Unlocking Labor Productivity in Bus Maintenance Operations
Client Context
A major metropolitan transit agency was experiencing frequent missed pullouts and unreliable bus availability. Leadership suspected a staffing shortage in maintenance but needed to validate whether performance issues were due to resourcing or underlying operational inefficiencies.
Key Challenges
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Chronic issues with bus availability were impacting daily operations and customer service reliability.
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Maintenance leadership asserted that performance shortfalls were due to insufficient staffing levels.
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No clear visibility into whether technician workloads were properly balanced or efficiently managed.
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Potential inefficiencies or wasteful practices within shopfloor operations had not been evaluated or quantified.
Approach & Key Success Factors
EFESO conducted a data-driven and operations-focused labor productivity study to determine root causes and improvement levers:
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Work Order & Payroll Analysis: Evaluated technician time data against shift schedules to assess workforce balance and productivity trends.
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Planner Load Evaluation: Calculated the actual number of direct labor hours assigned by planners to each technician to uncover underutilization or over-allocation.
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Process Observation: Performed detailed shopfloor walk-throughs to identify non-value-added activities and operational inefficiencies.
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Root Cause Validation: Cross-checked field insights with quantitative data to determine whether the staffing shortage claims were substantiated.
Results
25% – 30%
Labor productivity improvement opportunity