The Village of Bensenville was looking to improve their permitting process and their citizen’s experience by reducing wait time. On average, it was taking 7 days to issue a permit and, on average, over 200 days to complete the final inspection and close permits. The Community Development department had a paper based process for permit applications, plan reviews, and inspections. This created challenges for department staff to track the status of permits, identify what plan reviews were due, and inspections outstanding. It resulted in 1/2 hour of duplicate manual effort per permit. Department staff were hindered in their ability to answer customer questions quickly, taking an average of 1/2 hours of manual effort. For each question staff members needed to research the paper file and contact their third party contractor and other department staff to obtain status. Typically, it required 2 business days to respond to customer requests for information. It required extraordinary manual effort for Community Development staff to research paper files and create reports.
The Village had attempted to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system but faced challenges with delays that left the Permits, Inspections, and Plan Reviews unimplemented. Bensenville’s Community Development department needed to integrate their Permits, Inspections, and Plan Reviews with the ERP system and complete their implementation.
Baecore Group analyzed the processes and data in the current system and identified customer service challenges and Village reporting needs. Baecore identified opportunities for process automation of workflow, tracking, and reminders to expedite department activities. Additionally, we identified the information needed for reporting and designated locations in the new system to collect the information to eliminate manual processing.
With the implementation of improved tracking of inspections, plan reviews, and permit aging, the wait time for service was reduced by 110 days or more, on average
The Village relied significantly on external contractors for permit, plan review & inspections tasks. the increased efficiencies and automations, the Village could handle increased volume eliminating the need for external support.
Through process improvement, we reduced the number of staff hours spent on the plan review process by 390 hours per year.
Work Reduction 588 Hours per year – 14.7 Weeks of Personnel Time; Wait Time Reduction: 116 days per permit
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