System developed from start to finish in four months
The Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) recently moved its liquor inspection process from a traditional paper-based system to an enterprise solution which uses Pocket PCs to assist in conducting inspections, creating reports, and maintaining administrative data.
It took only four months from gathering the system requirements to implementation. The solution was built entirely in house by information technology staff using Microsoft development tools. The entire system is known as the “Liquor Enforcement Inspection and Reporting System” (LEIRS).
The problem: the old system
In the previous system, inspectors were given a paper assignment sheet every two weeks. From this they would prioritize their work and schedule inspections. They then conducted inspections of bars and restaurants, plus events covered under a “Special Occasion Permit.” Afterwards they would submit paper inspection reports to their regional offices all over the Province of Ontario, which in turn would send them to the head office in Toronto, where data entry clerks would enter them into a database on an IBM AS/400.
The inefficiency of this system was particularly noticeable with regards to licensing inspections, which are conducted prior to the issuance of a new liquor license: David Baxter, manager of Liquor Sales Licensing said, “Liquor license inspection reports were a paper-based form system. These were pre-printed and the liquor inspector filled them out by hand when conducting a liquor inspection. These were then routed by snail-mail from all our regional offices to the head office and then finally to us. This often resulted in slow delivery and illegible details on some forms. Sometimes the forms were delivered to the wrong license officer and had to be re-routed. The whole process slowed down the issuance of a license, and when a liquor license applicant’s business depends on becoming a licensee and opening their business, every day counts.”
Designing the solution
To specify the requirements for the new system, a focus group of AGCO staff was assembled from all over the Ontario, representing the unique needs of the regional offices. They were selected to test the newly built application for two weeks. Following the test, all Ontario inspection staff were assembled together for a two-day training seminar and hands-on lab. During this period the focus group again proved valuable: They were able to act as teaching assistants, explaining the new system for conducting inspections and reporting results back to headquarters.
One major constraint on development was the delivery date, which was set to coincide with the annual week of training. This forced the development team to adopt a release strategy of delivering critical components first, with other features slated for future releases.
On the Pocket PC, inspectors would have access to the wording of regulations and the offenses that they were looking for. This would prevent the need to carry a cumbersome copy of the legislation, and would allow quick searching in order to render decisions. Further, inspectors and supervisors would now have all licensee information at their fingertips, allowing them to access needed information in the field instead of having to be tied to an office computer.
The system would allow inspectors to create reports on their Pocket PC (running the Microsoft .NET compact framework, and Microsoft SQL Server CE), which they would carry with them. Because of the enterprise nature of the solution (it had to be usable by inspectors in rural as well as urban areas), a wireless reporting architecture was ruled out. Instead it was decided that inspectors would upload their reports once they return to their regional offices (via ActiveSync), or dial up to the server from any phone line.
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