Overview
Working within a smaller budget is a familiar scenario across most State DOTS.
In lieu of a budget increase, UDOT realized they had to work smarter with the resources they had. They started looking internally at their data collection projects, in particular the pavements division. They decided to assemble all their vendors to solicit ideas on how they could improve efficiencies. The goal was to have all business systems working together seamlessly.
Vendors were split into subgroups (asset management, safety management, hub and roadway design) with each subgroup assigned tasks. Deighton along with Operations, Mandli and 3M were part of the asset management subgroup. This subgroup was responsible for eliminating data collection input issues, ensuring asset management tools worked together and providing a means to push this data out for central consumption in a dashboard.
Challenges
The biggest challenge facing UDOT would be the need to overcome siloed information. When people are confined to siloes, its hard to get them on the same page with processes, tools and other people. This would require on-going training.
“Silos create inconsistency (multiple versions of the truth) and redundancy (duplicated efforts), resulting in additional costs and barriers to growth and innovation.”
Gartner
There were a number of challenges facing the Asset Management subgroup:
• Network Definition - As data was collected at UDOT the LRS changed. This is not uncommon but a solution was needed to back date the dTIMS database so data collected could be entered on the old network and then brought up to the current date.
• Updating PMS- Regional UDOT staff had no mechanism to submit pavement management work for analysis to headquarters.
• Data Integration - UDOT needed a solution to integrate all their data. Tools like spreadsheets, word documents, email, task management tools, PPM software and on-site software, to name a few.
“The average executive loses 6 weeks per year searching for missing information (almost 1 hour per day, per person).”
PM Hut
Solutions
• Temporal Tool - Deighton developed a Temporal Tool that allowed UDOT staff to essentialy ‘time stamp’ their dTIMS database. This will enable them to revert to an old version of dTIMS, enter data, then move the database to current date. This will eliminate the need to manipulate data that is collected.
• Pavement Section Editor - Deighton developed a web based Pavement Section Editor which will allow regional UDOT staff to supply headquarters with real time maintenance management updates.
• Oracle Insight & Training - Oracle performed an Insight into data integration possibilities at UDOT and provided recommendations. Training was supplied for UDOT staff and vendors.
• Data Mart Views - Deighton developed custom Views. Views represent a subset of dTIMS data. Views are consumed by the Oracle Data Integrater (ODI) and data is exposed to the dashboard.
• ODI Connection to dTIMS Data - dTIMS was the first application to have data pushed to the ODI tool and the UTIBS Dashboard.
Figure 1: Screenshot from UGate showing UPlan STIP Map. In this example a segment of one state route is shown.