About
the Program
The $2.1 billion Chicago Transit Authority Capital Improvement Program
will provide CTA riders with new and rehabilitated facilities and will
extend the life of the transit system 40 years. At the beginning of
the program, the CTA realized they would need to manage a staggering
amount of design and construction. Concerned that traditional project
planning and management procedures would not successfully handle the
volume, they decided on a Web-based project management solution.
About
KFA’s Role
Kristine Fallon Associates, Inc. works as a subcontractor to Chicago
Transit Partners on the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) FTA-funded
Capital Improvement Program. The role of KFA., on this and a previous
contract, has been to select, configure, rollout, document, train and
support a Web-based project management solution. We performed a needs
analysis, participated in work process redefinition, developed a Request
for Proposals, selected an application service provider (ASP) and developed
workflow templates for both design and construction. In addition to
being the official repository of project documentation of all types
— from memos and meeting minutes to large format engineering drawings
— this system houses, indexes, routes, tracks and reports on critical
business processes such as requests for information (RFIs), submittals,
meeting action items, issue resolution, and so forth.
A critical component of the success of this project was the consistency and uniformity of information and documents available in the website. KFA developed drawing publication standards, general publication standards and scanning specifications.
The project websites we configured and support have been used by over 1,000 users from 113 different organizations working on 50-plus CTA projects. We developed and manage a comprehensive training program that includes computer-based instruction.
This system has been extremely successful and widely recognized. We have documented both increased productivity and reduced cycle times. For example, CTA’s senior engineers are processing 255% as many RFIs per day per person and resolving them in 27% less time. The most highly rated feature of the system by our users is the immediate access to the current and accurate versions of all program documents. Because the system provides a multi-format file viewer, the user does not require any other application software to view and comment on these documents.
The system
was instrumental in CTA receiving ISO 9001-2000 registration for their
quality systems, making them one of only 8 public agencies so registered.
CTA was recognized with the 2003 Driehaus Public Innovator in e-Governance
Award for the ProjectNet implementation and also received a 2004 Constructech
Vision Award in transportation. KFA received the 2002 Illinois Road
and Transportation Builders’ Technology Advancement Award for
the implementation of the system. This CTA system implementation was
also featured as a case study in the Transit Cooperative Research Program
Report 84, e-Transit: Electronic Business Strategies for Public Transportation,
Volume 7, The Successful Adoption of Web-Based Collaborative Software.
