savings, improveduse of resources, and improved levels of service, andintangible benefits, such as human-resource devel-opment, efficient knowledge management, and theestablishment of improved operational policies.

The long-term benefits of PLATO accrued mostlyat the national and international levels. They includetangible economic benefits arising from improve-


Benefits During planning During games Long term

ATHOC benefits —Savings from reducing planning and —Savings from reducing number of Not applicabledesign effort volunteers

—Savings from reducing construction work —Savings from streamlining—Savings from optimizing the use of crowd-support facilities

infrastructure resources—Savings from optimizing technological

resources—Improved knowledge management for

planning venue operations—Shift of the organizational culture towards

quantitative and fact-based management

National benefits Not applicable —Positive reporting in international media —Increase in foreign investmentson management of the games —Increase in tourism

—Worldwide focus on Athens and Greece —Increase in the competitiveness ofGreece to undertake the organizationof large-scale events

—Human resource development in thearea of management

International —Reduction of planning cost for other —Improved estimation of resources needed —Contribution to the long-termbenefits Olympic Games organizing committees for future Olympic Games sustainability of the character of the

—Improved knowledge management for gamesother Olympic Games organizing committees —Establishment of academic programs

for sport and large-scale-eventmanagement

Table 1: PLATO provided benefits during the games and, mostly at the national and international levels,long-term benefits.

ments to the business image of the country organiz-ing the games and intangible benefits related to thereinforcement of the games character, sustainability,and affordability by small and large countries alike.

A methodological difficulty associated with esti-mating PLATO’s benefits stems from the characteris-tics of the event itself and the characteristics of theorganizations that undertake their organization. Dif-ferences among the national and city settings for theOlympic Games prevent comparison of the resourcesrequired for providing a specific level of service forparticipants. Thus, we cannot realistically comparethe costs of the games in Athens to the costs inother Olympic cities to assess PLATO’s contributionto reducing the cost of the games.

A category of benefits for which we can quantifybefore-and-after costs concerns planning the gameswithout and with PLATO support. In other instances,estimating PLATO’s quantifiable benefits depends onreassessing the resources required to organize thegames using PLATO.

ATHOC Benefits—OrganizationalTransformation and EnterpriseIntegrationThe estimated direct financial benefits to ATHOCamounted to $69.7 million. These benefits can be sub-divided into (1) savings due to efficiencies in theplanning and design processes and (2) savings dueto improvements in the decision-making process formanaging resources.

Benefits Due to Improvements in Planningand DesignThe savings in effort during the planning stages areequivalent to $14.7 million. ATHOC started planningand designing venue operations using the traditionalapproach and under the guidance of stakeholders andconsultants from previous olympiads who acted asfacilitators in workshops. PLATO gave participantsfrom the 27 divisions of ATHOC a generic and consis-tent method that encouraged them to make their men-tal models explicit and helped them to evaluate their


assumptions, to observe the effects of their decisionson the overall system performance, and eventually toreach agreements based on rational decisions.

We calculated the effort in using PLATO at 645person-months and the saving in effort at 1,333person-months. We calculated the savings in effort asworth $14.7 million in salary, calculated at US$11,000per person-month (including contributions and over-head). We based our estimates of savings on the com-parison of the costs of the traditional method and thePLATO approach. We compared the costs by extrapo-lating to all venues the cost savings calculated for themodel venue.

In addition, the PLATO project produced a less tan-gible major benefit in changing organizational culture.Future committees are likely to continue ATHOC’sadoption of a systematic and quantifiable approachto venue operations. Although ATHOC’s lifetime wasshort, its innovative management approach shouldbenefit Olympic organizers for a long time.

Benefits Due to Improvements in theEstimation ProcessATHOC’s upper management estimated the total ben-efits from using PLATO to estimate and allocateresources as roughly $55 million. These savings accruefrom (1) reducing the number of volunteers, (2) effi-cient planning for crowd-support facilities, (3) opti-mizing the use of technological resources, (4) avoidingconstruction work, and (5) avoiding purchasing landadjacent to venues.

PLATO contributed substantially to rationaliz-ing resources by providing well-grounded estimatesof the infrastructure, technological, and humanresources needed, and also, for the first time, anexplicit and formal way of exploring trade-offsbetween resources and the resulting levels of service.

ATHOC used the PLATO simulation modulethroughout the planning phase of the games to sup-port it in estimating and allocating resources. Thetypes of decisions PLATO supported included thefollowing:

—Screening capital-intensive facility-constructionprojects by checking the adequacy of existing facilities(for example, evaluating the adequacy of an existingpedestrian underpass and examining a proposal forbuilding a new pedestrian bridge).

—Checking the operational performance of alterna-tive layouts for different functions that affect venuespace requirements (for example, for catering facilitiesand service channels).

—Estimating and allocating human resources forvarious processes at various venues and estimatingthe technological resources needed for various pro-cesses (for example, the copy machines and personnelneeded to produce and distribute games results).

These analyses helped us to save money in threeareas. By optimizing the arrival, departure, andentry areas in venues and thus avoid additionalconstruction work, we saved. This optimization alsoyielded further savings of $6 million due to theavoidance of land purchases around venues. Withinvenues, savings of $5.8 million were accrued dueto the optimized use of technological resources (forexample, security systems, results-printing systems,and press-operations support equipment).

We also made substantial savings by planning forefficient use of volunteers, reducing the number ofvolunteers by 19,000 from the 2000 Sydney OlympicGames. This is a weighted difference between thenumber at the Sydney Games (65,000 volunteers) andthe number at the Athens Games (43,000) takinginto consideration the difference in ticketed spectators(5 million in Sydney versus 3.5 million in Athens),and the topology of the venues (greater concentrationof venues in Sydney than in Athens). This reductionsaved $27.2 million, based on a cost for each volun-teer of $1,450 for expenses on uniforms, travel, sub-sistence, and use of accommodations.

National-Level BenefitsFrom an economic point of view, the major motiva-tion for a country to undertake the organization ofthe Olympic Games is to increase its visibility in theinternational business arena and to become an attrac-tive destination for tourists and business investments.Host cities expect that the accumulation of these longterm economic benefits will offset the costs of thegames.

Before and during the Olympic Games, the hostcountry is always under the continuous scrutinyof the international community and receives enor-mous coverage from the international mass media.Business Week reported on September 13, 2004 that


the viewership of the Athens 2004 Olympic Gamesexceeded the corresponding viewership of the Sydney2000 Olympic Games by more than 10%, attract-ing more than four billion viewers, while theNBCOlympics.com Web site registered 12.2 millionvisitors, which represents an increase of 230% overInternet traffic for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Besides the viewers and the international massmedia, other important groups that influence interna-tional opinion were the participating athletes, spec-tators, officials, and visitors to Athens during thegames. The image of the country projected by allthese groups and the opinion formed by televisionviewers are major factors for achieving the country’sstrategic economic objective in organizing the games.An undisputable factor influencing the perception ofinternational mass media is the organizational suc-cess of the games, to which PLATO made a majorcontribution.

The universally accepted organizational success ofthe Athens Olympic Games was eloquently describedby the president of the International Olympic Com-mittee, Jacques Rogge, in his closing ceremonyspeech “� � �Athens organized unforgettable games,dream games.” The consensus of the participantsand observers worldwide was that the Athens 2004Olympic Games were an unqualified success in everyaspect of planning, organization, and operation. As aresult, we expect further long-term economic benefitsfor the country. Experience from previous successfullyorganized Olympic Games suggests that Greece willvery likely enjoy an increase in inward investment aswell as in tourism (Figure 12).

The Athens experience is likely to be similar to thatof Barcelona (both Greece and Spain consider tourisman important driving force of their economies). Spainexperienced a 40-percent increase in tourism in thetwo years following the Barcelona Olympics. If thetrend observed for the previous four Olympic Gamesis repeated for Greece, the comparative inward invest-ment and increase in tourism are likely to yield sub-stantial economic benefits. Another potential nationalbenefit stemming from Greece’s successful organi-zation of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games is itsincreased competitiveness to undertake the organiza-tion of other large-scale sports, cultural, and tradeevents.

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Figure 12: The impact of the Olympics on four previous host countries interms of general economic impact and impact on tourism (LaSalle 2001)has been profound.

International-Level BenefitsWhile our primary motivation for developing thePLATO system was to address crucial managementissues in planning and organizing the Athens 2004Olympic Games, PLATO’s capabilities and benefitsare not limited to ATHOC and Greece. The PLATO setof models represents a formal encoding of OlympicGames knowledge, and it is transferable and reusablewith minor adjustments to the organization of anyfuture Olympic Games and other large-scale venue-based sports, cultural, and trade events (for example,the World Cup, European soccer games, and worldtrade fairs).

Although these events are organized with a givenperiodicity (four years for the Olympic Games),their planning is a perpetual process because hostcities are decided a few years in advance (almostseven years in advance for the Olympic Games)and the process is repeated continuously. Therefore,the need for decision-support tools like PLATO forplanning and organizing these events is continuous.An early example of this potential transfer of the


PLATO results can be found in the European best-practice project ECOSPLAN (http://www.ecosplan.org) (Zografos 2004) funded by the EuropeanCommission under the EU-China Digital Olympicsinitiative.

Another potential international benefit of PLATOis its contribution to the long-term sustainability ofthe character of the Olympic Games. It is evident thatas the complexity, the service-level requirements, andthe associated costs for organizing these events growenormously, smaller countries may not feel capableof organizing these types of events. One of the majorobjectives of such events, however, is to bring theinternational community together and to develop aspirit of cooperation among all countries and people.Thus, the lack of interest and motivation in smallercountries to seek the organization of these types ofevents may prove detrimental to the long-term futureof these events. The successful planning and organi-zation of the Olympic Games with the use of soundmanagement science principles by a small countrylike Greece should encourage other small countries toactively seek to stage such events.

ConclusionsStaging Olympic Games gives the host city the oppor-tunity to take advantage of the unprecedented level ofcoverage and exposure that it receives before, during,and after the games. The Olympic Games are one ofthe very few endeavors that have both a financial anda social impact. If the international community per-ceives that the games have been successful, the poten-tial financial and social benefits to the host countrycan be enormous.

Six months after the Athens Olympics, reports ofits success still appear. In an article titled “Gameswere a Grecian earner for Athens,” Gideon Brooksof the London Daily Express wrote on February 16,2005, “At about 15 degrees, the temperature in Athensyesterday plummeted from the blistering heat of thesummer, but the Olympic Games have left a warmglow among the people of the capital � � � � Tourismwas boosted to the tune of a 15% rise in hotel book-ings for the year and is expected to increase in linewith other Games for the next five years on the backof the small matter of 4 billion pairs of eyes who saw

what Greece had to offer. There is no doubt that thebest thing it (the Games) gave the people of Athenswas a sense of pride.”

The degree of success of the Athens games has tobe set against a backdrop of skeptical reporting priorto the games. This skepticism, however, soon turnedto enthusiasm once the games got under way. Oneof the most significant factors in the change in per-ception was arguably the effective management ofvenue operations; the smooth, effective, secure, andfriendly manner in which all customer groups wereprovided with high-level service. The PLATO projectprovided the framework, techniques, and tools formanaging that important part of the planning process.The impact of the PLATO project was visible rightacross many venues and multiple processes, resultingin economies of scale, effective organizational trans-formation, and cost-effective resource management.The PLATO project benefited not only ATHOC butalso the participants in the games and the visitors toAthens.

The PLATO project has proved that the combineduse of sound management science principles andinformation systems technology can provide substan-tial benefits in planning and organizing such complexevents as the Olympic Games.

AcknowledgmentsWe are grateful for the contributions of many colleagueswho were instrumental in the success of PLATO: thePLATO team of Gregory Vgontzas, Nikos Prekas, EkateriniKarasideri, Efi Karkoni, and Cleopatra Kiparissidi, whoworked exclusively on the project for over 2.5 years devel-oping models and facilitating stakeholders’ workshops; themanagers of all divisions for facilitating the active partici-pation of their personnel in the PLATO project; the manyexperts from the different divisions for their participation inbuilding and testing the PLATO models; and the vendorsof the iThink software, isee systems (www.iseesystems.com)for their valuable support throughout the project.

We express our gratitude to the Edelman competitioncoaches Russ Labe and Manos Hatzakis for their insights,advice, and constructive comments during the drafting ofthis paper. We also thank Amedeo Odoni of the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology for his valuable com-ments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Jacques Rogge, president of the InternationalOlympic Committee, writes: “The successful outcomeof the Athens Games owed a lot to the managementphilosophy and approach adopted by ATHOC.

“The planning, design and operation of venues ben-efited enormously by using Management Science, andInformation Technology in innovative ways such asthe PLATO project.”

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, president ofATHOC, writes: “The unqualified success of theAthens Olympic Games was the outcome of theefforts of many individuals who worked relentlesslyfor many years adhering to the highest professionalstandards.

“ATHOC management realized early in the pro-cess that the successful planning of the 2004 OlympicGames required the use of systematic and scientificmanagement principles and that advanced manage-ment tools should be made available to all ATHOCdecision makers.

“The PLATO project can be singled out as one ofthe tools that contributed substantially to the success-ful planning and organization of the Athens Games.PLATO led to plans and implementation proceduresthat made cost/effective use of the available resources.

“PLATO also provided a framework that helpedATHOC to transform from a function-oriented orga-nization to a venue-focused organization resultingin systems that exhibited high reliability during theGames.

“Through PLATO, ATHOC leaves a legacy ofknowledge that can be usefully deployed by futureorganizing committees. It is living evidence ofthe powerful use of management science methodsand techniques for solving complex managementproblems with far reaching economic and socialimplications.”

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