Mobile Workforce Solution Enables Pittsburgh’s Attack on Blight

Pittsburgh, PA — Using hand–held computers and software developed by B–Three Solutions, Pittsburgh’s building inspectors will be moving out of their central office and working from offices in the city’s six neighborhood police stations. A pilot version of this plan began March 17 at the Zone 5 police station on Washington Boulevard. The Bureau of Building Inspections (BBI) intends to scale up the program as the year goes along.

In a March 17 press release, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl explained, “The purpose of this initiative is two-fold: to increase public safety by creating a direct line of communication between the Police Bureau and BBI, and to provide the community with better access to BBI personnel. The Zone 5 neighborhood BBI office will make this neighborhood cleaner and safer and help our police prevent crime.”

In September 2008, Mayor Ravenstahl demonstrated the new technology at a media event in Bloomfield. Calling the City’s 311 Response Line, the Mayor reported an apparent violation. Within seconds, the complaint appeared on the BBI inspector’s handheld device. From the field, the inspector could then check on the violation, retrieve ownership information from the City’s property database, and transmit a completed report back to BBI headquarters. This mobile workforce solution from B–Three cuts the processing time on violations from four days to one.

Mobile Workforce Solutions
Many organizations — public and private — have begun the transition from a fixed–location work environment to a dispersed model where workers are deployed in the locations where they can be most effective. These changes require effective mobile workforce management.

In addition to the building inspection application for the City of Pittsburgh, B–Three Solutions has created mobile workforce systems in such fields as law enforcement and home healthcare. The Remote Data Broker (RDB), a product developed by B–Three, is the key component in all of our mobile solutions.

Powered by the RDB, our mobile solutions stand out, because they do not rely on a persistent Internet connection. The entry of information by a mobile user is not affected by the loss of a connection — a very important feature in Western Pennsylvania, where hills and valleys create “dead zone” areas. The RDB senses the loss of the connection and automatically begins to queue the data for later transmission. This all happens behind the scenes, with no impact on data entry by the user. When the connection is regained, the system automatically resumes its transmission of data. This technology insures against data being lost, without interfering with the user’s work.