From Hand-Held Defect Detection to A Mobile App: A Success Story

Jolita Mackiene, Head of Quality and Technology Department, Kelių Priežiūra

Employees of KeliųPriežiūra AB, which maintains 21,000 km of roads of national importance in Lithuania, go to the roads every day and carry out various tasks in accordance with regulated norms: winter snow clearing, spreading slip-resistant agents, spring to autumn maintenance of road signs, ditches, road crossings, renewal of wornout road surfaces, profiling of gravel roads, mowing of roadsides, etc.

By providing quality services, the company contributes to improving road safety, which is one of the company’s main strategic objectives and it is supported by patrol inspections. Road, their element, and structural defects are recorded during such patrols and deadlines are set for rectification.

JolitaMackienė, Director of the company’s Quality and Technology Department, notes, that until about a year ago, such patrol inspections of national roads were carried out in a piecemeal manner and there was no unifying system.

“The company was established five years ago when 11 regional road maintenance companies were merged. This resulted in a mash of different experiences, methods, habits, and perceptions of work processes. Thus, all the defects were manually recorded during inspections and work was often delayed. An internal survey also showed that the process was volatile. Out of more than 100 employees performing patrol inspections half a year ago, 84 percent of them simply noted the defects they saw on the road in a notebook, 12 percent - on their phone or tablet, and 4 percent “recorded” them in their memory,” says Jolita Mackienė.

This analysis led to the identification of a need to standardise inspections and create a unified system that transformed the patrol inspection processes and brought qualitative change.

“The mobile app has been designed to follow a standardized workflow and functionality, with buttons that are as intuitive and simple as possible”

“During the project, a complete patrol inspection procedure was created from scratch, with daily tasks and routes being prepared in advance, and the principles of identifying, classifying, and fixing defects defined. The defect tracking mobile app uses a simple operating principle and helps to perform inspections: while patrolling the roads, the employee records defects in the app, illustrates them with photos, and then returns to the office to review and confirm the result of their previous work. The planner then takes over the task and formulates assignments for the defect removal teams. As the location of the defect is determined by the location of the inspector’s mobile phone, it has become much easier for the employees working on the roads to find the exact location where the task must be carried out,” says the interviewee.

 J. Mackienė notes that just six months after the app was integrated into the daily routine it is used by about 98 percent of the team members conducting patrol inspections, moreover, 7 out of 10 employees who use the app rate it as very good or good. A further 62 percent of Keliųpriežiūra AB team members say that since the app launch, their patrol times have reduced, and 74 percent of the survey respondents rate its mobilefriendliness positively.

“The key to success is the simplicity of the app and listening to the needs of the users. The mobile app has been designed to follow a standardised workflow and functionality, with buttons that are as intuitive and simple as possible. We simply introduced the app to our employees, organised special training, provided practical support and the app sold itself - colleagues became convinced of the benefits of the app and started using it actively”, says the Director of the Quality and Technology Department.

What’s Next?

 Interestingly, another group of employees who receive defect rectification tasks has also expressed a desire to digitise the process. The company has been listening to their needs and will expand the project: and has already initiated further development of a mobile application to receive and record defect rectification tasks.