City of Tucker: Rapid Creation & Success of a Public Works Department
In November 2022, residents in the City of Tucker, Georgia, voted to approve the creation of its public works department.
The new department would assume responsibility for the city's public works duties, which were previously managed by Dekalb County. This decision was enacted with the intent to increase efficiency and enhance the services provided to the community.
"Tucker residents and citizens wanted to improve the efficiency of public works systems and enhance the level of service that they received," noted Ishri Sankar, PE, director of Tucker's Public Works Department. "They wanted changes, like more immediate repairs and quicker responses to service requests."
The biggest obstacle to achieving those changes? The timeline. The City of Tucker Public Works Department had to be fully functional by July 1, 2023, to serve its more than 35,000 residents. Preparation for the transfer of responsibilities commenced in March 2023, giving the city just four months to complete a project that typically takes a year or more.
With this tight timeline, Tucker officials had to act rapidly. The main priorities were to identify, implement, and learn to use a newly implemented asset management system that would enable them to meet the goals of their new public works department. To help expedite the process, the city contracted Woolpert in January 2023 to implement an enterprise asset management system for its new division. Woolpert is a leading architecture, engineering, geospatial and strategic consulting firm and a member of Trimble's Partner Network.
Racing to the Finish Line
The city’s new public works department and Woolpert immediately agreed that implementing Trimble Cityworks, a GIS-centric asset management system, was the best route. This digital solution was not only popular among other cities but was also already in use by DeKalb County.
“The way the data is stored and organized has really helped us retrieve information at any time because it's all cloud-based."
—Ishri Sankar, PE, Director, City of Tucker Public Works Department
"We decided to implement the software because DeKalb County was already utilizing it," noted Sankar. "Based on their guidance and the additional feedback from other cities, the technology was essentially the standard, go-to platform. However, we also wanted to ensure that all the data from DeKalb County could be integrated as easily as possible, and Woolpert's team was instrumental in helping to not only acquire the data from DeKalb’s platform but also to integrate it into a modified, usable system."
Woolpert has had a long-standing working relationship with DeKalb County and implemented Trimble Cityworks for several of its departments in 2021. Consequently, the project team was familiar with DeKalb County's system, giving them the ease and confidence needed to quickly migrate GIS data to the City of Tucker's platform. Their prior experience with DeKalb County's work management system enabled them to offer a similar setup for Tucker, significantly reducing the typical time required to implement a new asset management system.
"We didn't do a copy and paste, but we implemented the platform based on what we did for DeKalb County to meet the deadline," said John Cestnick, technology services program director at Woolpert. "Using the DeKalb County implementation and its assets as a baseline, we made recommendations to expedite the configuration for the City of Tucker."
Building on a similar platform ensured that the City of Tucker had an effective asset management system in place by the July 1, 2023 deadline. However, the platform wasn't identical to DeKalb County's system. The project team and the City of Tucker’s Public Works Department staff discussed the unique metrics and dashboards their software would need so that the platform was customized to align with the department's goals.
"We started with a configuration that was already 85% complete," Cestnick said. "To customize the software to the city's needs, we discussed what made Tucker different from DeKalb County, and the biggest differentiator was their sole use of contractors."
Since the public works department was brand new, the city had limited staff and resources, only operating with two types of contractors: those who helped run the city and those who completed work orders. With this unique structure, the city required a light IT footprint to minimize IT overhead. This made Trimble Cityworks’ cloud-based platform and online capabilities an ideal solution, eliminating the need for on-premises hosting while enhancing departmental collaboration and productivity.
Equipping Staff Members for Success
Finding and implementing an effective asset management solution within a short timeframe wasn't the only objective. The city's contractors also needed to be trained to fully utilize the software in order to achieve the vision set out by the public works department.
"To customize the software to the city's needs, we discussed what made Tucker different from DeKalb County, and the biggest differentiator was their sole use of contractors."
—John Cestnick, Technology Services Program Director, Woolpert
To ensure contractors not only had effective tools but were also confident in using them, the project team scheduled workshops to train the city's contractors. During the workshops, contractors learned how to use the software for data entry, further streamlining their processes and reducing the burden on already limited resources. The training also included instructions on taking pictures and attaching them to work activities to minimize the need for supervisors to visually inspect every job site.
"In terms of the learning process, I think the team did well overall," Sankar said. "Woolpert's staff was great at answering questions. We had two days of live training where a project team member physically came to our office and walked us through our model, helped us set up, and discussed standard operating procedures that empowered us to get where we are today."
The smooth training process ensured that July 1st was a successful roll-out for the public works department. It would also mark the start of the City of Tucker staff's new approach to using their enterprise asset management system to operate and maintain their assets and deliver safe and effective services.
Current and Future Achievements
Within the first three months after the initial launch of the City of Tucker Public Works Department and Trimble Cityworks adoption, the city's staff entered over 200 service requests and successfully completed over 300 work orders. Within the first year, the department prioritized deferred public works maintenance and key repair needs, launching public works assessments to determine critical needs and identify opportunities to align capital projects with maintenance efforts.
When explaining how beneficial the Trimble Cityworks was—and still is—in helping achieve the city's goals, Sankar said, "Without the software, we wouldn't be able to organize or view work orders on a map to efficiently address them. When we're doing asphalt, for example, we look for all the pothole repairs within a certain radius of where we'll be working. If we knock all those out with one load of asphalt, that dramatically improves our efficiency, and furthermore, it prevents things from falling through the cracks. The way the data is stored and organized has really helped us retrieve information at any time because it's all cloud-based. We have workers in the field using their phones when they need to look something up rather than calling in or driving all the way to the office."
"Tucker residents and citizens wanted to improve the efficiency of public works systems and enhance the level of service that they received. They wanted changes, like more immediate repairs and quicker responses to service requests."
—Ishri Sankar, PE, Director, City of Tucker Public Works Department
In the second year of operation, the department aims to reduce service delivery times by 50% or more. Public works services include asphalt patching, pothole repair, right-of-way maintenance, traffic sign and signal maintenance, pavement marking maintenance, stormwater infrastructure maintenance and catch basin repair to promote proper drainage and prevent flooding. The Trimble Cityworks will act as the backbone for achieving these ambitious goals. Sankar is also excited about the additional advantages the solution will provide because of its robust data collection capabilities.
"With the data, we'll know what we're focusing most of our efforts on," Sankar explained. "We'll know if we're repairing a lot of catch basins, potholes or other assets. The data will tell us if we're fixing the same problem over and over. These insights will help determine whether we should explore a larger fix or a better solution rather than just repairs, so I'm excited about looking at that data in the coming years."
Additionally, Sankar believes the data collection will be pivotal in showcasing the cost savings the city is realizing by paying contractors a flat monthly fee for full-time work. With this insight, city officials can be confident that key performance indicators are not only being met but also achieved with a feasible financial investment.
"We all work for a private company contracted by the City of Tucker, so I'm excited to see the savings the city gains by hiring contractors versus doing a la carte repairs. At the end of the year, I can say, 'Hey, it cost us $784,000 for our contractors, but if we're using an a la carte approach, it may have cost us $1.2 million or whatever that number may be.’, I'm really looking forward to running those reports."
By Laura Burns, PE, IAM, Lead Analyst and Reporting Subject Matter Expert and Annie Short, GISP, IAM, PMP, Project Manager and Technical Supervisor, Woolpert
Images provided by the City of Tucker Public Works Department.