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Bridges & Special Structures Design

Underbridge inspection units (UBIUs) that reach from above deck to below.
Department of Transportation

Bridges & Special Structures Design

Best Practices for Modernizing MDOT Bridge Design Manual, Guides, and Policy Documentation


Project Number: SPR-1684

Contract Number: 2016-0070 Z5

Status: Complete

Start Date: 01/01/2018

End Date 12/31/2019

Summary:

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) Bridge Design Manual (BDM) is a comprehensive and authoritative reference for the MDOT Design Engineers and consultants. BDM provides specifications and guidelines for the design of bridges and other major structures while the Bridge Design Guides (BDG) provide the guidance for designing and detailing bridge plans. The current record keeping and institutional Knowledge Management (KM) process practiced by MDOT related to BDM and BDG is dependent on key people to piece together background information when considering policy revisions/updates. Thus, this project was initiated to catalogue and organize historical bridge design reference information and to develop a secure KM and Information Management (IM) environment that will provide information of the highest quality that is timely and accessible to facilitate and enhance decision-making and implementation with the goal of promoting uniformity in bridge design practices. The primary activities completed during this project include synthesizing best practices for documenting decisions and managing documents, scanning and archiving historical bridge design policy information, developing a KM framework to document decisions and archival and retrieval of information, and developing procedures and recommendations to implement the KM framework. One of the outcomes of this project is a proposed workflow to capture knowledge through a structured process and documenting in a folder structure. Also, a database structure is proposed to document updates/revision activities in a chronological order with respect to BDM/BDG structure.

 

Publications:

Research Manager Project Manager Performing Organization
 Staff photo of Michael Townley    Western Michigan University logo
 Michael Townley  Bradley Wagner  Western Michigan University