Business, Success
ROLLING WITH BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: A MODEL FOR INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS
December 15, 2016 - Business, Success
The North American School Transportation Industry:
-Has over 14,000 Districts across the US and Canada
-Transports over 25,000,000 Students Daily
-480,000 Buses are Utilized Daily
-It is Multi-Functional: Finance, Operations, Fleet Management, Maintenance, Fuel Management, Safety Management, Driver Recruitment, Training and Retention, Routing and Community Relations.
-It is Safety Intensive
-Multiple Technologies are Utilized: Routing Software, Camera Systems, GPS System, Vehicle Inspection Systems, Maintenance Work Order Systems
-Regulated Differently In Each State: There are Variances in Driver Qualifications and Testing, Safety Elements, Bus Specifications and Procurement, Vehicle Inspections and Overall Funding Method.
-Highly Variable District Size: From Districts with 10 Buses to Districts with 1000’s of Buses.
-No Standard Industry Performance Metrics and Common Definitions
-Over 750 Possible Performance Metrics
For this extensive and diverse industry there is ONE INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION:
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PUPIL TRANSPORTATION (NAPT)
To service this large, fragmented and complex industry, the NAPT has a vision of creating a business intelligence platform that would provide its industry with a common set of metrics
and a standard process for analyzing data and presenting actionable information to school administrations and school boards to expedite more informed school transportation business decisions. In addition, the NAPT wanted to empower school districts to improve their operation by being able to share performance data with each other and work together to develop and implement best practices.
“Have No Small Dreams, Make No Small Plans.” Daniel Burnham, Chicago Architect and Urban Designer who developed the master plan for Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871.
The above quote would certainly apply to NAPT’s vision, strategy and plan for the school transportation industry. To fulfill the vision the NAPT developed a plan:
–Build the foundation and infrastructure: Have a Group of 3 School districts act as advanced engineering centers, have a 3 NAPT Board Members act as a Product Advisory Group, create a 17 District Beta Test Group and build a collaborative partnership with the Design and Development Team from STATBOARD.
–Agree on the Product Strategy: A key decision was made to launch the product in modules over time. An analogy to LEGOS was used. The BI Platform would have a limited set of metrics to start so people could learn how to use the system; like a young person with their first LEGO kit. Once you learn how the BI PORTAL operates, additional metrics in functional modules would be added like additional LEGO kits.
–Agree on Product Specifications: The STATBOARD base platform allowed the rapid development of the following functions: Fully Searchable District Profiles, Dashboard and Data Analytics Capability; District to District Data Comparisons; Instant Messaging; Networking and Community Building; Online Collaboration/Project Center; Metric, Currency and Language Conversion and Report Generation, all accessible through a single online BI PORTAL.
–Agree on the commercial model: A subscription model was chosen and it was to be affordable to all districts. It costs less than a set of tires for a single school bus.
–Get it done: From WIREFRAMES to INITIAL PRODUCT LAUNCH took 6 months.
–Brand it: The NAPT has branded the BI PORTAL: APOLLO Essential
–Follow the plan: When complete there will be 170 metrics with supporting dashboards. The staged product launch is as follows:
NOVEMBER 2017: APOLLO ESSENTIAL: Starter Kit with 40 High Level Metrics:
Q1-2017: SAFETY MODULE: Set of 20 Metrics
Q1- 2017: FLEET MODULE: Set of 30 Metrics
Q2-2017: MAINTENANCE MODULE: Set of 30 Metrics
Q2-2017OPERATIONS MODULE: Set of 30 Metrics
Q3-2017FINANCE MODULE: Set of 20 Metrics
“If you build it………….” The Voice, FIELD OF DREAMS, 1989
“They will definitely come.” Terrance Mann, Character, FIELD OF DREAMS, 1989
And they have. Within 8 weeks of launch, the NAPT has a sales pipeline of over 1000 school districts from the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia who have indicated their interest in subscribing to the APOLLO BI PORTAL.
The NAPT Vision Is Being Achieved And The School Transportation Industry Is Now Rolling With Business Intelligence.
