A Circuit of the Americas Tour of Austin’s Formula 1 race track (F1 race track) is something both my wife and I found to be very enjoyable.
Last month the Austin ASQ section sponsored a tour of the Circuit of the Americas, which my wife and I attended. About 60 ASQ members and their guests viewed the F1 facility during the event, where much was described about its processes, challenges, and improvements.
Jim Johnstone did a great job initiating and coordinating the event, which included in the tour discussion behind the scene processes.
Several others from the ASQ Austin Section helped make the tour a success. Francisco Russi set up the pay system for the event. Eva Esparza worked the publicity and ongoing registration tracking status. Cindi Manning sign-in people at the beginning of the tour.
Circuit of the Americas Tour Questions about the Formula 1 Race for Door Prizes
- What was the attendance at the 2012 F1 race? 120,000
- To what depth was the track excavated below the current asphalt surface? 10 ft
- How many turns on the track? 20
- How many of them are right turns? 9
- How tall is the tower? 251 Feet
- How long is the full track? 3.41 miles
Circuit of the Americas Tour Questions about other Aspects of the Facility
- What was the total time required to set up for and tear down the preparations for the 3 day X games? 4 weeks
- How long are the X games contracted to be held at COTA? 4 years
- How many dump trucks of dirt did it take to make the dirt track for the X games? 600
- How many tons of leftover food went to the food bank after the 2013 F1 Race? 7
- How much of the 100 tons of waste from the 2013 F1 Race was recycled? 40 tons
- How much was composted? 10 tons
- How many cars can be parked in the spectator lots? 22,000
- What does PSL stand for? Personal Seat License
- What is the equivalent of PSL for concerts? GSL
- How long is the F1 contract? Currently in year 3 of a 10 year deal.
- How many track configurations are there? 3, Full circuit, National Circuit and Club Circuit
- How long is the National Circuit? 2.3 Mi
- How many ushers and ticket takers are required for Formula 1? Between 900 and 1000
Circuit of the Americas Tour Concert Stage
The Circuit of the Americas Tour indicated a discussion about availability for concerts.
Circuit of the Americas Tour Summary
Many ASQ members are involved in process documentation and improvement. Much was shown in the tour how Circuit of the Americas need well defined processes and they are continually working to improve them.
Again, my wife and I were very impressed with the Circuit of the Americas facility; however, I could not help but wonder what the scorecards for the organization looked like. No matter how well a facility appears, its ongoing process execution needs to be so that there is profitability.
If Circuit of Americas performance tracking is not unlike traditional reporting in other organizations, there are opportunities for improvement in these reports to gain insight to what processes need enhancement to improve/maintain good profitability. Organizations gain additional insight to how their organization is performing if they transition to a predictive performance reporting methodology.
The transition of traditional scorecards to this form of reporting is described in ten illustrations of how organizations can benefit from predictive performance reporting.