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5 Benefits Of Using Digital Inspection Software In 2023

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The global pandemic raised many questions about which sectors of the economy are essential and non-essential. It made people reevaluate the importance of some industries over others. As a result, governments finally started addressing the need for digital transformation in overlooked areas such as inspections.

Resource optimization and business scheduling software

CASE STUDY: How a regulatory agency cut costs with resource scheduling software?
          • reducing the scheduling time with up to 75%
          • increasing efficiency of operations with 40%
          • fully eliminating errors in the resource allocation process.
Download the case study.

 

Inspection management operations are taking a significant percentage of the annual spending of government agencies. At the same time, it’s a process that is crucial to keeping the public health and safety. That’s why we’re witnessing rising demand for inspection management solutions. So here comes the burning question: what problems are being solved with such tools? What are the benefits that inspection management platforms bring to the regulatory agencies?

Related: How Route Optimisation Software Can Reduce the Costs of Inspections?

  1. Less manual work with automated AI inspection software

The daily inspection management process meets a lot of challenges. They usually impact efficiency in the regulators’ offices. Good digital transformation solutions can optimise the entire end-to-end inspection process by providing digital infrastructure for its execution. 

Canalix is a digital inspection platform that transforms inspection management with automation and AI optimisation. These technologies ensure optimised delivery of service that helps regulators cut costs and boost productivity.

2. Fast inspection performance

The data-driven automation in inspections brings a whole pie of benefits. One of these benefits is the speeding up of operations. Everything happens faster by using digital infrastructure for inspection planning, scheduling, execution, and reporting. The real-time electronic interaction between different cases and involved parties drives action for seconds. Without using inspection software, these interactions could take from days to weeks because of the complexity of regulatory case management. But with proper inspection software, this period can be reduced to just a few clicks of the mouse.

3. Improved inspection compliance

Regulations are constantly being updated. Sometimes changes in rules may cause time-consuming restructuring of the inspection management process. A good digital inspection platform can adopt new compliance rules for seconds and then apply them in the whole work process. Automation saves hundreds of hours of manual implementation that is always accompanied by human errors. The use of inspection software can optimise the transition between new regulations and their enforcement and eliminate possible mistakes.

Related: How AI Is Changing The Game For Inspection Software?

4. Transparency and Public Trust

The cloud-based digital inspection platform can ensure real-time access to inspection reports. That allows faster delivery of the inspection results to the interested parties. On the one hand, it improves transparency, and on the other hand, this helps maintain public trust, especially when we talk about government case management.

5. Remote Access To Inspection Services

In challenging times of social distance, digital platforms for inspection management services have a significant role in maintaining this process alive. It means that regulatory enforcement activity in risky places like social care institutions should be transformed with compliance with the social distance rules. That is where remote inspection software and self-inspection solutions can help regulators do their work and comply with the new normal’s social distance rules.

Related: Why self-service inspections are important?

There are many levels in the structure of the inspection management process. Good software will support every level of it. Canalix is designed to meet the needs of companies focused on inspection driven regulatory enforcement. If you’re looking for a specific business optimisation solution that addresses the needs of the inspection process, contact us now.

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The essential KPIs for inspection management software

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For inspection team leaders in regulatory agencies is essential to track the KPIs of inspection performance. Those are the metrics that allow managers to track the performance of inspection teams and check whether the pre-defined objectives are met. Inspection KPIs are the indicators that define the success of operations in the inspection process. By tracking their values, team leaders can assess whether the inspection program is working well or something needs to be changed to meet the regulator’s goals in terms of costs and performance.

Is there a universal list of essential KPIs in inspection management?

There is no universal list of KPIs. The inspection performance indicators vary based on the inspection process in different regulators and what kind of resources it involves – field inspection technicians, inspectors for on-site checks, remote checks, technical equipment for special inspections, etc. Inspection team leaders have different responsibilities depending on the regulatory sector, and KPIs vary. So let’s look at the most common roles in the inspection process and the KPIs that are essential to be tracked with inspection management system.

Resource optimization and business scheduling software

CASE STUDY: OPTIMISING THE RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN REGULATORY AGENCY
          • reducing the scheduling time with up to 75%
          • increasing efficiency of operations with 40%
          • fully eliminating errors in the resource allocation process.
Download the case study.

KPIs for Inspection Scheduling

The time needed to appoint an inspection schedule

Inspection scheduling may be a very time-consuming endeavour. Using resource scheduling software for inspections is to improve productivity. In that sense, the more inspection jobs being assigned to an inspector for an amount of time, the better. When regulators switch to an inspection management software from a paper-based process, one of the most essential metrics they should track is scheduling an inspection and whether it is done faster than the old ways of work.

Related: Digital optimisation in inspection services

Time to first contact on high-risk inspection requests

What if many low-risk jobs are blocking the timely processing of high-risk inspections? The time needed to make the first contact from the regulatory agency’s end to the inspected entity is crucial for high-risk cases. If the inspection software has the required data and a reliable engine that can assess the risk category of each job in the backlog correctly, then the time to first contact on high-risk inspections can be made faster. Two things are needed to track and improve this KPI:

    • A self-service portal when inspection data is captured
    • AI engine that automatically assesses the risk category of each inspection request and automatically assigns an on-site check by an inspector to the high-risk ones

Related: Best practices in risk-based inspection management

Travel time between inspections jobs

When regulators are sending inspectors to do jobs that are too far away from each other, it means that:

1) their time is not utilised well

2)the agency is losing money due to ineffective scheduling

3) the inspector’s productivity is declining.

Making the most optimal route for inspectors and automatically reshuffling resources in case of a last-minute schedule change is a reliable tool to minimise the travel time between inspections. This is a KPI that must be tracked for inspection scheduling optimisation. 

 

route otpimisation software

Essential KPIs for Inspection Managers (desk workers)

Inspection utilisation time

What if inspectors spend time on manual tasks – like filling paper checklists – that eats their time and prevent them from completing enough inspections for a day? The time needed for task completion should be tracked to improve utilisation if some tasks take unexpectedly longer than required. Giving inspectors mobile devices to capture details like photos and video and directly upload them to the cloud can improve their time utilisation and reduce unnecessary manual tasks.

Related: Implementing resource scheduling in the inspection workflow

KPIs for on-site inspectors, remote inspectors & field technicians

Customer surveys

The citizens are the end customer of public sector operators such as regulatory agencies. Brief customer surveys are a great way to evaluate whether any transformation inspection-wise improves the quality of inspection service for the citizens. If the surveys show that citizens are satisfied with the inspection service, it’s a good indicator that things are working. If not, it might have something to do with other KPIs, such as response time, timely kept schedules, etc. 

Related: How our inspection software customers achieve significant ROI?

How Canalix transforms the world of regulatory inspections?

Inspection completion rate

If the number of inspections being completed for a month is growing over time, performance is good. If not – then time utilisation should be paid attention to. 

Failed inspection attempts and repeat visits

If an inspector has too many failed inspections in his schedule, probably he should be assigned to lower complexity inspections, or his profile should be checked if he has rightfully set qualifications. When the trends show that the performance is below average – a double check should be made on the inspector’s profile and on the inspection data that is being captured. If data quality can be improved, then perhaps the inspector won’t have to do repeat visits.

Related: 6 reasons why regulators need resource scheduling software for on-site inspections

How does inspection management software make KPI tracking easy?

Cloud, AI and high-configuration technology can make it a lot easier for regulators to track their inspection KPIs. The right mix of technology can serve as a comprehensive solution to:

  • Connect different data sources without having to shuffle piles of paper.
  • Track, analyse and understand inspection data in a way that will enable us to form a strategy and make decisions faster.
  • Automate inspection reporting that is understandable for its intended audience. 
  • Achieve a new level of resource optimisation

Related: Why real-time data is vital for inspection tracking?

Inspection management software for better inspection scheduling and resource utilisation

It’s easy to write and talk about tracking inspection KPIs and their importance. But when it comes to transforming old legacy systems into digital inspection systems, things look scary. That’s why Canalix offers end-to-end inspection management solutions that enable them to track essential KPIs to identify weak spots and potential for optimisation. With tools to reshape resource management, travel routes, schedule optimisations etc., regulators can start walking their rode on the way to better inspection service with the necessary cost optimisation. 

Book a demo with us today! Or ask us for a free 15-min product tour.

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How to improve safety strategy with inspection software?

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Team-leads of inspection teams in regulatory agencies often have problems with knowing what’s happening during safety inspections on high-risk cases. Are the complex inspection procedures kept from A to Z? Is there something missing that may increase the risk of hazard? ‘Team leaders can hardly get their eyes on these data when the process is being performed with paper checklists and documents. That’s why they need a digital safety inspections tool. That way, they can pull inspection data from different inspectors, inspectees, risk categories and have a clear vision of what’s going on.

The most prominent benefits of adopting inspection management software are connected with the strategic plans of regulators to combat the challenges they face – reducing operational costs and improving efficiency and quality of inspections. But these priorities must also go hand to hand with enhancing the safety strategy. In the world of regulatory compliance, integration is everything. So it’s safe to say that the fact there are already integrated inspection platforms on the market helps regulators improve their safety strategies in line with other cost-reduction priorities.

So how does a digital inspection platform works to enable regulators to track and improve safety?

Inspection team-leads have one centralised source of data

Are inspectors able to capture the risk factors that require preventative maintenance? This type of question can hardly be answered if a team leader has to check data every week, delivered in a paper folder. 

Being able to download reports and data from a cloud-based inspection platform makes the needed difference. That way, regulatory executives and team leaders can have a standardised method of measuring the system’s efficiency and how it compares to improving safety.

Making inspection reports effective by removing the waiting

inspection tracking software

Inspection tracking with a paper-based system is complicated. By the time you start making sense of the data, the data becomes outdated. That’s why a digital inspection report solution is the key that regulators need to combat manual report processing. That’s the most effective way to extract required data into a dashboard and have an inspection report that makes sense without spending tons of time going through paper folders and pdf files all over your mailbox. 

Read more: How to combat the impacts of resource-constrained inspection scheduling?

Document Workflow

 

With a paper-based inspection management system, it’s hard to update every member of an inspection team with real-time data, reports and other documents. Printing documents and then distributing their content manually to everyone’s desk is complicated. With a digital inspection tool, that’s not necessary anymore because everyone can see all relevant documents uploaded in the tasks he’s assigned.

 

Inspectors can use tech as their assistance

The use of pen and paper is one of the great assistance the civilisation invented. But technology is even better. Inspectors can use their mobile devices while performing digital inspections to capture photos or videos and attach them to the inspection file in the cloud. With cloud inspection software, inspectors can upload additional files while being on-site. If they have to go back to the office and present the other files later, the efficiency of inspections may suffer. Enabling inspectors to provide additional context while making inspections is a sure way to improve safety.

Related: How SaaS inspection platforms can help regulators build resiliency after the pandemic?

 

Make decisions faster

In 2022 regulators can’t reduce operational costs by using paper-based inspection systems. The use of an integrated inspection management platform is the way for inspection team leaders to make smarter decisions towards improving public safety and compliance. Nonetheless, it enables them to translate their decisions about improving safety better to relevant decision-makers and initiate the needed changes faster. 

Do you want to know what an integrated inspection platform looks like? Book a free product tour with Canalix.

 

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Why real-time data is important for inspection tracking and how it improves safety?

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The use of proper inspection tracking software is crucial for the ability of regulators to solve problems on and off-site. This ability can be negatively affected by incorrect data, missed actions during an inspection, etc. Using a standalone inspection tracking tool and other tools may not work well enough. Or the regulator may not be using an inspection tracking tool at all. Whatever the reason, there is a solution that solves the problems with tracking issues and risks in regulatory inspections.

Collaboration in inspection teams

Collaboration is the key to making inspections happen faster. The corrective nature of inspection checks requires special attention to the collaborative features an inspection software must provide to regulators. Our clients from the regulatory sector report that collaboration via inspection management platform reduces the time needed to complete actions during inspections. That enables inspection teams to move on to the next tasks in their to-do list faster than before.

Resource optimization and business scheduling software

CASE STUDY: How a regulatory agency cut costs with resource scheduling software?
          • reducing the scheduling time with up to 75%
          • increasing efficiency of operations with 40%
          • fully eliminating errors in the resource allocation process.
Download the case study.

How inspection teams’ collaboration is enabled on inspection platforms?

A digital document management system plays a crucial role in collaboration. Canalix enables inspection teams to connect and share documents in real-time to deliver this kind of usability so that other inspection team members can see relevant data when they need it. This document management function helps inspection teams not only in terms of collaboration but also for:

Communication

When an inspection system operates digitally, it’s easy to make updates on communication with inspection teams automatically in real-time. Our clients share that they appreciate highly the clear channel of communication that Canalix provided for them. 

Inspection tracking

With a digital inspection management system like Canalix is far easier to monitor and track the high-risk cases and their potential risks. First, the digital format allows inspection teams to monitor inspections over time with just a few clicks. They don’t have to dig in a pile of paper. Monitoring and tracking risks with a historical perspective enable inspection teams to handle potential threats and improve safety.

Automated inspection reports with easy sharing

It’s remarkable that a machine automatically generates inspection reports based on inspection data. But it’s even cooler to share the essential data with clients, inspectors, administrators or other authorised personnel. Depending on the information access of different groups, the reports can be easily modified to include only tailored information for their level of access.

inspection management analytics software

How real-time data makes the inspection tracking system more efficient?

When our inspections are done faster, safety is ensured more efficiently. It’s all due to a variety of factors. But convenient inspection tracking and monitoring, digital collaboration and real-time data are the most important. 

When these functionalities are accessible on an inspection platform in the cloud, inspection teams can reach their efficiency potential on various devices. Canalix is an inspection platform that delivers this model to regulatory inspection teams. Request a free product tour here.

Related: How to optimise inspection services?

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Insurance Loss Control Inspections – How To Optimise Risk Assessment?

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Insurance carriers spend hundreds of millions on inspection programs each year. However, researches report that 75% of insurance loss control inspections bring no actionable information to optimise losses. These numbers point that something is being handled wrong in the inspection management process. This is why inspection carriers are looking for inspection optimization strategies that can improve the risk assessment and reduce the costs of the inspection program. So how can we build up a scenario where insurance loss control inspections are bringing more value without being too expensive?

Bringing value with insurance loss control inspections

When we speak of efficiency in inspection management, mentioning digital transformation is inevitable. A lot of companies, including insurance carriers, are sticking to the old fashion pen and paper inspection model. But performing digital insurance inspections and improving the quality of the process is not a guarantee for efficiency. The digital transformation start with changing the workflow but ends with the way of thinking.

Changing they way of thinking in risk assessment

The performing of risk assessment is a process based on on-site field inspections. The goal of field inspections is to gather data, assess risk factors, record conditions for hazards or other variables that may increase the insurance loss potential. Controlling the loss potential is not very efficient when only general risk factors – like age and value – are used as risk indicators. This is where the new thinking is required to come at play.

Many large insurance carriers spend up to 3 % of their annual budgets on field inspections. Also many of them are outsourcing this process so that they can achieve cost optimisation. In other words optimizing costs of field inspections is definitely a priority.
A few years ago MSB reviewed approximately 2 million field inspection projects for insurance carriers. According to their findings only 25% of the inspections were bringing back actionable information. It means that only 25% of the information helped carriers to actually mitigate a risk by taking an action.

Data suggests that the insurance loss control inspections are tightly associated with traditional guidelines like age and value that are not always on a risk-specific basis. Looking at the 25 percent from the MSB review statistic, we can assume that the industry is spending hundreds of millions per year for inspections that are not bringing much valuable actionable information.

Optimising insurance loss control inspection programs

It all starts with the use of proper data. The detailed and pre-defined inspection checklists that aim to identify specific risks are the key to achieve this. The adoption of inspection management platform, designed for the use of insurance loss control programs is a good starting point towards optimisation. Such inspection platform must be able to provide automated risk assessment based on the data that is being gathered.

Adopting the right inspection management solution can be the key to solving the inspection optimisation problem of insurance loss control programs.

Related: The Complexity of Inspection Management Made Simple

How to implement insurance loss control inspection program?

The key word here is configurability. Your need to optimise loss control inspections? Good. Then aim for a configurable inspection management software. There are  hundreds of kinds of risks and inspection models. The inspection software must be able to solve this problem by offering a configurable solution designed for the specific needs of the insurance company. That’s why insurance carriers need proof-of-concept that will allow them to test if the risk-specific inspection approach can actually deliver more valuable data.

Related: How To Approach Cost Efficient Cloud Adoption?

How proof-of-concept helps you decide?

By projecting a demo environment designed for specific inspection programs, insurance carriers can test first-hand how the new way of thinking can work for them. This is an important insight that can help them decide if they want to put their money on specific inspection loss control software. Are you ready to change your insurance loss control inspection program? Then contact us.

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Health and Safety Inspection Management Tips For 2022

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If we look at the official data for non-fatal accidents at work in the EU, the statistic will show us graphs that either go up or down. Going up means more accidents at work while going down means the opposite. More accidents mean more expenses. So the reasonable question here for regulators and private enterprises subject to regulations is: how to control the rate of work accidents and keep it down? The indirect answer is: by optimising the safety inspection program of the organisation. You’ll find the more direct answer, one that tells exactly how to do that, below.

The primary purpose of optimising the safety inspection programs is to ensure:

  1. Worker’s safety

Keeping the workforce safe ensures the long-term stability of the company’s worker retention program

2. Good reputation

An organisation with a low rate of work accidents has a good reputation. It’s an advantage and should be recognised as such.

3. No disruption of operations

The safety of the work environment improves productivity and reduces the disruption of operations. Avoiding disruptions helps the company keep their work on a budget.

4. No fines by regulators

Regulations are being updated regularly. That’s why it’s essential to use an inspection solution that ensures that rules are being followed in an up to date manner because fines may seriously sidetrack the company’s plan.

Resource optimization and business scheduling software

CASE STUDY: How a regulatory agency cut costs with resource scheduling software?
          • reducing the scheduling time with up to 75%
          • increasing efficiency of operations with 40%
          • fully eliminating errors in the resource allocation process.
Download the case study.

A good safety inspection program may be divided into three components:

Inspection planning & scheduling

  • The inspection planning and scheduling component need constant optimising because a good plan can improve resource utilisation and prevent mistakes.

Inspection execution

  • The inspection execution component is the part that can significantly improve the speed and quality of inspections. The use of technology can transform the work of inspectors by allowing them to use pre-defined inspection checklists or benefit from an entirely digital document management system. The digital infrastructure of the inspection management process can remove the manual work that often slows down inspectors.

Training

  • The digital infrastructure allows inspectors to gain better visibility on inspection outcomes and therefore recommend relevant actions and training to the workers to reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace.

modular digital transformationWhy is modularity crucial for your digital transformation strategy in 2022?

Download this whitepaper to understand:

        • The advantages of modular digital transformation
        • The vital architectural practices and technologies that enable modular transformation
        • Migration strategies to minimize disruption for the business and customers
        • How Jobtimizer can help public sector organisations make the transition
        • How a regulatory agency in the UK is benefitting from a modular approach

 

Read it now.

The importance of digitising the safety inspection checklists

What’s the best way for an inspector to identify risks during safety inspection? Answer: by following a checklist. When everything’s written down on a list, the inspector has a better chance to cover all of the potential risks. The process can be improved even more with a digital inspection management system. When regulatory bodies adopt software solutions for safety inspections, the pre-defined checklists can be easily implemented into the work process of inspectors. For different types of safety inspections, there can be configured specific checklists.

If we step out of the regulatory inspections field and look at the general impact of checklists, we’ll see a double confirmation about their benefits. A lot of research points out that checklists help experts execute their projects more efficiently. In an essential field like safety inspections, the power of checklists must be utilised to ensure the well-being of workers and the community.

Checklists remind us of the minimum necessary steps and make them explicit. They offer the possibility of verification and instil a kind of discipline of higher performance.

Source: Checklists help eliminate mistakes and improve efficiency.

Why must a safety inspection software have configurable checklists?

Safety inspections are complex, so high configuration must be a part of the requirements of any inspection management solution. A good configurable inspection software will allow regulatory agencies to configure specific checklists for each type of safety inspection – safety inspections for tools and equipment, electrical concerns, scaffolding, etc. Checklists are a very overlooked component in inspection programs. Their function is a gamechanger when it comes to data gathering. Because only detailed and correctly gathered data may generate a valuable inspection report. 

The importance of optimising safety inspection reports

The outcome of a safety inspection ends in a report. The report aims to recommend corrective actions to reduce the risks of hazards in the future. However, a report may not be efficient if the best practices aren’t followed.

The benefits that safety inspection reports bring are:

  1. Capturing error-free inspection data

A good inspection checklist is key to gathering sufficient error-free data that can be exported into an inspection report.

2. Real-time documenting of inspections

Recording inspections in real-time allows inspectors to capture their observations fully. Performing field inspections with a tablet will enable them to capture images in the meantime and attach them to the reporting file. The image can make feedback clear.

3. Complete visibility over inspection data

The digital gathering of inspection data allows inspectors to have better visibility over the inspected subjects. The leverage on data can make inspections more risk-focused and help mitigate risks and improve overall compliance.

4. Make safety inspection reports readable.

Big words and complex sentences have no place in inspection reports. Reports must be understandable and clear. No unreadable handwriting! Automating the generation of inspection reports based on the gathered data and collected observations can ensure the readability of the information.

How to find the right safety inspection software?

The choice of inspection management system depends on the organisation’s strategy. If a government agency follows a cloud-first strategy, its focus must be on cloud inspection services. If the organisation is focused on health and food safety, they should aim at a solution specialising in this sector. The same applies to enterprises that want to transform their internal inspections and audits.

Two rules for preparing safety inspection research:

  1. Find something that will answer your goals – cloud-based solution or on-premise solution?
  2. Find something that will be an excellent fit for your use case – general safety inspections, food safety inspections, environmental inspections, etc.

Related: All you need to know about cloud strategy in government agencies

Prepare a list of requirements and start your research. Then reach out to potential suppliers and book a Product tour or a Demo session that can highlight the features that can provide the execution of the best practices we described above. The next reasonable step would be to order a proof of concept.

Are you looking for safety inspection software? Contact us now, and we’ll help your select the best solution for your safety inspection requirements.

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Inspection optimisation: How to cut fuel costs with route optimisation?

Route optimisation sounds like a thing that you’d expect Google Maps to do for you. But in the work environment of regulatory enforcement and inspection management, inspectors would think otherwise.

Let’s take, for example, the job of the inspector who does construction site inspections every day. Every inspection site includes a list of areas that need inspection checks to ensure compliance with safety standards and other regulations. Sometimes these lists contain hundreds of checkpoints. The small details surrounding the critical work of inspectors make the process slow. Often, inspectors would spend all they travel long distances to inspect one construction site with high priority status and requirement for a high skillset. If the volume of inspection requests grows with time, the Inspectorate will have to hire more inspectors or make the hired ones work and travel more. In both cases, it will mean more expenses.

The old fashioned way of solving the issue with the growth of workload in inspections would be to hire more inspectors and send them to more work spots. But this is also a costly way. It’s the way of the regulatory agencies that are still not going through digital transformation. The question is, what other way can we offer to them?

Resource optimization and business scheduling software

CASE STUDY: How a regulatory agency cut costs with resource scheduling software?
          • reducing the scheduling time with up to 75%
          • increasing efficiency of operations with 40%
          • fully eliminating errors in the resource allocation process.
Download the case study.

What’s the way to reduce the cost of inspections?

The inspection cost depends on the inspector’s location, distance to the inspection site, and inspector’s salary, of course. Suppose we set up manually the inspection scheduling calendar. In that case, the most complex inspection cases will go to the most qualified inspectors. Sometimes, the most qualified inspectors will have to cover the less inspection ground because of the travelling. That is expensive for many reasons. The inspection management software can bring drastic improvements in inspection optimisation by reducing travel time and fuel costs.

How to optimise routing with inspection software?

Imagine that each inspection request is being automatically assigned with a complexity score that considers the location, availability and skillset of all inspectors. Now imagine that this software can match inspectors with a relevant case. And all that while the software is mapping the most optimal inspection routes and considers all of the constraints. That sounds too good to be true. Data-driven automation and AI come into play and make the life of inspectors and everyone in the regulatory agencies easier and way less expensive.

The example with the construction site inspections is not a limit. This kind of inspection optimisation can be applied to other regulatory areas – food safety inspections, fire inspections, education inspections, energy inspections, insurance loss control inspections, etc.

scheduling resource optimisation

How route optimisation changes things for regulators and enterprises?

When we talk about route optimisation, we don’t mean Google Maps. It is more than just finding the shortest available route between points A and B. It’s about finding the most efficient path for someone at point X and going through points A, B, C, D, E and F and spending different amounts of time for inspection. The inspector must make some stops between these points and spend different amounts of time at each one. Finding the most efficient route for such a complex task is not easy to be done manually. That’s why good inspection management software with route optimisation features is needed.

Summary of the inspection optimisation benefits:

Route optimisation reduces the costs of inspections, improves inspectors’ efficiency, and allows them to cover more inspection ground by travelling less and ultimately safe their time.

Is Canalix a route optimisation software?

Canalix is an inspection management solution focused on transforming the inspection model of regulators and enterprises. Route optimisation is a crucial AI-powered feature of the software. Our clients use it not just for transforming inspection processes but also for a wide variety of resource scheduling solutions. Our customer success data shows that our clients reduced the distance travelled by inspectors by up to 40% and managed to cut costs while improving the inspection process.

Do you want an estimate of how much route optimisation can reduce the costs of inspections in your company? Contact us now.

Related: Why do you have to try a proof-of-concept before buying an inspection management software?

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Digital Transformation in Food Safety Inspections – Why It Matters?

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One of the strictest regulation policies in the EU is in the field of food safety. Food safety concerns directly the health of people and their quality of life. That’s why there is strong sensibility to keeping compliance with regulation from the side of the food industry and enforcing regulations from the side of regulatory agencies.

The growing food safety culture leads to the adoption of new technological solutions that can help regulators transform their food inspection model. However, some countries are struggling with the digital transformation of the food safety inspections more than others. In a culture with growing food safety awareness and improved regulatory practices, transforming the inspection management model can make foods even safer.  That’s why the adoption of IT infrastructures in the food safety inspection model is a step that regulators must be taking on (if they haven’t yet).

What can inspection management software do for food safety inspections?

Ditch the paper, embrace the digital

Imagine the paperwork that food safety inspectors and other administrative entities must do to ensure the flow of inspection management. Inspections checklists, copies of documents such as permits, orders, maps, photos of inspection site, etc. It’s a big load of paperwork. Now if we imagine that the paper is being replaced by software that allows everyone to his job digitally, it won’t be hard to see the benefits in terms of productivity.

But the question is how a digital document management system can make foods safer? The answer is in the data. It’s very challenging to organize and present data that is based on paper documents spread all over the cabinets of a food inspection agency. If this data is collected and organized via sophisticated inspection management software, then it can be visualized, analyzed and used for identifying trends and building a better visibility on food inspections. In other words data can be used for making smarter and faster decision making that directly affects the optimisation of inspections.

The bonus thing: the use of inspection software with integrated document management system can improve the inspection management process not only in food regulatory agencies, but also in the food industry itself (by serving as a digital infrastructure for internal inspections and audits).

Inspectors inspect more while working less

If the digital document management safes time for inspectors, how can we enable them to use this time to cover more inspection sites and cases? Digital transformation allows regulatory agencies to leverage on technologies such as AI to optimise inspection scheduling and inspection routes so that inspectors can be send on the most optimal inspection routes without causing a conflict in their schedules. The application of such AI-driven inspection management can ultimately lead to long-term cost savings for the regulators because of the optimized resource utilization.

Related: How to reduce the cost of inspections with routing optimisation?

Reduce human errors with the help of data and AI

An employee of the Food Safety Agency may assign wrongfully skilled inspectors to an inspection case. As a result there will be a lot of time and costs wasted for nothing. Automating food safety inspections with the use of data and AI can dramatically reduce the making of such mistakes. The effect of such optimisation can be seen from miles. The question is why it takes so long for the public sector to turn to new technologies that can ensure the safety of our communities?

Related: How AI can transform inspections?

How a food regulator embraces digital transformation?

It all starts with strategy. Your organization has a digital transformation strategy? Good. Then it will be easy for the CIO to prioritize the adoption of inspection software for food safety. Even if your organization doesn’t have a strategy, now is the time to make one.

Contact Canalix here, if you need food safety inspection software and a digital transformation strategy.

Related: Understanding a digital transformation strategy

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Public Sector: How To Approach Digital Acceleration With Inspections?

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“This will change everything” was quite a popular phrase at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world of business this phrase was mostly connected with changes in terms of digital transformation. But digital transformation has been an ongoing trend for the last 15 years. So what’s the different in digital transformation in the post covid-19 era? The answer is simple: what’s different is the speed of adoption of digital infrastructures. The urgency for action is dictated by the uncertainty in the global situation.

The new world context is affecting the pace of cloud adoption in regulatory inspections as well. A field such as regulatory enforcement that’s focused at ensuring the safety of our communities is a serious matter and the urgency for digital acceleration is very sensible there. It means that decisions must be made on a faster pace to ensure the functioning of law enforcing government agencies in the new reality of mass lockdown with growing infection rates.

If we have to summarize the focus that government agencies must keep in the current COVID-19 recovery era, it will come down to:

  • Government agency need to make faster decisions
  • They should focus on automating inspections and leverage on AI in inspections
  • They should focus on real-time risk assessment
  • They should focus on driving agility in inspections
  • They need to stick to cloud-first approach

And all of these must be done on a much faster pace than before the COVID-19 era. So let’s get to the biggest question in this article:

How does digital acceleration in inspection management looks like?

Like every big question, there are a lot of “depends” in the answer of this one. The digital acceleration in inspections depends mostly on the digital adoption strategy of the organisation. In the public sector this means that the CIO must speed up the decision making in the roadmap of the digital adoption strategy. If there’s no digital adoption strategy in motion, then now is the time to make on.

Related: All you need to know about making a cloud adoption strategy

What are the possible ways do accelerate digital transformation in inspections?

  1. Don’t transform outdated legacy systems, move to an entirely new cloud service designed for inspection management. This can be the faster and smarter approach for transforming inspections. But a careful research is needed.Read our guide: How to find inspection management software online?
  2. If on a central level the government has successful history of cloud implementation, then the good example must be followed. Following an already known path can accelerate digital transformation in inspection. For example if a social care institution has a successful history of implementing cloud based case management solution, then the smart move for this institution will be to follow the same path when implementing an inspection management software.
  3. Reorganize spend and move funds from less valuable initiatives to more urgent ones like cloud adoption.

Related: How to approach cost-efficient cloud adoption?

What to expect from accelerated digital transformation in regulatory inspections?

Doing something on a faster pace in the public sector is definitely not normal. But the new reality must be accepted. This means that there are certain red flags that must be kept in mind when we approach accelerated digital transformation in the public sector:

  1. A balance between efficiency and resilience must be kept.
  2. Inspectors, administrators and functional leaders must be equipped with the required skills.
  3. Configurability that can adequately answer the needs to different use segments in inspections (an inspection software must offer configurability for different type of inspections – food safety inspections, construction building inspections, social care facility inspections, playground inspections, etc.
How You Can Drive Digital Business Acceleration

Related: How governments should prepare for the post-pandemic scenarios?

This all is a part of the strategic planning. Strategic planning includes the conversation for the future and the priorities that must be followed if the most likely future scenario is changed (a thing that already happened on a massive scale with COVID-19). A change of the possible scenario such as the global pandemic might require from CIO’s to change the pacing of the digital adoption strategy for inspections. Disruption is not a bad thing if we are able to predict the outcomes.

Do you need help with the strategic planning for the digital transformation of inspections in your organisation?

Contact us now.

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The Benefits of Performing Field Inspections With Tablets

One of the most demanding jobs is the job of inspectors. From food safety inspections to construction inspections, inspectors are responsible for essential tasks like recording code violations, improving compliance, and creating detailed reports documented by proofs. All of these with the common goal of ensuring the safety of the community. Last but not least, inspection management requires travelling to an inspection field that is organised often on a tight inspection schedule. So a serious thought is needed when it comes to making the work of inspectors more efficient and, at the same time, less stressful.

Transforming legacy inspection systems into digital efficient system is the modern way to optimise inspections. But what comes after that? What kind of optimisation follows after digital transformation of the inspection management system? Let’s see.

The agility of using inspection management software manifests itself not only as a way to remove the paper from the work processes but also to make inspection scheduling more optimal, filling detailed reports faster and covering more inspection sites for less time possible. In other words, good inspection management software will help inspectors to inspect more and work less.

inspection scheduling software

Inspections with mobile devices

Inspectors who travel to make field inspections find benefit not only in the use of inspection management software per se. They find benefit in the agility of the concept of cloud-based platforms for inspection management. This means that the benefits go beyond the software application and capture other uses, such as mobile devices.

Inspectors are often on the go, so the use of mobile devices for inspection purposes is an important opportunity for them. With tablets, they can easily record inspections, take pictures, make notes, etc., while moving. This turns the usability of the inspection software into an essential aspect when testing the solutions of different vendors.

Resource optimization and business scheduling software

CASE STUDY: ACHIEVING RESOURCE SCHEDULING OPTIMISATION IN REGULATORY AGENCY
          • reducing the scheduling time with up to 75%
          • increasing efficiency of operations with 40%
          • fully eliminating errors in the resource allocation process.
Download the case study.

Paperless workflows go hand-to-hand with mobile devices in inspection management.

Certain kinds of inspections, especially those that ensure safety (food safety inspections, fire safety inspections, road safety inspections, playground safety inspections, etc.), involve a lot of paperwork. The complexity of such inspection processes is being optimized to a great extent thanks to inspection management software solutions like Canalix.

Related: The Complexity Of Inspection Management Made Simple

Depending on the type of inspection, inspectors can eliminate the paper filling part by switching to an electronic environment with a pre-defined inspection checklist that is explicitly configured for the kind of inspection that is being made. The collected data can be shared instantly with relevant collaborators. And the best part is that no printing or reorganising of paper documents is needed for that.

Real-time Inspection Scheduling In Inspector’s Pocket

inspection software

Printing inspection schedules can lead to mistakes. Inspectors should always be well informed about their schedules. That’s why allocating jobs is an essential feature for Canalix. Canalix assigns cases to inspectors with a relevant skill set and geolocation thanks to a sophisticated AI complexity scoring algorithm. The allocation becomes visible in real-time in the inspector’s electronic calendar that can be accessed via tablet or smartphone. This intelligent way for inspection scheduling reduces the risk of making mistakes. Last but not least, it improves inspection planning and makes it easier for inspectors to cover more inspection ground by using fewer resources.

Are you looking for reliable inspection management software that will allow inspectors to do field inspections with mobile devices? Then Canalix may be a good fit for your purpose. Contact us now. 

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