SMP Maintenance Tracking

The Problem

It was difficult for SMP to keep track of all of the incoming requests for maintenance from all the different ways people could submit requests.

Making sure all requests were serviced at an appropriate time was becoming a big chore.

The manager, Anita, reached out to me to talk about how I could help them design and implement an online system for tracking all the stages of servicing a maintenance request.

The Process

After interviewing office staff, maintenance workers, and the owners, I wrote up a short overview of a web-based system that would enable everyone to keep track of the state of maintenance requests. After multiple discussions and revisions we pinned down some exact requirements.

After identifying the problem areas, we settled on a web-based system backed up by automated SMS messaging.

The Solution

At this point it was time to start writing code. I quickly developed and deployed a proof of concept for them to begin using. After using this for a couple of weeks we were able to identify a couple of areas that could use some improvement so I went in and made some changes.

The whole system consisted of backend database and code as well as a dynamic, full-featured web site.

By now, we had created a working system that created confidence that maintenance issues were being addressed in a timely and professional manner. In the future we hope to expand this system to more areas of their business.

Since we're not a technology company we were nervous about hiring a developer to help us, but Dustin was a pleasure to work with. He answered our questions, helped us ask questions we didn't know we needed to ask, and was professional at all times.