Engaging Maintenance Management Teams for Higher Performance with AgileAssets® Maintenance Manager™

August 22, 2023

With hundreds of employees and an advanced maintenance management system (MMS) in place, Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) already had two big advantages: talent and technology.

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Goals

With hundreds of employees and an advanced maintenance management system (MMS) in place, Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) already had two big advantages: talent and technology. But the agency saw a way to combine these strengths to achieve even higher performance for its maintenance o Goals perations. The key: empowering employees to use the technology to the fullest.

ODOT’s Maintenance Division envisioned a way to equip 600 users to get superior value from the AgileAssets® Maintenance Manager™ application (MMS) by developing a comprehensive user education and engagement program.

ODOT outlined several goals for the training program:

Provide ongoing education for all Maintenance Manager users, with specialized training for power users—those who regularly use the application’s most advanced features
Create multiple channels for user communication and support to promote technical proficiency and operational effectiveness
Develop user feedback mechanisms to periodically gauge user satisfaction and program impact
Achieve higher user performance overall, including better data integrity and support of executive-level reporting needs

Challenges

With a population of nearly 4 million, Oklahoma has 12,264 centerline miles of highways and more than 6,800 bridge structures. Traffic on major highways has increased significantly in the past two decades and is expected to continue rising in the next 10 years.*

Like many other agencies, ODOT has seen budget cuts despite its aging infrastructure. Therefore, using maintenance management funds to their greatest benefit is a key priority. With this focus on maximizing the impact of its maintenance management efforts, ODOT faced the challenge of shifting the culture of its maintenance operations team to more fully embrace technical innovation, continuous learning, and transparency.

The training program needed to facilitate this strategic transformation for the 600 ODOT employees that use AgileAssets Maintenance Manager (MMS) to manage highway and bridge assets. From ODOT headquarters in Oklahoma City to district offices statewide, the program needed to be a unifying force to keep these MMS users engaged, knowledgeable, and committed to getting the most value from their maintenance management technology.

*TRIP, Oklahoma Transportation by the Numbers, 2017; ODOT, Update on Oklahoma Bridges and Highways, 2015.

Solutions

To meet the agency’s goals and overcome key challenges, ODOT Maintenance Division created the MMS training program to help employees maximize the benefits of AgileAssets Maintenance Manager. The program includes:

Specialized, daylong, in-house training sessions led by ODOT power users to help all other ODOT users tap the vast capabilities of the AgileAssets system
Sustained budget for software, hosting, and on-site support services ODOT employee email groups for MMS-focused technical support and power user communications
ODOT employee email groups for MMS-focused technical support and power user communications
Weekly ODOT team meetings to prioritize and resolve MMS issue Periodic surveys to solicit feedback from power users and trainees on how to improve their use of the AgileAssets MMS and how to meet ODOT’s evolving maintenance management goals
Periodic surveys to solicit feedback from power users and trainees on how to improve their use of the AgileAssets MMS and how to meet ODOT’s evolving maintenance management goals
A dedicated, full-time AgileAssets on-site support staff member to provide day-to-day technical support, knowledge transfer, and system maintenance,
including specialized support to improve data integrity for executive-level reporting

Alex Calvillo Headshot

“We developed the MMS training program to make the best use of AgileAssets technology to maintain safe, cost-effective road networks. It’s working: We have improved our performance, team morale, and our standing in the industry.”

Alex Calvillo, PE Assistant State Maintenance Engineer, Oklahoma DOT

Benefits

The MMS training program has brought many operational and strategic benefits to ODOT’s Maintenance Division.

Operationally, the ongoing employee training and communications have increased user engagement, proficiency, and effectiveness in using AgileAssets
Maintenance Manager. With more adept end users benefiting from the expertise of the AgileAssets on-site support staff member, ODOT maintenance managers can now access more robust data that serves the need for executive-level reporting and decision-making.

From a strategic perspective, the Maintenance Division is now better able to meet long-term goals such as improved efficiency of on-site and field personnel, lower asset maintenance costs, higher asset performance, and improved safety and mobility.

In addition, ODOT has gained many cultural benefits such as improved employee job satisfaction and team morale. Having created a culture of continuous learning and expanded its employees’ knowledge base, ODOT is now able to advise peers in the transportation industry on MMS best practices.

By demonstrating innovation and thought leadership in advancing its team performance, ODOT has also gained wider recognition among industry leaders. Based on the impact of the MMS training program, more than 125 industry leaders voted ODOT as the winner of the 2018 AgileAssets Excellence in Infrastructure Asset Management (AXIAM) award.