Polk County, Florida’s building permits agency processed 220,000 inspections in 2022. With so many inspections on the docket, the county knew they needed a streamlined, easy-to-use process to keep up with the building needs of the 4^th fastest-growing county in the nation. 

The big picture: The building department was scheduling 800-1000 inspections every day. This required 2 staff members to start bright and early at 5:30am, sorting and scheduling for 32 inspectors. Their combined work efforts per day totaled 20 hours a week, far longer than the building department preferred. Plus, the team was utilizing a cumbersome inspection application that made it challenging for the inspectors to get their work done efficiently.

In both the office and in the field, the building department needed a simpler, more streamlined process for inspection management and resulting which would reduce time and optimize effort.

Their vision was clear: Our Director of Community Development Stan Reichert went deep into Polk County Building’s process, spending time with both managers in the office and inspectors in the field to ensure we designed a solution to meet their needs.

Together we decided their solution would include:

• An inspection resulting solution that was extremely user-friendly
• Automated notifications, including inspection results and AM/PM schedule
• “Up next” button in-app to alert customers when they are next in line
• Easy customer-initiated texting option for inspection scheduling

 (Practically) no training required: Our solution for Polk County allowed them to roll out their new inspection process quickly and easily. The day Atlas Inspections was installed on the inspectors’ iPads, Building Division Official Ryan Wiggins said to his crew, “Don’t worry about it for now. We’re going to do a training soon.” A short while later, he was surprised to hear one of his inspectors say, “I’ll come to the training if you want me to, but it’s so self-explanatory, I’ll just be using it from here on out.”

Further, when Wiggins surveyed the 32 inspectors, he discovered that 85% of the crew “are extremely happy” with the new application. “I’m usually lucky if 35% say they love a new process or tool…This has been one of the only programs that I’ve rolled out that once the inspectors actually started using it, all resistance to change went out the window.”

Delivering true value: Along with our field worker application (Atlas Inspections), the solution came with an inspection management tool (Atlas Insight).  Both elements were crucial in creating more efficiency for the department. Wiggins noted, “Since we have been using the new solution, our productivity has just been through the roof.” By utilizing auto-assignment functionality, the scheduling time has been nearly cut in half from 4 hours to 2 hours every morning. Wiggins expects that as they continue to tweak the auto-assign tools, they will whittle that time down even further.

Streamlined from start to finish: Selectron understood that the department sought to create cohesion across the entire process, from the customer scheduling the initial inspection to the inspector resulting in the field. The collaborative partnership that Selectron and Polk County fostered throughout delivered a solution that solved their unique challenges by transforming processes with efficiency and ease of use.