Banedanmark is the Danish railway infrastructure manager and is therefore responsible for the operation and maintenance of the railway system which is used by several operators eg DSB and DB cargo.
Banedanmark must comply with strict safety requirements – and everything must be documented in detail. Documenting – with pen and paper – while in the field is especially challenging when weather conditions were less than ideal. Ineffective processes resulted in both inconsistencies and errors in inspection forms, delays in communication and confusion in assignment allocation and scheduling.
Banedanmark and Invokers developed Mobile Inspection Forms, a digital tool for Banedanmark’s field workers and administrative personnel. The forms are used to record measurements in the field where clipboards and paper processes are replaced by iPads, using GPS, Siri and automatic validation of data.
Information and measurements are registered on iPads in the field, and the responsible manager automatically receives the field reports for online approval. After approval, the forms are automatically sent to SAP, thus ensuring that Banedanmark’s documentation complies with security requirements.
Based on the characteristics of maintenance orders, the intelligent forms plan the upcoming inspections.The forms are automatically assigned to the right employees, and the forms are pre-filled with all relevant data.
For Banedanmark, work days have become much easier for both workers in the field and employees at the office. All in all a highly efficient solution that makes way for a smarter allocation of ressources.
After having implemented the Mobile Inspection Forms in our organization, we now experience a far greater degree of documentation and far easier means of finding earlier inspection forms. If an issue of technical character arises, we are rest assured that the issue will be handled promptly and professionally by developers that are deeply familiar with the technology used.
The Mobile Inspection Forms have resulted in errors being caught on the go, while the employee is still in the field, as each registration is validated against standard tolerances and typing errors are removed. The employee will therefore be notified of any errors and he or she can correct them before the report is submitted for approval.
The forms also mean that working days are being used much more efficiently, as the forms automatically creates an overview of planned checks and assigns an employee to perform the task. And if an employee is out sick, the task will not be delayed, as it can easily be forwarded to another employee.
At the same time, the employees no longer have to travel to Banedanmark’s headquarter in order to receive the daily forms. The forms are available on the employee’s iPad and he or she can therefore go straight to the field with the tasks of the day.
The Mobile Inspection Forms solution consists of a native iOS iPad app as well as a backend developed with Open Source technologies. The solution is integrated with Banedanmark’s backend systems SAP Plant Maintenance, IRISSYS and Oracle DB. It runs on the cloud platform Microsoft Azure, which is an open and flexible platform that, among other things, makes it easy to upgrade the solution or port to e.g. SAP Cloud Platform.
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