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pocket pc applications
twg built a solution for a Washington, DC-area
government agency to overhaul its housing inspection system.
 Leveraging best
practices and technology, together we found improvements to save each inspector
1-2 hours a day in administrative tasks and drastically improve data collection
quality. Here’s how:
Government inspectors visit properties to validate complaints about whether
owners are complying with housing codes (e.g., defective smoke detectors,
leaking pipes, trash and debris on the lawn).
For time immemorial inspectors have jotted down inspection observations on paper
then keyed them into a PC back at the office.
Aside from the time lost, problems contributing to reduced quality included
indecipherable handwriting, lost notes, and non-standard procedures.
The optimized inspection solution using the Pocket PC offers the following
features
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Capture results using pick-lists and look-ups (to ensure fields are completed
and consistent);
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Pick the most suitable violation from a set of over 600
(by scrolling, using keyword search, or drilling into a hierarchy);
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Snap pictures with the Pocket PC and automatically associate them with a
violation (to aid abatement and adjudication, alike!);
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Record voice annotations;
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Search the onboard database to create a case while in the field (finding an
address among the 170,000 takes less than one second).
In addition to the features above, case logs and trip reports are automatically
generated, saving time and eliminating errors. Follow-up activities are
automatically created and assigned. And data can be synchronized over the
Internet using cellular technology so management can see the results real-time
and respond immediately.
In this case (though not required), we use Microsoft Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) as the management platform to
schedule and track cases. Both the Pocket PC and
CRM environment is built using Microsoft .NET
(using the compact framework on the Pocket PC).
Contact us today to help you understand the value
proposition of a Pocket PC-based inspection system.
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