Even before an inspector sets foot on a construction site, the logistics of scheduling the inspection can be a hurdle. Greensboro, NC, has made that first step a little easier with a sophisticated new scheduling system. Officially it’s the Automated Attendant for Permits, Plan Review, Inspections and Local Ordinance Enforcement. Those who know it call it APRIL, and it’s making life a lot easier for inspectors and contractors alike. The city’s Building Inspections Division handles building, plumbing, mechanical, and electrical inspections as well as those for erosion and sediment control on construction sites. “We’re faced with big growth in the city of Greensboro, and the growth was bigger than our budget. We were having to do more inspections without adding any new employees,” says Ted Partrick, P.E., plan review manager in the division. Inspectors were fielding as many as 600 phone calls a day and were tied to their desks for a good part of the morning simply scheduling inspections. Updating the city’s aging mainframes–and compensating for what had promised to be some significant Y2K-related problems–gave Greensboro the chance to build a new system. Today a contractor who calls APRIL’s number must key in a permit number, which APRIL checks against the division’s database. “It can check to see if the contractor still has all his insurance and bonds, that he’s a valid contractor, that the permit hasn’t been cancelled, that his accounts payable aren’t too old. If everything checks out, APRIL puts that inspection request onto an inspector’s computer,” explains Partrick. When inspectors log onto their computers each morning, not only the inspection requests but also the inspection histories for each job, which APRIL has automatically pulled from the database, are waiting for them. Inspectors have the flexibility to share workloads when necessary.Inspection results are automatically entered into the database as well. At the contractor’s option, APRIL will fax the results or the contractor can phone APRIL for them. Another alternative is for the contractor to call and speak directly with the inspector. Partrick estimates the new system has freed up one to two hours a day for each inspector, and although that enables the staff to complete more inspections, Partrick says that isn’t necessarily the biggest benefit. “If the inspector can spend five more quality minutes on the job, then that’s a benefit to our customer, the contractors. Our inspectors can spend more time working out problems with people.” The division’s hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Partrick reports that as many as 30% of calls to APRIL come in at other times. “A lot of contractors are there by 6:30 or 7 in the morning. And some of them go back to their office at the end of the day and say, ‘What am I going to do tomorrow? We need to get the inspector in here,’ and they’ll call in for an inspection at 7:30 or 8:00 at night. But we also get inspection calls at 2:00 in the morning. We don’t know why. But we literally get them 24 hours a day.”
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Andrea Weissenbuehler
