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Achieving Success
Applying High-Performance Organization Concepts To Your Public Works Department
The HPO framework is not a set of instructions or a recipe that can be followed blindly. Rather it is a framework that has to be translated by managers to their specific organizational situation in their current time, by designing a specific variant of the framework fit for their organization.
Using Technology And Best Business Practices To Make The Best Use Of Resources And Save Public Dollars
Creating long-term efficiencies and sustainability is a huge focus of today’s government sector. Every day the charge of Public Works’ leaders is to do more, with less. Further, technology, if used correctly, can be an effective tool for organizing work and cutting costs.
Asset Inspections Are Optimal Tool For Maintenance And Capital Improvement
Infrastructure asset inspection process is a tool that identifies deficiencies, creates backlog, establishes proactive maintenance, and monitors life cycles; as well as assists agencies in identifying projects for their Capital Improvement Program (CIP). These inspections can provide both a short-term benefit through work identification for repair and maintenance efforts and a long-term benefit of project identification of new capital improvements and enhancement.
Please Step Away From That Truck
A comprehensive fleet assessment and improvement program initiated for the Volusia County Public Works Department has resulted in annual savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars without impacting workloads. One of the biggest opportunities is optimizing your equipment needs and keeping equipment resources that add value.
Article: Agencies Can Save Dollars By Using Technology And Best Business Practices
Independent of any specific software system, public agency improvements can be implemented using a systematic process of incorporating technology with best business practices. This article describes the successes of two Florida Counties evaluation to determine areas for improvement within their Public Works Departments, then taking action with the resulting transformations being documented.
Traffic Signal Preventative Maintenance Program Earns a Green Light from Reno and Hernando County
An innovative traffic signals preventative maintenance (PM) program implemented for Reno, NV and Hernando County, FL has resulted in increased productivity and efficiency. Public works professionals are familiar with pavement maintenance programs - making a continuous proactive maintenance investment, for instance, will be less expensive in the long run than having to reconstruct the roadway due to lack of maintenance causing the quality of the pavement to deteriorate.
Big Success in a Small City: Implementing a New Maintenance Management Approach
The City of Emeryville, California recently implemented a new management approach in maintenance operations designed to enhance teamwork, morale, communication, and performance. The implemented maintenance management system was an innovative approach to improving not only operations, but also improving City officials' understanding of maintenance.
Developing A Complete In-House Maintenance Management System
A Maintenance Management System (MMS) can help public agencies better manage their maintenance operations. One Florida County was not only able to able to accomplish this, but they did it with software they developed in-house. How could this be? Their success was a product of teamwork between the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the IT staff from Hernando County working together with a consultant to provide guidance and assistance.
Asset Management and G.A.S.B. Statement 34: The Basics Of Managing Your Infrastructure
Asset management has been generating a lot of public works industry ‘buzz’ this year, spurred on by Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 34. Perhaps one of the most influential policy trends facing public works managers today, asset management deserves a reality check.
Alternative Workweeks: Productivity vs. Employee Benefits
Public agency managers face increasingly limited public funds with demands for increased accountability and greater pressures for transparency of choices for employee work schedules. As a result, alternative work schedules (AWS) have become increasingly popular over the past several decades. AWS, in the area of public works, is a heated topic with the issue of productivity being a core question.