6.6.2.4
Aligning Costs from Different Sources
To incorporate maintenance costs into a TAMP, the costs from multiple sources need to be aligned in regard to both their financial components and their units of accomplishment.
The primary source of misalignment between in-house and contract maintenance costs is that in-house costs are captured through individual components of labor, equipment, materials, and overhead, whereas contract costs are captured based on pay items that combine each of these components. The labor costs captured through maintenance management systems (MMS) may or may not include an estimate of overhead costs. To facilitate comparison of in-house labor costs to contract costs an overhead multiplier should be applied. Best practices for ensuring in-house costs are accurate includes interfacing the maintenance management systems with the agency’s financial or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Once the costs are aligned financially, they must be aligned to common units of accomplishment to allow them to be incorporated into asset management analyses. The Maryland DOT State Highway Administration (MDOTSHA) and Texas DOT (TxDOT) offer two examples of how this alignment can be accomplished. These examples are taken from NCHRP Report 1076, Guide for Incorporating Maintenance Costs into a Transportation Asset Management Plan. TxDOT’s approach requires inspectors on maintenance contracts to enter daily accomplishment information into both the Capital Program management system, SiteManager, and the MMS. MDOTSHA has developed a set of Project Cost Activity (PCA) codes to track in-house maintenance expenses. These codes are incorporated into the records of all maintenance contracts to facilitate alignment of costs and accomplishments.