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INTRODUCTION TO THE GUIDE
Transportation agencies have recognized that continuous
improvement is essential to managing a maintenance
organization effectively in the face of growing demand, tight
budgets, and limited staff. There is an imperative to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency with which agencies deliver
maintenance products and services to their customers.
Effectiveness refers to the ability to deliver the attributes of
maintenance products and services that customers want.
Efficiency refers to the extent to which the use of resources is
minimized in delivering those products and services.
In response to the need for continuous improvement, the
National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)
funded Project 14-13 with the objective of developing a primer
and a guide on customer-driven benchmarking. The purpose of
the primer is to promote customer-driven benchmarking and to
educate top management and other managers on the concept's
main ideas and benefits. The purpose of the guide is to provide a
"how to" manual. The project also involved preparing a final
report--describing the research project, key findings,
conclusions, and recommendations--which is published as
NCHRP Web Document 58.
You have the guide in your hands. It was developed by
preparing a draft and obtaining extensive review comments
from various agencies including states, counties, and a toll
authority. Preparation of the guide included field testing most of
the procedures in the guide in three states (California,
Minnesota, and Ohio) and then using the feedback from the field
tests to revise the guide and to produce a document that is
practical and easy to use.
Benchmarking is widely employed in both the public and
private sectors to compare performances and to identify best
practices. Benchmarking is a rigorous discipline that involves
the use of accurate, agreed-upon measures. The basic steps of
benchmarking are forming a partnership, reaching agreement on
a set of common measures, taking measurements, identifying
best performers and corresponding best practices, and following
through with agency implementation and continuous
improvement.
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Introduction to the Guide
In customer-driven benchmarking, the measures used focus
upon the results important to customers. In the past,
maintenance organizations have used measures that tend to be
internally focused--for example, the quantity of production and
resource utilization (labor, equipment, and materials). Today,
maintenance organizations are becoming increasingly focused on
customer-oriented measures such as the smoothness of roads, the
legibility of signs at night, sight distances at intersections, the
attractiveness of roadsides, and the speed with which roads
covered with ice and snow are returned to bare pavement.
Four types of measures are used in customer-driven
benchmarking:
1. Outcomes. Outcomes are the results of performing
maintenance activities that are important to customers.
Examples of outcomes are smooth roads, edge markings
that are easy to see in poor weather, and traffic signals that
are reliable and work almost continuously.
2. Outputs. Outputs are measures of accomplishment or
production. Examples of outputs are linear feet of ditches
cleaned, the number of bags of litter collected, and acres of
grass mowed.
3. Resources. Resources consist of labor, equipment,
materials, and financial costs.
4. Hardship factors. These are factors outside the control of
the maintenance organization that make it more difficult
to satisfy customer desires and needs. Examples of
hardship factors are weather, terrain, and population
density.
Customer-driven benchmarking combines all four measures to
give analysts and managers a broad perspective on how well
various organizations are achieving outcomes that matter to
customers in a manner that uses the fewest possible resources
while taking into account the level of production and
uncontrollable factors such as weather. Organizations that do
this the best, as determined through measurement, are sources of
practices that agencies should consider adopting.
This guide is divided into four chapters. Chapters 1 through 3
educate the reader regarding key concepts. Chapter 1 introduces
the reader to the concepts of customer-driven benchmarking;
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discusses important prerequisites that must be satisfied (such
as obtaining strong leadership commitment to the effort);
communicates the time required to benchmark for the first time
(at least 2 years); dispels a number of benchmarking myths; and
lists critical success factors. Chapter 2 examines key issues in
forming a benchmarking partnership, including important
elements of a benchmarking agreement. Chapter 3 discusses
important issues of measurement, including various types of
measures, key attributes of measures such as statistical validity,
the need for each benchmarking unit to use the same measures,
and sources of candidate measures--for example, the proceedings
of the National Workshop on Commonly Recognized Measures
for Maintenance.
Chapter 4 is the "how to" portion of the guide and is organized
by the five main steps of customer-driven benchmarking:
1. Select partners,
2. Establish measures,
3. Measure performance,
4. Identify best performances and practices, and
5. Implement and continuously improve.
This guide contains six appendixes. Particularly useful are
examples of survey questions and a compendium of customer-
oriented measures.
The guide also employs icons to further direct the reader. Icons
appear in the margin of the text to draw your attention to
important points. The following is a list of icons used in the
guide and their meanings.
MEASURE
TIP
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Introduction to the Guide
IDEA
CAUTION
STEP
EASY METHOD
RIGOROUS METHOD
ADVANCED METHOD
QUALITY
CONTROL/QUALITY
ASSURANCE
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QUESTION
ANSWER
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