Replacing a Paper Inspection Workflow with Mobile GIS

Context

The Board of License Commissioners inspects every liquor-licensed establishment in Prince George's County. Before 2016 the whole workflow ran on paper maps, paper forms, and digital cameras, with results typed into a database days or weeks after the visit.

The Challenge

Inspectors located establishments on paper maps, wrote notes on paper forms, and photographed a handwritten slip carrying the establishment ID and address before each visit so the photos could be sorted afterwards. Back at the office they renamed every photo by hand, filed them per establishment, and pasted results into a report template. Assignments went out by email each morning. The process consumed hundreds of hours a year, reports trailed inspections by days, data entry backlogged, and inspections were sometimes missed altogether.

My Role

The Board asked the county GIS department for a low-cost alternative. I was tasked with reviewing the requirements, recommending improvements, and implementing them if they proved cost-effective. The brief was specific: record where each inspection happened, keep every supporting photo and note tied to that point, and generate the report from the data rather than by hand.

What I Did

• geocoded every known licensed establishment in the county
• converted the paper inspection forms into Survey123 forms
• designed a geodatabase that both stored inspections and drove report generation
• built a Word template that populated itself from submitted form data
• configured Workforce with establishment locations and assignment types, inspectors as mobile workers and supervisors as dispatchers
• added QR-code scanning as an input method, using labels already on each establishment
• used conditional logic so inspectors only see the questions that apply to the establishment in front of them
• added inline hints and sample formats to cut data-entry errors
• built an Operations Dashboard giving supervisors weekly and monthly views, live inspector locations, and violation counts by date range

Systems Represented

• field data collection
• mobile workflows
• geodatabase design
• automated reporting
• operational dashboards
• regulatory inspection

How I Approached It

I reviewed the requirements, designed a geodatabase that could both hold inspection records and generate reports from them, and built the field workflow on ArcGIS configurable apps already licensed to the county — so the fix cost nothing in new software.

Key Business & Technical Impact

• ~50% Less Labour Time: Halved the time spent on inspections and reporting by replacing paper forms with mobile data capture.
• $0 Additional Software Cost: Delivered entirely on ArcGIS apps the county already licensed — Survey123, Workforce, and Operations Dashboard.
• Fully Paperless Workflow: Removed paper maps, handwritten photo slips, and manual report assembly from every inspection.