Better maintenance management puts more buses on the streets
Lost amid six press releases issued when the CTA announced Jan. 20 as its newest Doomsday was news detailing CTA "management efficiencies that have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of buses put into service each day."
According to the press release:
"By developing a system to catch up on preventative maintenance, over the past three months the CTA has been able to reduce by 89 percent the average number of daily runs canceled due to defective equipment. By training managers on absenteeism and demanding more accountability, the number of daily runs canceled due to manpower shortages decreased by 34 percent in the same time period."
The CTA also noted it has been working with the Civic Consulting Alliance to leverage more than $2 million worth of pro-bono consulting services since May. Those consultants include Booz Allen Hamilton, who helped CTA President Ron Huberman launch his "Performance Management" initiative. Using performance metrics, Huberman holds his managers responsible for such things as cleanliness, safety, courtesy, etc.
Now, that's smart management. Here are some other results of the Civic Consulting Alliance partnership, in the continuation:
"IDEO provided input on improving customer communications through new signage standards and positioning. In the coming month, the CTA will announce a new strategy on how it will use signage to make the CTA more user friendly.
"Deloitte provided best-practice advice for construction management and helped develop principles for improving the existing system. Based on this input, the CTA is currently reorganizing its construction department to increase effectiveness.
"Katzenbach Partners has provided assistance with a bus cleanliness initiative. Huron Consulting is assisting with Control Center Operations."
Accountability and performance metrics! Running it like a business...what a novel idea! Go Ron!
Posted by: Brian | November 19, 2007 at 07:03 AM
So...if we take care of the buses before they break, we have more buses to use?
And it took them how long to figure this out?
Posted by: ChgoRed | November 19, 2007 at 07:58 AM
This might be an opportune time to outfit more as hybrids.
Posted by: Ed | November 19, 2007 at 09:02 AM
Now maybe he could get some gratis consultants to tell him that he ought to have his managers call people back who call and complain...
KevinB
Posted by: KevinB | November 19, 2007 at 09:54 AM
no matter the problems (Doomsday, etc.) that are coming up, Huberman beats the hell out of Kruesi any day. plus, most any/all problems were born from Kruesi's reign anyways.
Posted by: adam | November 19, 2007 at 12:48 PM
It's easy to have such wonderful stats for the equipment side when so many buses are new.
Posted by: Arfo | November 19, 2007 at 06:18 PM
My god. I'm a fan of the CTA, but stuff like this really does make one wonder what the hell the previous management was doing all day. How can you not realize the benefit of preventive maintenance and, uh, employee attendance?
Posted by: jeez | November 21, 2007 at 01:58 AM
As Arfo said, it's easy when you have newer buses. But other than that, how did they "catch up" on preventative maintenance?
Did they hire more mechanics? Did they magically get more work out of the mechanics they already have? Or did they stop repairing broken equipment to have more time for preventative maintenance?
Perhaps they did a better job of motivating mechanics to work more, and maybe streamlined some processes like getting parts from the parts room to the floor faster. Maybe they filled a few vacant positions. And perhaps they outsourced a few more jobs.
But all that would be chump change. Assuming they didn't go on a big hiring spree (since there's no money for that), the obvious answer is they shifted effort away from broken equipment to preventative maintenance.
Did they do the right thing? Maybe. Maybe not.
What do you do at home when you're short of money? Do you repair broken things, or do you spend money on preventative maintenance? Do you re-paint four rooms of your house that need it, or do you fix the hole in the wall of the fifth room?
Obviously is a balance. As you shift between spending your resources on repairs, and spending them on preventative maintenance, you can cause some very dramatic to certain statistics that make it look like you did the right thing. But what about further out?
These pretty charts look nice. But so did the charts when they shifted more efforts to repairing all the broken buses to get them back in service (by shifting resources *away* from preventative maintenance.)
If they continue with these "catch-up" priorities, what will the long-term effect be? (Hint: It means those numbers start to reverse again, and eventually you have to "catch-up" on repairs, while de-emphisising preventative maintenance.)
So the question is now that they've "caught-up", will they readjust their priorities to a responsible mix? Or will they wait until they have to "catch-up" on major repairs?
Are they going to become responsible, or will they just ride the pendulum as it takes another swing?
Posted by: Rusty | November 21, 2007 at 09:39 AM