Customer-Oriented Maintenance Decision Support System: Developing a Prototype

Performance of highway maintenance units has been traditionally measured by output or production rates. Today, more and more highway agencies are incorporating customer-oriented performance measures to evaluate their maintenance management processes. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has been adapting and applying private-sector business practices to the management of its maintenance functions. The department initiated a maintenance business planning (MBP) project several years ago to focus on rethinking highway maintenance from the customer’s perspective. A prototype decision support system (DSS) was developed that builds on the MBP by modeling performance measurement parameters and implementing analytical processes that can support MnDOT’s maintenance managers in responding to customer needs. The DSS uses input, output, outcome, environment, and customer data from existing databases to measure efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance activities, as defined by the customer. The pilot system focuses on two of seven groups of maintenance products and services—clear roads and attractive roadsides. The prototype DSS displays data in formats useful for evaluating maintenance work processes, benchmarking work units’ performance, evaluating efficiency and effectiveness in meeting customer needs, and deploying resources. Models that calculate the value added to customers in terms of road-user costs (i.e., travel time and accident costs) and customer willingness to pay for attractive roadside products were developed and incorporated in the DSS. If fully implemented, the DSS can be a powerful tool for maintenance decision making that can be applied to other state maintenance agencies.