buildingReports

Building Reports Success Story

The Customer

Building safety compliance is critical to service companies, building owners, and fire and safety officials who are charged with safeguarding occupants. BuildingReports’ award-winning mobile and online inspection reporting tools enable inspectors to gather data on fire and life safety devices quickly, ensuring that they are working properly and meet code requirements or identifying actions needed to meet compliance through easily verifiable inspection reports. With millions of inspection reports to date, hundreds of thousands of buildings represented, and over 800 inspection companies in its network, BuildingReports has earned its reputation as a trusted name in compliance reporting.



The Challenge

Mobile devices have limited battery power, even when attached to ruggedized kits providing additional back- up battery power and special scanners that don’t rely on a mobile phone’s power-hungry camera. Based on recent industry benchmark reports compiled from BuildingReports’ database - the largest of its kind in the world - an inspection can take over six hours to complete. Time is money and having to stop to recharge a mobile device is not only inefficient, but the costs for hourly downtime can be expensive.

There are also physical challenges, particularly in industrial and assembly occupancy types where high ceilings can make it difficult and sometimes impossible to scan devices, like smoke detectors, mounted out of reach or located in tight spaces. Clips can be used to attach mobile devices equipped with ScanSeries to extension poles to reach them, but this doesn't solve the problem of activating the camera or scanner from the ground. This also increases the risk of damaging or breaking these expensive devices if the pole is dropped or banged against a hard object.



buildingreports

The Socket Mobile Solution

The S800 1D imager barcode scanner

BuildingReports selected the Socket Mobile attachable 1D Imager Barcode Scanner to partner with their own design of lightweight, durable pole clips for extended reach. BuildingReports leverages 3-D printing technology to produce three different clips to attach the scanner to equipment that service companies' use for testing in the field (such as telescoping and smoke detector testing poles).

The primary benefit is that service companies can reach fire and life safety devices without having to lug a ladder or lift around the facility they are inspecting.



The Results 

Within a few months of introducing the availability of the S800 Imager, members purchased more than 500 scanner units; dozens of new orders are placed weekly. There are several key benefits that BuildingReports’ members have expressed:

  1. Price - the cost of the device is far cheaper than mobile devices currently on the market, allowing service companies to adopt a BYOD policy for inspectors.

  2. Lightweight, but Durable - this addresses the pain point around the pole attachments, making the pole less heavy and more balanced while also making them less susceptible to physical damage than a mobile device with a glass touchscreen and sensitive internal components.

  3. Battery Life - inspectors can preserve their mobile phone battery by allowing them to simply use the barcode scanner for data rather than drain the mobile substantially by scanning with the phone's built-in camera. The barcode scanner also uses less power, allowing for more scans per charge, which means more uptime for inspectors and less time sitting around waiting on a scanners or mobile phones to recharge.