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Volpe Center Highlights - September/October 2003

Organizational Excellence

Director's Notes | Focus | Safety | Mobility | Human and Natural Environment
Security | Organizational Excellence | Awards | Published and Presented

Volpe Center Improves Business Practices

The Secretary of Transportation, Norman Y. Mineta, emphasized the need for performance-based government in the Department's 2003 Performance Plan. The Department of Transportation's organizational excellence goal is to "advance the Department's ability to manage for results and innovation." Deputy Administrator Samuel Bonasso is leading RSPA's effort to improve performance across the organization, which includes the offices of Hazardous Materials Safety, Pipeline Safety, Innovation, Research and Education, Emergency Transportation, the Transportation Safety Institute, and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

A RSPA management assessment of the Volpe Center was conducted in the summer of 2003. The assessment confirmed that the Center provides a unique and invaluable capability to the Department. It also identified specific areas where improved management practices and processes could enhance the Center's performance and maximize the value of its work. Additional reviews of the Center are ongoing and their recommendations will be incorporated into the Center's improvement plan.

When the Volpe Center was established more than 30 years ago, it primarily served administrations of the DOT. However, as the Center's capabilities became more widely known, its customer base grew to include other federal, local, and international agencies, and it evolved in response to a variety of differing customer requirements. The Center welcomes the opportunity to assess, standardize, and improve its support to all clients while maintaining its commitment to meeting individual customer's needs.

In response to the assessment, Volpe Center management and staff are revising processes and management practices. Fundamental to these actions are a wide range of systemic improvements associated with deploying a robust and integrated financial/project management information system. This tool will assist project managers and RSPA management in managing cost and performance and in reporting performance to Center sponsors. The Center's infrastructure and business practices will migrate to a more mature state, and management and staff will re-focus their attention on the Center's internal and external communications. These changes will modernize the Center's accountability and responsiveness to both sponsors and taxpayers.

The Volpe Center is especially aware of the importance of customer satisfaction -- quality work and customer responsiveness are central to its success. The Center has received high praise in recent customer surveys, with more than 80 percent responding with "good-to-excellent" ratings regarding our ability to perform technical work to high standards. To gain further customer feedback, independent third parties will conduct annual customer surveys. Future issues of Highlights will provide updates on this continuous improvement process.

Adding Value through Organizational Redesign (EPA)

Volpe helped WPS see that to add value to their work, a redistribution of the workload among its value-added areas was necessary to increase satisfaction among staff as well as among customers. For example, more "forward thinking" and less "rapid response."

Dr. David Damm-Luhr of the Planning and Policy Analysis Division is in the process of completing organization systems performance work with the Water Policy Staff (WPS) of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Water. He designed and facilitated a two-day offsite retreat in June 2003 and a follow-up in October 2003 in Arlington, Virginia, both geared to culminate nearly three years of Volpe's support in rethinking the policy unit's mission, core business processes, and relations with its customers and stakeholders. WPS is a primary resource for helping EPA's Assistant Administrator for Water implement national priorities.

Volpe's work began when the Director of the Water Policy Staff called on Dr. Damm-Luhr as an organizational expert to help her with issues of strategy, organization, and operations. Volpe staff interviewed office directors and conducted focus groups with office staff of the four major national water programs. They benchmarked policy offices in EPA, DOT, and other federal agencies, and worked with WPS to review and analyze the data, and then rethink the distribution of its workload to increase both internal job satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

Based on this success, the WPS Director tasked Volpe with reviewing processes among the core business lines (Policy Formulation, Economics, and Regulatory Management). The results: a new approach to planning work with an overall "investment portfolio" orientation focused on strategic priorities, better regulatory management through an Office of Water-wide process improvement, and a determination of how best to use the skills of recently added economists. WPS now has a firm foundation for the future, especially in implementing the details of its redesign as a number of important senior staff transitions take place early in 2004.

Developing Asset Management Tools (BIA)

Asset management of transportation infrastructure provides a decision-making framework that draws from economics as well as engineering. With the availability of increasingly powerful data systems, the practice of asset management has become more feasible. A multidisciplinary Volpe team, led by Mr. Walter Gazda of the Economic and Industry Analysis Division, is developing an updated Road Inventory System to improve the efficiency of data collection and management for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Department of Transportation (DOT). The effort will involve development of an Oracle database to replace the current Cobol-based process. The new system will reduce data maintenance, facilitate data entry, and ease integration with other BIA asset management systems, including a bridge management system previously developed by the Volpe Center.

The Volpe team, working in concert with the Engineering and Operations Branch of the BIA DOT, completed the development of functional requirements and specifications in August 2003. Typical of the Volpe process, this involved gathering feedback from BIA engineers who will use the Road Inventory System. Development of the system is currently underway; completion is expected in January 2004. Volpe team members include Mr. Steve Pax of EG&G Technical Services (a Volpe on-site contractor) and Mr. Jan Popiel of Computer Science Corporation (a Volpe on-site contractor).

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