FIRE INSPECTIONS STREAMLINED

Fire departments are faced with unique challenges in the areas of inspection. Usually, fire inspections are a preventative measure and are scheduled less frequently than our typical inspector for a municipality (eg: a building inspector checking a site during an open building permit).

Fire Inspectors refer to the fire-code very frequently, and in the case of violations they are required to enter rote-and-verse of the fire code in their inspection results; as well as their own comments and sketches (or photographs) of the observations made on site.

With Inspector+* the fire department can make use of their own property information, or they can include the building and property information the municipality already has in digital format. Basically, we want the fire inspector to be able to look up a property and check the results of the last inspection. And not just the fire inspection results; the fire inspector can also make use of information logged by ByLaw and Building departments within the city.

INSPECTOR+ FOR FIRE

 Fire Inspectors can set up Inspector+ "out of the box" for their City. The only customization required for the setup of the fire department is the verification that the fire code tables are correct, that the inspectors are all detailed in the setup, and the property data be loaded from any legacy database available city-wide.

The unique challenges of fire inspection are not limited to only code-violations, in many cases a completely customized response and type of notice is required: Inspector+ allows all these custom additions to be made in the field as well as set up from the server. A single inspector can modify the "pull downs" available to speed up the inspection process and individualize their inspection methods without violating the City's methodology.

ADMINISTRATION

 Using Inspector+ for Fire, the inspectors are typically all managed centrally. To ensure no duplication of schedules as well as managing for the conditions where an inspector may be unavailable for the day (sickness etc.), the administrator of Inspector+ in the fire department has a number of highly flexible methods to ensure no task is left undone at the end of the day.

ADMIN is the Server application used to control the Inspector+ setups. The Administrator can create teams of inspectors, clone schedules and even change Palm setups in the field. This highly flexible solution ensures that any inspector can see any other inspector's schedule and results, as well as call down customized vocabulary and other files specific to the single inspector's method of inspection.

From ADMIN the Chief can set up inspectors inspections to automatically fail or pass based on the violations - or allow the inspectors themselves to set failure conditions for inspections. Literally dozens of customizable features which can be set up in ADMIN (and duplicated on the field handheld units) can be used to control the flow of inspections and the level of detail inspected.

SPEED

 Inspector+ for Fire is quick. Like all the members of the Inspector+ family, Fire inspections can be sped up to the point we can start to calculate return on investment. Using Inspector+ for Fire completely eliminates the transcription of results and the insertion of Code into inspection "leave behinds".

On average, on-site, there are between 5 and 10 code violations on a building (based on typical hardcopies we see in fire departments) - to manually write them out takes approximately 15 minutes to generate the "leave behind" on the property. Then there are the type-ups back at the Station; then the filing; then the scheduling for tomorrow (all usually occurring after 4pm sometime).

With Inspector+ there is NO data entry time to worry about, once the violations have been selected the hardcopy is preformatted - just wait for the printer to finish printing and the inspector is back on the road heading for the next inspection.

And there is NO filing, NO keying in the results and no more scheduling worries - in fact the inspector really has no reason to return to the fire station except to Synch the handheld unit (and that can be done over a cellphone or from home!).


WANT TO KNOW MORE......?........
 CLICK HERE FOR A FREE DEMO COPY OF INSPECTOR+

* Pen Systems' products are migrating to a Suite of PenPAL and MobilePAL solutions names and licenses. These will be phased in during 2008 and 2009 as part of the ongoing upgrade programme and will be fully compatible with existing software in use (eg: Inspector+, Sidewalker etc).


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