ESCAN Yield Savings of $420,000
Tom Boyce, Division of Transportation Development (DTD)
Posted: July 25, 2013
What was improved, briefly
A major software application integration project developed ways to improve data collection and report generation. This Project resulted in over $420,000 of annual savings and also decreased errors in data collection.
Background
The Division of Transportation Development (DTD) uses the Erosion and Sediment Control Assessment Notebook (“ESCAN”) computer application to track thousands of transportation project inspections that are required by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).
As part of this, Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Inspectors enter and download inspection results into the ESCAN database via a field notebook for analysis, tracking, and reporting. Previously, a consultant hosted the ESCAN application on an external computer server. Additionally, the application was not integrated with CDOT’s primary system of record, known as SAP. Due to this, accessing data in ESCAN and generating useful reports had been difficult and time-consuming.
Erosion and Sediment Control Assessment Notebook (“ESCAN”)
CDOT partnered with the Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) on an improvement project that applied Lean principles to this issue, in order to make accessing ESCAN data more user-friendly and less time-consuming. The improvements to ESCAN have resulted in many benefits, including these:
Easier data entry by field personnel
Much better analysis and reporting, which has resulted in better use of resources
Increased accuracy due to less transcription of data
Standardized recording and reporting
Allows a better view of projects decreasing the risk associated. Data can be used for performance measuring and analysis
This Project resulted in over $420,000 of annual savings and also decreased errors in data collection.
Key Benefits
This savings includes:
Time saved by making inspections easier and faster:-- 3-4 Hours/inspection X 1900 inspections/year X $42.60 = $323,760/year.
Time saved in reporting and tracking: 1 staff-year tracking and reporting: $88,600/year.
Time saved on report generation and data validation:
-10 Hours savings for generation of Annual Report 10 X 42.60 = $426/yr.
-48 staff-days per year in trips to Region files for verification of data for CDPHE: 48 X 8 X 42.60 = $16,360/year.