Kansas utilizes Exor Technology for Planning

15 December 2009, 3:34pm

15th December 2009: The developed world has embarked upon a strategy of significant infrastructure investment, with countries announcing extensive programs of public work to create jobs and inject billions of dollars into the economy. However, the lack of uniformed understanding of how best to utilize the available funding to improve the road networks in a systematic way has, for many, been a stumbling block. In the midst of this confusion however, there are some who are leading the field, understanding both the need and the value of focusing on projects that deliver long term benefits to citizens and optimizing the allocation of budget accordingly.

Before the economic crisis hit, Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) recognized the need to focus on a strategic approach to asset management and road maintenance. And as such KDOT has aligned its transportation programs to reflect the realities of funding streams.

The DoT has set about implementing a strategy to successfully map its highways assets throughout the state, which will create a framework on which Kansas can and does make effective investment decisions for its transportation future.

The ability to share business information across the Enterprise is critical to KDOT’s success in this approach. By integrating assets such as its highways assets, bridges and rail crossings they now have the ability to produce better data to make informed decisions. By using Asset Management Software from leading industry specialist Exor Corporation, this is now happening.

Ruby Bradley, Geometric and Accident Data Manager at KDOT explains, “Historically we’d created silos of asset data for separate business purposes and it became difficult to track and keep these up-to-date. With Exor we now have a central Enterprise repository that maintains Federal reporting data and helps manage location information for other KDOT systems.”

“The Exor software also Interfaces with other data repositories, such as PONTIS, allowing us to eliminate redundancies and provide additional value to those systems by providing up to date information with no additional data maintenance. This has improved our ability for highway planning and road maintenance.” Prior to implementing Exor’s full suite of asset management solutions, Kansas used mainframe technology for the coordination of its asset data. One of the difficulties faced by the State in using such a restrictive system was KDOT’s ability to expand or add reporting features onto outdated systems. Bradley adds, “We initially looked at moving away from the mainframe. However, when we began investigating the market it became apparent that contemporary solutions existed in the market that would deliver significant advantages to us far beyond the benefits of a standard mainframe switch.”

One of the first integration projects at KDOT was to synchronize data held in a third party software platform for Bridge Management and data held within the Planning Group, to create the National Bridge Inventory submittal for the Federal Highway Administration. This same data also needed to be viewed in the Exor environment by other managers; since this was successfully completed the system has continued to develop, evolve and improve.

Commenting on the evolution of the system, Bradley adds, “Since implementing Exor we have worked in partnership to develop the functionality of the system to match our changing needs – including validation routines, specialized reporting and calculations for capacity value formulae.”

“We’ve been able to create a new decision support system that provides menus and security for a program which helps us prioritizes projects and electronically ranks our Highways segments based on engineering and asset information held in Exor. However, most importantly, Exor has unlocked the data in our legacy systems and made it both accessible and updatable through one, spatially-enabled viewpoint.

“We’re now able to dynamically integrate all the data together in real-time and provide up-to-the-minute reports as and when they are required, rather than having to access separate silos of information and compare them retrospectively. In turn, by analyzing the data dynamically, we can develop the systems to cater for future needs well before those needs arise.”

“Now, not only are we are confident all departments are sharing data, but the data is shared with other business areas through integration with our Exor system. We’re confident information retrieved from those sources is accurate and the quality is maintained not only by the groups working seamlessly together, but due to the visibility of the data across the agency.”

Commenting on the relationship with Exor, Bradley concludes, “Our integration strategy has resulted in the Exor solution becoming the central hub of our asset management strategy, providing accurate asset data to anyone who needs it and maintaining the official state system network.”

“We now maintain our network and asset data using a spatial view or map. The visual aspect has led to efficiencies in data quality, production of data to support special studies and a platform to support our business decisions, which can now be made and justified easily. We appreciate the work of Exor and look forward to continuing to improve the value we deliver to our stakeholders. Exor software has made this possible, delivering all the benefits of a bespoke system through an “off the shelf” product.”

Exor Corporation

Geo: International