Meet the County’s First IT Innovator of the Year

The County’s first-ever IT Innovator of the Year award has gone to a housing supervisor who found an automated process to replace her department’s torturous monthly slog through inspection paperwork.

Housing and Community Development veteran Debbie Dyar received the honor from County Technology Office Director Harold Tuck in front of County leaders last week. Dyar was chosen from a field of more than 25 nominees and five finalists—one from each County group.

The award will go to one employee each year who demonstrates outstanding innovation using information technology.

Dyar, who joined the County in 1987, said she’s always tried to figure out how things could be done better at work. Not that she does it for the glory.

“I’m quite a behind-the scenes person so all this is a little weird,” a cheery Dyar said of the big award.

“It feels good,” she added.

Her department is feeling good these days too thanks to the new technology for organizing rental inspections that Dyar instituted.

Housing and Community Development administers rent subsidies to some 10,800 families at any given time, and departmental inspectors have to visit each subsidized apartment unit to make sure it meets basic living standards. Each year, seven inspectors drive all over the region to see about 12,800 properties.

 In the past, organizing, scheduling and planning routes for all these visits was a mammoth administrative task.

Each month, about 1,000 apartment units all over the County would need an inspection. So the department would print the electronic forms for each property; then a supervisor and clerical staff would disappear into an office and sort the 1,000 forms by city or community, Dyar said. After that, staff looked at the addresses and planned a month’s schedule for each inspector.

“It was a completely manual paper shuffle,” Dyar said.

And it took about 25 hours of staff time.

Once inspectors got their schedules, they used Google Maps or a similar application to get driving directions. That took more time.

Dyar knew there had to be a better way. As her department’s IT lead, she began seeking technological solutions.

She reached out to IT experts around the County and arranged demonstrations of several software applications. It turned out a commercial application called TourSolver suited the department needs perfectly.

The program automatically organizes a daily route and schedule for each inspector using the addresses from the rental forms. TourSolver has slashed the time spent each month on inspection planning from 25 hours to about 3 hours, the department estimates.

And there’s no more “Google Mapping” and printing driving directions.

Instead, inspectors carry GPS units that download routes from TourSolver and issue audible turn-by-turn instructions.

Because the routes the software devises are as direct as possible, inspectors now drive about 10 percent less, saving gas and money.

The software and GPS units cost about $10,000 but save the department about $30,000 each year, primarily in labor costs the department estimates.

So what advice does the County Innovator of the Year have for others who want to improve how their departments work?

“Keep an eye out and look for ways to make their work better,” Dyar said.

And if employees know a process could be better but don’t know what technological solutions exist, they can talk to their supervisor or their department’s IT lead, she said.

Don’t assume it’s too difficult or expensive to improve a process that seems entrenched, Dyar said.

“It doesn’t have to be a big expensive solution,” Dyar said. “With TourSolver, right off the shelf it works.”