Delivering lasting value through digital delivery

How Oklahoma DOT is advancing a connected approach to digital delivery across the infrastructure life cycle

By Katie Brown, State Digital Delivery Engineer, and Michael Pearson, Digital Delivery Manager | Oklahoma Department of Transportation

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) vision is to be an innovative and responsive leader in the transportation field. Our digital delivery team is advancing that vision by transforming project information into a long-term asset and improving how data informs decisions throughout the infrastructure life cycle and across our organization.

Central to our innovative approach is rethinking how project information is created, shared and maintained. Leveraging digital delivery, we can provide a continuous flow of data from design through construction and inspection, preserving valuable information for future operations and asset management.

In 2023, our program gained momentum when we received a $3.08 million Advanced Digital Construction Management Systems grant to expand building information modeling for infrastructure and support workforce development.

Since then, our technology adoption has been bolstered by strong data governance, field testing and industry partnerships. This coordinated approach is helping ODOT advance digital delivery as an agencywide capability, ensuring new technologies are supported by the people and processes needed to deliver lasting value.

Create an agencywide model for implementation

ODOT is advancing digital delivery as an agencywide program built on common standards. These standards allow information to move reliably among designers, contractors and field personnel while providing consistent expectations across projects.

As an initial step, we standardized our computer-aided design workspace and developed supporting modeling standards and digital delivery guidance. Together, these resources define how points, lines, objects and metadata are named and structured, giving downstream users confidence in the information they receive.

This consistency also prepares ODOT to exchange data across technology platforms. Aligning our data structures with open standards, such as Industry Foundation Classes, will help maintain access to project information and preserve its usefulness as software evolves.

Standards deliver value only when employees can understand and apply them. ODOT introduces new workflows incrementally, giving teams time to test each change, refine the process and build the necessary skills before it becomes standard practice. When the department adopts a new design workspace or project information environment, teams make the transition together and understand both how their work is changing and why.

Employee feedback is central to this approach. Formal testing and surveys provide structured input, while conversations with employees using the tools often reveal practical issues that are difficult to anticipate. Incorporating those perspectives helps the digital delivery team develop processes that reflect the realities of project delivery.

By combining consistent standards with coordinated implementation and employee input, ODOT created the framework needed to connect digital models with verified information from the field.

Connect digital design and construction

After establishing a framework for how information would be gathered, ODOT tested the connection between digital models and construction through a utility relocation pilot. Utilities shown in a design model may be relocated, abandoned or installed differently during construction. If those changes are not documented before the utilities are covered, future teams may be left with an incomplete record.

As work progressed, the project team used a field data collection tool to record XYZ coordinates for abandoned lines and newly installed utilities. ODOT survey personnel then validated the coordinates and incorporated them into the design model.

This closed-loop exchange moved ODOT’s digital delivery strategy from concept to application. Designers can use the updated locations for clash detection, while contractors and field personnel gain a reliable record of what moved, what remained and what was abandoned. The verified information also can support future maintenance and asset management.

After demonstrating the process, ODOT began advancing it toward broader implementation. The pilot provides a repeatable model for connecting design and construction data that can be adapted to other assets and workflows as digital delivery expands into construction and inspection.

Advance digital delivery through collaboration

Because digital delivery crosses organizational boundaries, we knew that collaboration with outside partners would be essential to our progress.

Within state government, our partnership with the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) helps move promising technologies into practice. OMES works with us to evaluate tools, introduce them into the state’s technology environment for testing and determine how they will connect with existing systems.

Partnerships with other transportation agencies provide another source of expertise. Colorado Department of Transportation, for example, introduced our team to the field data collection technology used in the utility pilot and shared lessons from its own application. That exchange allowed ODOT to build on an established practice and adapt it to Oklahoma’s needs.

These relationships also strengthen the industry’s collective understanding of digital delivery. As agencies share successes, obstacles and implementation strategies, each organization can advance more efficiently while contributing knowledge that benefits others.

We contribute to that exchange through national pooled-fund studies focused on BIM for infrastructure and BIM for bridges. These efforts allow us to learn from peer agencies, share lessons from our implementation and help advance the transportation industry’s collective understanding of digital delivery.

Carry project knowledge forward

We are preparing to test new data exchanges, identify applications that can improve current workflows and advance capabilities such as open-format model exchange. Each effort will help determine how information created during design and construction can serve the teams responsible for Oklahoma’s transportation system after a project is complete.

Design and construction may span several years, but infrastructure must be operated and maintained for decades. During that time, employees change, assets are modified and technology evolves. Preserving an accurate digital record can give future teams a clearer understanding of how infrastructure was designed, built and altered.

As ODOT expands its approach, each implementation will add to a growing body of knowledge that can benefit both Oklahoma and the broader transportation industry. By demonstrating how strong organizational processes translate technology into usable project data, we can help define a practical path toward connected digital delivery.