One word to describe yourself: Strategic
Alma Mater: University of Melbourne, Australia
Fun fact about yourself: Love traveling and learning about the different cultures, food, language, landscape and getting a few hikes in.
Favorite station or stop that you have ever visited or frequent (and why): Grand Central station in New York City is grand in more ways than one. Checkout the artwork on the high ceilings, the intricate flooring, the building architecture and 67 train tracks!
Favorite route you have ever ridden or frequent (and why): Barcelona to Madrid on the high-speed Renfe AVE train provided beautiful views, a smooth ride in an unbeatable 2.5 hrs. Best part, the ticket price is refunded if the train is more than 30 minutes late!
Sapna Shah is a certified Professional Engineer and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with 15 years of experience in enterprise asset management, reliability engineering and project management. She leads the asset management program for buses at MTA New York City Transit and delivers on the program’s asset management roadmap.
Shah is credited with pioneering the Bus Asset Condition Assessment Program to understand operational risk, improve safety, reliability and customer satisfaction and meet the FTA Transit Asset Management Plan guidelines. She created the Lifecycle Cost and Reliability Model for buses to prioritize investment decisions and is now working on bringing prognostic maintenance and asset life prediction to the department of buses. She successfully completed a two-year pilot to prove the value of prognostic maintenance using machine learning layered on top of telematics data to reduce in-service breakdowns and the cost of maintenance.
Shah’s interest in improving legacy maintenance practices has led her to use data analysis and process improvement to optimize major maintenance strategies such as the Engine Replacement Strategy and the Bus Overhaul Strategy, reducing waste and improving effectiveness. She is now pivoting her asset management focus to zero-emission buses and infrastructure to create a maintenance program to support a successful transition to a full zero-emission fleet by 2040. She is also leading the transition to a new enterprise asset management system.
Shah recognizes change can be hard to implement and she facilitates reliability studies and training at MTA to ensure the workforce is equipped with the tools to follow her in this asset management journey. She also seeks to increase her knowledge and abilities through active participation in industry networks such as APTA, UITP and the International Bus Benchmarking Group, as well as formal certification programs exemplified through her recently achieved Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Shah works to grow the asset management knowledgebase in the industry by presenting her work at the Transit State of Good Repair conferences in Washington, D.C., over the past three years and separately met with numerous transit agencies across North America to share the results of her pilots and innovations. To increase diversity, inclusion and representation in the transit industry, she cofounded the employee resource group, Empowering Women in Transportation, to increase awareness of the gender gap, amplify the voices of women and provide support and tools for upward mobility. She also mentors New York City high school students in underserved areas through the non-profit company Global Kids to empower the leaders of tomorrow.
Is there a specific experience that led you to where you are today?
I am committed to using data analysis to optimize maintenance practices. My current role leading the Enterprise Asset Management team for the Department of Buses enables me to deliver process improvements to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our maintenance.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Using my engineering and data analysis skills to have a positive impact on New Yorkers and our neighbors as I work to improve the availability and reliability of our assets and through that, our customer experience.
What’s the most challenging part of your job?
Implementing change takes patience, persistence and endless optimism.
Accomplishment you’re most proud of and why?
Pioneering the Asset Condition Assessment Program to objectively quantify the health of our assets, understand our operation risk and improve customer satisfaction, asset reliability and safety, all while meeting the FTA mandated Transit Asset Management Plan.
Best advice/tip/best practice to share from your area of expertise?
Communicate results, whether good or bad, to enable your team and gain the support of stakeholders.
