Operations Academy

highlights

Upcoming Dates:
bullet New Senior Management Program on September 16-26, 2008 and Spring 2009

 

Graduate Class:
Group shot Nov 2007
View November 2007 Graduates.

 

Brochure:
BrochureDownload brochure about Operations Academy.

 

Presentation:
powerpoint presentationView presentation about Operations Academy.

transp

curriculum

Below is an outline of the subjects that will be presented and discussed during the formal classroom training portion of the program.

  1. Overview
    • What is operations?
    • The Customer vs. the Institutions
      • What do traveler’s need for mobility?
      • What is adequate customer service?
      • Who are the providers of infrastructure operations (roles, relationships, etc.)
      • What is missing
    • The institutional agenda
      • Build, preserve, operate, enforce, advise related to the supply network
      • What is the current state-of-play in operations
      • What are the roles of the players and are they doing their jobs?
      • The role of the State DOT in operations
      • Are agencies organized and managed for operations?
    • How does it operations relate to ITS?
    • Ingredients of operations (overview – setting the stage for the rest of the course)
      • Operations as a system
      • Relevance and leverage
      • Performance measures
      • Customer service
      • Organization
      • Management

  2. Operations as a system
    • Review of pre-study material
    • Supply-demand concepts
    • Thinking regionally (What is a region, scale of system, travel-shed, not jurisdictions)
    • Corridor management
    • Concept of operations
    • Engineering tools and dimensions (control, communications, analysis, maintenance)

  3. Relevance and leverage
    • Definition of mobility
    • Relation to systems engineering
    • Scale of impacts compared with new construction
    • Benefits and costs

  4. Performance measures
    • Importance of performance measurement
      • Incentivize staff
      • Internal communications
      • External communications (what do the public and elected officials want to hear?)
    • What measures are unique to operations?
      • Mobility
      • Safety
      • Maintenance
    • What is good enough? (Is perfect the enemy of good?)
    • Data sources and analysis techniques
    • Technology

  5. Customer service
    • Definition of customers (households, businesses, trucks, travelers, commuters, etc.)
    • Just-in-time delivery (commercial impacts of operations)
    • What are customers’ expectations?
    • How do we communicate with customers?
      • Status/performance reporting
      • Response to inquiries/complaints, etc.
      • Innovative approaches
        1. Personalized intersection monitoring
        2. Telephone numbers on VMS
    • Customer satisfaction surveys (implementation and interpretation)
    • Annual reports

  6. Organization
    • Legacy structure (mission, etc.)
    • Case studies with representative organizational structures
    • Stovepiping – the enemy of operations
    • Organizational alternatives (matrix vs. tree)
    • Headquarters vs. district

  7. Management
    • Staff incentives and management
    • Differences between public and private sector management
    • Planning for operations
    • Project management (is it still relevant – accountability related to mission)
    • Contracting
    • Outsourcing
    • Funding and budgeting
    • “Selling” operations internally