DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

While the project with Hawaii DOT was progressing, Four Winds Group was involved on another track with Washington State DOT. Washington State Ferries, the largest ferry boat operator in North America, is part of Washington State DOT and the decision was made to utilize the M-PET^® product for tracking maintenance on all of the ferry vessels and each of the 22 ferry terminals around the Puget Sound area of Washington State. Subsequent to this, Washington State DOT purchased a state wide license for M-PET^® as part of their decision to utilize M-PET^® for tracking highway maintenance.

Based on our success in delivering specific products on time and within cost, WSDOT contracted Four Winds Group to start development and delivery of specific PDA and Web based applications to support field level data base on specified information needs. These products included Striping applications, Winter Operations applications, ESA or Endangered Species Act applications, and M-PET^® on PDA. These products, developed in conjunction with Washington State DOT are available for other state DOT’s through Four Winds Group, Inc.

The core system of the full Four Winds Group suite of products is M-PET^®, which is the application that captures labor, equipment, and parts cost. Utilizing the full capability of M-PET^® gives you the distinct advantage of having the same system operate as the core application to manage work and ensure every maintenance activity is recorded consistently and precisely. In addition, utilizing the features found in the materials management application ensures that M-PET^® is robust enough to be the enterprise system for your maintenance department.

FOUR WINDS GROUP & DOT

Four Winds Group, Inc. has been working with State Transportation Departments almost since the company began. The first project involved Washington State DOT’s I-90 tunnel in Seattle, where as subcontractors, FWG was tasked to deliver and implement a turnkey state of the art maintenance management system that tracked all of the tunnel’s sophisticated equipment. This successful implementation not only led to other DOT contracts, but changed Four Winds Group’s business model. The focus of the business changed to implementation and use of the product, not just delivery and training of the product.

The next DOT projects were primarily other tunnel projects; first the Hanging Lake Tunnel, part of Colorado DOT, the Ted Williams Tunnel, part of the Boston Central Artery Project, and then the H3 Tunnel , part of Hawaii DOT. During the implementation phase of the H3 Tunnel, Hawaii DOT asked about extending the use of the system to track and manage their highway maintenance work. In September 1999, Four Winds Group, Inc. kicked off a prototype project to evaluate the use of the M-PET^® system to track all highway maintenance activities for the island of Kauai, the State’s selected district for the prototype. This prototype was successful and dramatically changed the way this district looked at their maintenance information, from the district engineer to the highway maintenance supervisors. For more information see the prototype report. This project led to significant enhancements and changes to the M-PET^® product as we adapted the product and our business expertise to the role of highway maintenance