The Problem
Limerick County Fire and Rescue Service were having issues capturing, recording and managing information relating to their everyday operational activities and following their attendance at an incident. Information was captured by the department on paper forms which led to large paper trails and often meant that information was being recorded more than once. This would lead to incomplete reports with no way of tracing where missing information was located, making it difficult to compile audits of incidents when requested by authorities.
The problems the Limerick Fire Service faced in capturing and managing information had a knock on effect for other areas of the organisation. Primarily, missing information or incomplete reports from the attendance of an incident made it hard to issue accurate and detailed invoices when required. The large amount of paper being generated also meant that it was hard to track and keep firefighters training records up–to–date, information which is used to complete their payroll.
As a result of the issues Limerick were facing, they required a software based solution which would assist them in capturing, recording and managing information throughout their organisation.
What We Did
Working closely with several departments within Limerick Fire Service, Mallon developed iReport, a complete fire service incident reporting and wages management system. Established within current legislation, we created various workflows which were dependent on the processes undertaken by Limerick to simplify and improve them.
This involved the amalgamation of the incident reporting process to encompass firefighter’s training, firefighter’s payroll and invoicing, into the one system, reducing the need to record relevant information multiple times. Incorporated into the systems is a series of quality checks that ensure a report can’t be filed until all necessary information fields have been completed.
As a result of the quality checks, we were able to build in easy to access audit trails, which record changes and amendments to any information entered into the system, helping to simplify the generation of reports as and when they are required.
The system was designed to link with Limerick’s existing IT systems, namely City Duty roster and CoreHR, minimising disruption and easing the implementation of iReport throughout the fire service. Its user–friendly design has ensured the system can be used by both Full–Time and Retained Fire Stations throughout Limerick, to capture all incident records, drill and special duty records.
By developing iReport we have produced a system which not only meets the needs of Limerick Fire Service but that has helped to significantly improve their handling and processing of information.
The Benefits
- Limerick Fire Service are now able to efficiently keep up–to–date with their incident reporting, firefighter training records and firefighter schedules
- Quality checks ensure that all reports are completed fully before being submitted
- Staff no longer have to manually search through paper records, increasing the efficient running of the department
- Firefighters payroll is automatically calculated based on information recorded in the system, saving staff time and freeing them to complete other tasks
- Accurate and detailed invoices are automatically generated, helping the department to improve their fee collection processes
- All information is held securely within the system
- Staff now have quick and easy access to detailed reports which are available at the touch of a button
- Audit trails are available to ensure that correct procedures are being followed at all times and accountability is maintained
- Incident attendance reports are auto–populated based on data from Duty Roster, which knows who was on duty at any given time
- In–built clash detection system ensures a firefighter cannot be recorded as attending an incident and on a training drill at the same time
- Web–based system is accessible from any PC with access to the council network
- Generated DOE reports from existing data