A Common Sense Approach For Snow And Ice Control Using Customer-Driven Benchmarking.

A change has occurred in the way organizations gauge the success of providing services. Public maintenance organizations used to focus on internal measures of performance such as inputs and outputs. Typical measures have been the quantity of work accomplished; the amount of labor, equipment, and materials used; the output per dollar expended; and unit efficiency (i.e. cost/lane mile). Now, organizations are increasing their focus on customer outcomes, satisfaction, and value. Customer-driven benchmarking is a process used to identify, assess, and implement best practices of operationally relevant organizations that have been shown to provide the highest levels of customer-oriented outcomes relative to the services used. Customer-driven benchmarking involves five steps: establish customer-oriented measures for maintenance products or services; form a partnership with others to compare performance and practices; measure performance using agreed-uponmeasures and share results; identify practices associated with the best performances; and implement the best practices appropriate to improving theorganization's performance. The maintenance organization will benefit by learning what its customers want and how to satisfy their desires and expectations. Other benefits to the maintenance organization include: easier determination of the impact to the customer of performing various activities; saving taxpayers money by using funds more effectively; and visible improvements in the conditions of the assets they maintain. Those participating in customer-driven benchmarking can tap the knowledge of others. As a result, participants in benchmarking: gain ideas on how to improve their performance; save time in discovering better methods of working; continuallylearn from the accomplishments of others; and avoiding the mistakes of others. The methodology used includes market research to determine the customers' expectations regarding level of service for snow and ice; benchmarking to compare outcomes; and to finally identify the best practices used bythe best performers. For the covering abstract see ITRD E143097.