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Project Overview
As a developer focused on Enterprise Mobility solutions, iApps main consideration in any application development is the ability to increase efficiency and productivity. The Inspection Toolbox application is a shining example of how mobility can achieve such an outcome.
The solution is based upon a flexible, robust platform that seamlessly supports any number and size of different organisations to provide them with a consistent, efficient, easy-to-use interface for managing and conducting their capital asset inspections.
Inspection Toolbox provides Asset Inspectors with a powerful, customisable and easy-to-use application to document, record and process every step of their job.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
iApps Pty Ltd is Australia's leading mobile software developer. Established in early 2010 to specifically address the need ?for application developers in the mobile market, delivering solutions across a multitude of platforms including Apple, Android, Windows Mobile 7 and Blackberry.
iApps staff come from a diverse range of software development backgrounds with a combined experience of more than 150 years. As iApps matures and expands outward, the team now includes developers, architects, project managers, graphic designers, marketing, legal and media relations.
Our team is based in Australia with our Head Office in Queensland's beautiful Sunshine Coast. Our owned and operated Indian operations are based in Bangalore, the 'silicone valley of India', where we enable cost saving overheads on production that are passed on to our clients.
To date we have designed, developed and published a portfolio of quality applications that span tourism, agriculture, mining, hospitality, aviation, art, education, media and entertainment industries.
Australian developed and internationally supported, iApps is Australia’s leading mobile application developer. Following its successful penetration of the mobile application market, the company’s first application still generates a humble $700 a day.
A growing international network and reputation of mobile excellence leverages the expanding company globally. iApps is the digital mobility solution leader in Australia.
Project Brief
Inspection Toolbox was created to revolutionise and standardise the way inspections are performed on everything from component parts through to entire systems.
The Inspection Toolbox Application allows authors to create entire inspection workflows from simple step by step, to complex iterative and deeply nested recurring workflows. Controllers can schedule the inspections, assign inspectors, split jobs over multiple inspectors, and review the inspection outcomes, simply and easily…replacing current manual processes for inspection and reporting.
Inspectors can manage their workloads, accept and reject jobs (which can be rescheduled) and hand over jobs mid process to avoid re-work and support a more flexible work methodology.
Increasing efficiency and productivity and providing a rapid return on investment are all key outcomes of implementing Inspection Toolbox. Inspection Toolbox is particularly valuable in manufacturing and resource industries, where machinery and other physical assets are constantly being inspected and have a demand to meet high performance and safety standards. Unique Inspection Toolbox workflows enable the same inspections to be carried out repeatedly, and the software enforces compliance to given sets of inputs and standards.
This is NOT a simple forms application! Inspection Toolbox is the most advanced interface and programmatic algorithms to provide infinitely configurable workflows that can work on massively complex asset hierarchies, down to the individual nut and bolt on an aircraft carrier.
We believe this is by far the most complex enterprise workflow application available on the iTunes store. Our efforts to find anything near the complexity of this application have drawn complete blanks.
Project Need
Inspection Toolbox is the only tool available that can easily cover a complete range of asset inspections with a comprehensive, expandable and customisable application, designed to entirely cut out double handling and multiple entry.
Due to the nature of the wide variety of workflow and inspection types, Inspection Toolbox has been developed to be an extremely flexible and versatile application. Through their innovation and experience, iApps developed many unique approaches to managing complex hierarchical data structures, when sections and questions could have multiple dependencies and multiple outcomes, with repeating and branching hierarchical sections.
As inspections can be extremely complex, Inspection Toolbox is designed to provide maximum flexibility for the author to plan their inspection, while also providing an iPad based user a step by step flow to complete the inspection.
The system has comprehensive logistics to allow workflow authors to programmatically trigger responses based on complex criteria that can warn inspectors to abort a process, or report assets for maintenance or shutdown.
Never before has a completely comprehensive asset inspection tool been made available that includes the ability to completely mobilise the entire process. Inspectors no longer have the need to return to an office to manually enter or modify their reports, meaning they can complete, record and process the entire job on-site… but NOT with a mere forms approach, rather, they now have a truly new method of performing inspections not possible prior to the advent of the modern smartphones and tablets.
User Experience
The goal was to make Inspection Toolbox as standard and useful as any other regular part of the inspectors’ day-to-day tools.
The user experience is two fold. An ‘Author’ creates and edits their inspection workflow on a secure web portal, which they then use to make the workflow available to the ‘Controller/Scheduler’ when completed. The ‘Scheduler’ can then pick the inspections they need performed and schedule them. Once an ‘Inspector’ is assigned to an inspection, the inspection will show up in the available inspections on the Inspector’s iPad.
The iPad interface is designed to be used in industrial situations where larger buttons and text are displayed and updated throughout the inspection workflow process.
Importantly, the interface is usable by all manner of Inspectors, with a focus on making the user experience clear and concise. Special consideration was given to support usage not only in different conditions, but by users with colour-blindness and other conditions that could hinder usage. Enhancements are being developed to allow the interface to display in selectable multiple languages, enabling the application to be used throughout the world.
Through the power of modern mobile tablet devices, data may be entered in multiple forms. Answering not only questions, but also being able to instantly record data or take photo images to include in the inspection results and final report.
Although there are a lot of factors involved, the User experience and interface is designed to be completely manageable and easy-to-use.
Project Marketing
Inspection Toolbox is a powerful Mobility Solution with a direct focus on maximising the efficiency of asset inspections. The primary target audience for Inspection Toolbox is medium to large operations implementing the application to streamline multiple necessary inspections. This is where optimum increases in efficiency, productivity and ROI are available - the prime purpose of the Inspection Toolbox Application.
The actual capabilities of the Inspections Toolbox application are by far the best marketing opportunity available. Engaging potential users and letting them experience how the application can improve their business workflow is priceless.
The Inspection Toolbox application was recently completed and released to the Apple AppStore in June 2013. As the application is still relatively new, the best strategy for engaging potential Users has been through direct sales networking and a soft launch. Due to the large-scale capability of the application, direct sales networking is the best option to fully inform the client of the full ROI potentials inherent in the application.
The initial need for Inspection Toolbox was recognised through close relationships already developed throughout industries where efficiency was lacking in the field of asset inspection. These relationships have been valuable in the application already being adopted at this early stage.
The Inspection Toolbox website is currently under construction and will be made public soon. The website will be a major information portal for the public and a key to enabling further marketing strategies, including webinar updates, video tutorials, trade shows and technology expos.
In Field Services
This category relates to applications developed in order to aid and facilitate organisations requiring mobility whilst out of the office.
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