Solution Showcase

City of Chicago Inspections Mobile Solution

The City of Chicago awarded ITQ LATA the prime contract to provide expert assistance to develop and manage a mobile inspections solution involving nearly 500 users across several City Departments. The City is implementing a new back-end application to manage all activities associated with buildings located in the City of Chicago, including building permits, permit inspections, periodic inspections, business license inspections, and complaint inspections. This package includes two mobile applications: a client application designed for a laptop running Windows 98, 2000 or NT; and a mobile application designed for the Pocket PC operating system for use on a palm size or 2 VGA device.

ITQ LATA provides expert, consulting assistance to develop and manage the City of Chicago’s infrastructure for a mobile wireless solution to aid the physical inspections associated with buildings.

Our team envisions this mobile, wireless solution as a vehicle to improve service to the citizens of Chicago by reducing the cost of inspections and improving information flow. Deployment of this project will increase the efficiency of inspections, provide timely data flow to and from the field (reducing man hours and repeat visits), and provide on-site authentication and documentation (such as letters of approved inspection) for Chicago citizens.

Phase I (Parts 1 & 2)
Phase I of this contract established quantitative, measurable requirements for mobile inspections for three of the City of Chicago’s inspection departments (Buildings Department, the Fire Department and the Public Health Department), which included 19 divisions and 500+ identified inspectors. Specifically, ITQ reviewed and developed requirements and provided recommendations for the following elements of a mobile solution:

• Hardware devices
• Peripheral devices
• Wireless connectivity provider
• Application integration strategy
• Configuration management strategy
• Security policies
• Support policies

The ITQ Team initially spent over 10 days in the field with the inspectors, reviewing and recording the day-to-day demands of each inspector’s job function throughout the 19 divisions in order to identify and assess their process and business needs for mobile devices and connectivity requirements. ITQ used these quantified requirements to develop recommendations for available services, connectivity, and types of devices that would facilitate the integration of desktop applications into the mobile environment.

Phase II (Part 3)
Based on the work performed in Phase I, ITQ LATA was designated as the consultant for the City of Chicago to develop a Mobile Middeware Server (MMS) to manage all wireless and mobile applications for Chicago. Tasks include:

• Integrating desktop application systems (legacy and new),
• Inter-application queries,
• Coordinating mobile and wireless applications, and
• Standardizing mobile and wireless applications for the City.

The City expanded ITQ’s work plan to include all City departments (52) and literally thousands of users. The Phase II work plan includes Program & Project Management, Design, Pilot, Integration, Training, and Deployment and requires ITQ LATA to design the Enterprise Mobile Middleware Server (MMS). This open-ended MMS system will be required to integrate all operating desktop applications within the City and provide connectivity to all mobile and wireless devices required by the City. This interdepartmental MMS will also integrate document imaging and storage throughout the departments.

This Phase, at the City’s request, was quadrupled in scope. ITQ LATA works in a team environment with the City of Chicago Business & Information Systems Department and with other contractors and subcontractors representing hardware and device suppliers, service providers and software developers.

Additional City departments and legacy operating systems will be integrated into this project over the next several years.

For additional information contact an ITQ LATA representative.