COMMUNICATION
Administrator's Message: Leadership from the Front: Ensuring we ALWAYS Prioritize the Customer Experience

At the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, we prioritize a culture of providing an outstanding customer experience. How do we do this? One project and one customer interaction at a time. To help manage these interactions, MDOT SHA has a Customer Care Management System (CCMS) as a tool to manage and prioritize inquiries. When a customer creates a service request ticket, the customer's information is saved - in this way, we can learn more about our customers, as well as their needs and overall experience.

Greg Slater

Leadership from the front is crucial to ensuring an excellent customer experience. Our mission is to provide a safe, well-maintained, reliable highway system that enables mobility choices for all customers and connects them to life's opportunities.

How do we do this? Where can MDOT SHA take our customers?
Our customers - the millions who travel our roads everyday - are trusting us. They are trusting us to deliver change with every intersection improvement, traffic signal, bridge, or pavement surface. This is the customer experience at work. I will also be responding to CCMS requests each month - to connect with our customers and keep a pulse on their needs. What is important to our customers, what they want to see is what drives the customer service experience and what we do at MDOT SHA.

Every single one of you works extremely hard, burning the midnight oil to deliver a dependable transportation system to the Maryland motorists. It's okay to make mistakes. They are good. We can learn from them, and make better decisions along the way. You have my support. By responding to every service ticket in a timely, professional manner using our Customer Care Management System to our advantage, we're ensuring the customer experience is and continues to be outstanding.

MODERNIZATION
NEW Approved Project Green Light Initiative Underway!

After presenting and winning approval for her idea to integrate the Conference Room Scheduler with Outlook, Barbara Rowlett poses with Administrator Greg Slater during Session 2 of Project Green Light.

Attention all MDOT SHA Team Members! Thanks to Barbara Rowlett's innovative idea, the employee conference room scheduler is going to be a part of your Outlook! The Office of Information Technology is in the process of moving the current intranet Conference Room Schedule (CRS) to Microsoft Outlook to consolidate what used to be two separate applications into one. Instead of using an entirely different application (CRS) to schedule a conference, the same technology will be available using your email server. The new application will handle people and rooms as a resource, similar to the one in which pool cars are reserved.

The conference room scheduler transition will be complete by March 31, 2019. Keep in mind that during this time all existing CRS appointments will be imported to Outlook. This transition is necessary to streamline scheduling, as notifications and conference room availabilities will be displayed via Outlook. To help all MDOT SHA employees with this transition, the Office of Information Technology will be providing training materials in the near future. Thank you Barbara for your commitment to modernizing our organization!

INNOVATION
Sensible Salting With the Wheel Loader on Board Weighing Systems

The loader scale boom sensor attached to an MDOT SHA wheel loader tells the in-cab controller where the bucket is during the weighing process (left). The L21 indicator (right) measures the weight of loaded material, then transfers the data.

One of the jobs MDOT SHA is most well-known for is our treatment of state routes during snow emergencies. Even before the snowflakes start to fall, WE'RE ON IT, pre-treating roads, and actively salting or plowing once the dreaded winter weather arrives. MDOT SHA is keenly aware of its responsibility to provide safety and mobility for motorists on state-maintained roads during winter storms, and, at the same time, do so in a cost effective and environmentally sensitive manner. Being able to do both requires innovative technology and building upon what we already know about Maryland weather operations.

Fortunately, the onboard loader scale is helping us salt sensibly. First tested in Keysers Ridge, LaVale and Centerville shops, this technology allows maintenance staff to more accurately track the exact amount of salting used based on data collected from previous weather events. In the past, each salt loading operator had to record the weight of salt used with 'Loader Man Sheets,' handwritten documents which indicated approximately how much salt MDOT SHA was using per weather event. Manually processing the data could take up to four hours per event. Now, with the Loadrite In-cab Controller (pictured above), materials are loaded, the weight calculated and once the operator presses clear, that data is automatically transferred to a knowledge management system where users can access and download this crucial operations information. With this new technology in place, MDOT SHA can now record the exact amount of salt used and where it went.

Rick Cosner, Resident Maintenance Engineer for the Keyser's Ridge shop, tells us, "We're still actively tweaking this technology to ensure accuracy, however, we are already light years ahead of where we were in the past!"

CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE
John Lancaster Embodies Outstanding Customer Service

John Lancaster, ADE - Maintenance for District 2.

Thanks to his District Two family, John Lancaster has been nominated for a Momentum spotlight on excellent customer service. John began his career on June 5, 1995, at the Easton Shop as a Facility Maintenance Technician (FMT). He became a Transportation Engineering Technician (TET) in 1999, supervising maintenance projects throughout District Two. In 2008, John was promoted to a TET V. He then returned to Maintenance in 2010 when he was offered the Assistant Resident Maintenance Engineer position in the Centreville Maintenance Shop. In 2019, John earned a very well-deserved promotion to ADE-M for District Two in January! Elizabeth Watson, Office Manager with the Centreville Shop tells us, "When we had back-to-back blizzards and D2 was redeployed to D3 (Marlboro & Fairland), John volunteered to go with about 10 FMT's to D3 to be the Management contact. They were over there for about five or six days and John hung in there & worked beside them all practically around the clock."

John has been a motivating force in the success and all aspects of maintenance in Queen Anne's County. He is knowledgeable and driven, and consistently goes above and beyond for MDOT SHA and his co-workers. He has served as a mentor to many employees over the years and has earned the respect and admiration of the District Two community. John was born and raised in Queen Anne's County where he currently resides with his wife and two children. Thank you for all that your do for MDOT SHA, John!

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

In partnership with MDOT SHA, Baltimore Ravens mascot, Poe visits Ducketts Lane Elementary School to teach kids the importance of pedestrian and school bus safety!