IMPROVING RESPONSE TIMES TO CUSTOMERS DRAINAGE COMPLAINTS IN QATAR

Abstract

IMPROVING RESPONSE TIMES TO CUSTOMERS DRAINAGE COMPLAINTS IN QATAR

Public Works Authority of Qatar (Ashghal) is an independent body to design, deliver and manage all public buildings and infrastructure related projects of the State of Qatar. Ashghal consists of three main affairs: Building Affairs, Infrastructure Affairs, and Asset Affairs. In addition to two supportive affairs: Shared Services Affairs and Technical Support Affairs. Ashghal Asset affairs main task is to manage the operations and maintenance of its the infrastructural assets through two departments, Roads Maintenance Department (RMD) which is looking after maintaining roads, tunnels, bridges, and its accessories like street lighting equipment and traffic signs. While Drainage Operations & Maintenance Department (DOM) is responsible for all necessary arrangements related to treatment, pumping stations, and all kinds of networks including sewage, groundwater and treated water networks. DOM has a 24/7 central drainage emergency complaint office, located in Ashghal main asset affairs headquarters near Salwa Road at Ain Khalid - Doha, linked directly to Ashghal 24/7 contact center in order to attend any drainage emergency complaint and resolve it within a short time. This study investigates the possibility to improve the response times to customer complaints by decentralizing the existing DOM fleet facility into optimally located sub-facilities or sub-stations around Qatar. In this study, DOM fleet facility case is cast as a facility location allocation problem. The existing complaints capacities and locations covered by the centralized DOM facility are studied and evaluated. Statistical analyses are applied to extract location allocation information from collected data from Ashghal DOM records. The location allocation model is built through GIS solver simulation. Results are evaluated; they indicate that the innovative approach is capable of recommending a more effective and more efficient location-allocation model for DOM drainage emergency complaint systems.