NCN Technology Helps Midwestern State Keep Kids Safe

 NCN Technology Helps Midwestern State Keep Kids Safe

Client: Midwestern State

Type: Mobile Application

The mobile application launched on time and within budget. NCN’s client was thrilled to be able to help its client complete this important project, while enjoying the peace of mind that comes from working with subject matter experts. The state inspectors appreciated the increased efficiency and convenience the new mobile application offered. NCN technology helps Midwestern State keep kids safe by Improving the efficiency and record keeping of School Bus Inspections.

NCN technology helps Midwestern State keep kids safe by Improving the efficiency and record keeping of School Bus Inspections.We all can all agree on this topic: Keeping kids safe is of utmost importance.

NCN Technology had a unique opportunity to lend its talents in support of this important goal: By developing a mobile application to facilitate school bus inspections.

Across the nation, more than 480,000 yellow school buses transport approximately 26 million children to and from school each year. To do so safely and efficiently, it’s vital to ensure that the buses are maintained regularly and inspected frequently. A broken down bus can throw a wrench into a school district’s transportation schedule and leave students stranded for hours. At worst, an improperly functioning bus can put students in significant danger.

In addition to regular maintenance, states typically require inspections each year, sometimes even more often. Capturing the results of these inspections in the field – and being able to access a particular vehicle’s records — makes an inspector’s job easier.and more efficient.

This project focused on making the bus inspection process more efficient and convenient within one Midwestern state. The state’s transportation department hired one of NCN’s clients, a large information technology firm, to manage the state’s school bus inspection data. The state and information technology firm sought to make the process of capturing, updating and accessing inspection data easier and faster by developing a mobile application that would work on the devices used by state inspectors. 

Familiar with NCN’s expertise at developing well-designed mobile applications from earlier collaborations, the info tech firm outsourced the mobile application development to NCN.

The state wanted a stand-alone mobile application for the bus inspection data. The vision was to have inspectors capture data on their devices during the inspection — a significant improvement from the current process of capturing inspection data on written forms and transferring data to the state database once they returned to the office.

In addition to developing the mobile application, NCN needed to create the API’s to connect the data to the smart tablet and find a way to integrate the mobile application with the existing state database. The data collected would then provide reports on school bus inspections, including the safety status of school buses and historical records.

NCN kicked off the project by identifying and clearly documenting the product requirements. The team then mapped out a detailed project plan with a phased approach that included weekly scrum meetings and two- to three-week sprint cycles. 

NCN used an agile approach to designing and developing the application to provide visibility and receive input from the client throughout the process. Some of the more significant tasks in this project included:

• Implementing the user interface
• Coding all screen shots for the inspections, database design and review
• Web services development and deployment
• Creating the flow and navigation between pages
• Creating the secure login with permissions
• Synchronization with central repository 
• Creating and emailing inspection reports

The mobile application launched on time and within budget. NCN’s client was thrilled to be able to help its client complete this important project, while enjoying the peace of mind that comes from working with subject matter experts. The state inspectors appreciated the increased efficiency and convenience the new mobile application offered.

And perhaps most importantly, bus drivers and parents could take comfort that the buses used to transport students were a little bit safer — and that the state knew which buses needed attention before they became a safety risk.