EMC Lends A Helping Hand To MassDOT
Officials from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation say the state has saved at least $250,000 through a collaborative effort facilitated by Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. to improve operational efficiency.
Last year, EMC's consulting division agreed to donate consulting services to MassDOT to help state officials evaluate snow and ice removal procedures.
State Rep. Carolyn Dykema, D-Holliston, helped coordinate the initiative by approaching the company and asking if consultants at the technology giant would be willing to donate time and services to help the state save money.
"This was all about process, creating a structured approach to looking at the system and breaking it down into steps," Dykema said.
That, she said, allowed state officials to identify improvement opportunities, resulting in the savings.
Prompt Pay
Thomas Broderick, acting chief engineer for MassDOT, said the review began in September 2010 when Dykema approached EMC and state officials about improving operations at the then newly created MassDOT.
Broderick said it was a good time to consider improvements because the snow and ice removal that had previously been done by two separate organizations - the MassHighway Department and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority - were being condensed into a single unit.
First, EMC officials helped facilitate a review of how the state managed snow and ice removal. Then, a subsequent series of a half-dozen meetings yielded improvements in the process.
One area identified as needing improvement was a more prompt payment system for vendors, Broderick explained. If the state pays a vendor within 10 days, the state receives a discount on the price. While in the past state officials would wait for all vendor invoices from a storm to be collected before processing them, he said the group realized a way to collect the invoices faster, creating some savings.
Perhaps the single biggest advantage EMC was able to bring was a fresh set of eyes, Broderick said.
"They were a different group of people looking at this situation from the outside," he said.
The new perspective, he said, allowed state officials to rethink how they were managing the process and create efficiencies.
It's not the first time EMC consultants have aided state agencies. EMC spokesperson Lesley Ogrodnick said the company has worked with multiple state agencies around the country on a consulting basis. She said outsourcing or automating an inefficient process is not always the right answer; it's important to review the process, then consider the best way it can be improved.
"Our consultants have deep expertise spanning cloud (computing), applications and infrastructure combined with extensive business and industry insight to guide clients as they transform their IT environments and help them gain competitive advantage, increase business agility, and maximize IT efficiency," she wrote in an email.
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