Continuing Quality Improvements in Pennsylvania Highway Maintenance

摘要

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) continues to be on a quality improvement journey that began more than 20 years ago. PennDOT is responsible for maintaining and operating the fifth-largest state transportation system in the nation, with 64 000 centerline-km or 161 000 lane-km (40,000 centerline-mi or 100,000 lane-mi) of pavement and 25,000 bridges. This system carries about 16 percent commercial truck traffic, the highest of any state in the northeastern United States. PennDOT is using the seven Baldrige precepts to improve many of its operations: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource development and management, process management, and business results. In 1998 PennDOT entered the pilot phase of the Baldrige journey. The traditional process included the preparation of a 50-page organization review package (ORP) providing an examiner with a detailed description of the organization and its processes. Each PennDOT bureau and engineering district began preparing ORPs in the fall of 1998, and each was scored by about 15 of the 125 trained and certified internal Baldrige examiners. PennDOT's "Agility" Program follows a strategy designed to enable organizations to adapt and thrive in an era of continuous change, an immediate challenge for the department. The self-assessment gap analysis and Agility initiatives, along with the other Baldrige approaches, are driving positive change in the maintenance area. Internal indicators like lower system pavement roughness, better line striping, equipment fleet optimization, and dollars saved attest to the success of these changes.