How Oneida County is Creating a Smarter, More Connected Future for its Public Works Organization

Uncovering Operational Inefficiencies

Oneida County took its time to implement Asset Essentials throughout its public works department, garnering new learnings at every step, says Matthew Baisley, Commissioner of Public Works.

Managers would only print out work orders and give them to technicians, “to help them get accustomed to seeing the work orders and completing work that way,” Baisley says. When the work was complete, technicians would report back to their supervisors, who would update the system. Once the change was absorbed, the team moved to using the Asset Essentials app on their mobile devices while in the field to increase their maintenance efficiency and save workers time.

As their work became more documented and organized within the CMMS, Oneida County uncovered some inefficiencies. For example, Baisley set certain days for deliveries in certain parts of the county, like only delivering to Utica on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This helped the division save time and money, while adding more predictability to workers’ schedules. “Asset Essentials has been a great tool to really get a view on what we were doing as a department and how we were doing it,” Baisley says.

Boosting Visibility Across Sites

Oneida County’s highways operation has three district garages across the county, and they traditionally operated in silos. Implementing Brightly’s Asset Management system has allowed the team to standardize processes and procedures across the entire operation. “We can send personnel from one garage to another, and they can hit the ground running because we’re doing everything in a standard way now,” Baisley says.

In addition to gaining visibility across sites, the software has also allowed Oneida County to easily see the tasks and procedures handled by each employee. In the past, when longtime employees retired or left, they took a great deal of institutional knowledge with them. But now that every task is organized as a work order in the CMMS, the organization can keep that knowledge and allow for cross-training when needed.

“We encourage employees to include as much information as possible about what they do,” Baisley says. “It helps them too because if they’re on vacation, we won’t have to bother them if the information is in the system for us to handle it. It’s really created a better team atmosphere because everyone’s working together instead of just doing their own thing.”

Using Data to Plan Ahead

After the public work employees grew more accustomed to Asset Essentials, the department began allowing building occupants to start entering work orders when they observed problems. This has helped the facilities team learn about potential problems faster and save time and money by handling maintenance issues before they get worse.

“People are more comfortable entering an online work order than calling about something that may not appear to be a big deal,” Baisley says. “If they keep putting it off, it might eventually become a big problem. Because they have the ability to enter work orders, we’re more informed about what’s going on.”

Oneida County also recently started using Brightly Predictor to forecast future capital needs for their Highways & Bridges division and the Buildings & Grounds division. One of the first projects for Predictor is to “right size our fleet,” Baisley says.

Starting in July 2025, Oneida County will be using Predictor to develop and make capital requests for the coming year.