The Client

The Mississippi DOT (MDOT) is responsible for providing a safe intermodal transportation network that is planned, designed, constructed and maintained in an effective, cost efficient, and environmentally sensitive manner. In particular, MDOT’s Maintenance Division administers the varied programs necessary for the preservation, maintenance and safety of approximately 10,000 miles of state and federal highways.

The Challenge

In the mid-2000s, MDOT managed its maintenance and operations (M&O) needs with a legacy management system based on pass-fail ratings. MDOT wanted a more performance-based maintenance management approach that would allow it to spend time and money on the right things at the right time for the right reasons.

The Solution

Dye Management Group helped the Mississippi DOT review its maintenance business practices and processes, and prepare a plan for implementing a level-of-service (LOS)-based condition rating system and an associated condition-based activity budgeting process. The plan, along with other recommended improvements, defined the DOT’s future, or to-be, maintenance management business processes. Our team updated MDOT’s Maintenance Field Operations Manual to reflect the new, department-approved, performance-based business practices and processes. In addition, we prepared requirements and an implementation strategy for a new maintenance management system (MMS) that would enable and support the to-be maintenance business processes.

Through follow-on work, we assisted in the implementation of a newly developed maintenance quality assurance (MQA) program, performed customer surveys, and led focus groups. Our team also assisted with the procurement and implementation of a new MMS – called Accountability in MDOT Maintenance Operations (AMMO) – based on newly developed requirements, and provided project management support and organizational change management.

Most recently, DMG assisted the Mississippi DOT with a post-implementation review of the AMMO application. We conducted a series of group interviews, workshops, and surveys with AMMO users to assess the application’s success in the following areas: improvements to daily operations, support of maintenance and business processes, and improvements to reporting. We compiled the feedback and provided MDOT with a report and a plan for implementing the highest-priority recommendations. In addition, DMG provided the Mississippi DOT with change management support during the implementation of recommendations, and reviewed and updated the 2006 MMS Cost-Benefit Analysis.

The Results

MDOT's AMMO program and associated business processes has provided the agency with the following:

• State-of-the-art highway asset condition assessment process, based on a statistically significant sampling methodology, that allows monitoring of trends in asset conditions
• Level-of-Service (LOS) rating system that shows average asset conditions, by district and road class, with both technical measures and non-technical letter grades
• Performance-based budgeting process that calculates the cost of advancing from the current asset LOS ratings to desired LOS targets
• Rational basis for supporting budget requests, showing the relationships between LOS and costs, as well as the impacts of receiving less-than-requested budget amounts
• Rational bases for allocating resources to districts based on asset conditions
• Means for clearly communicating asset conditions and budget needs to decision makers and the public.

More information about MDOT’s AMMO implementation can be found in Michael J. Markow’s NCHRP synthesis: Performance-Based Highway Maintenance and Operations Management (2012).