May 4, 2011. Paul Hixon
When it comes to administrative efficiency, standardization is the key. If every department has their own methods and distinctive software, a wall builds between people who are supposed to be on the same team but are not using the same playbook.
Moving personnel between an overstaffed and an understaffed department becomes an exercise in futility since even the best-trained employee has to start from scratch on a new system.
A case in point is work order management software. Municipal governments are prime candidates for software standardization due to the wide array of tasks, which governments perform on a daily basis. As different departments find the money in their budgets for new computer systems over time, different software suites become a multiplying problem unless strenuously guarded against. Standardizing across all platforms and personnel enables a city or county to assign work efficiently and have it administratively tracked by anyone in any department rather than just by the experts in one department.
Work order management software generates efficiency by organizing tasks into a series of standardized steps that can be used as blocks to build larger tasks if needed, yet maintain price and tasking codes suitable to smaller projects as well. New tasks can be entered into the database as needed and old ones can be deleted or updated with great simplicity. Accounting is also simplified by the use of standardized codes for widely assigned tasks. All departments use the same codes to describe the same activities and order the same services performed at a single price. Work order management software can take the sting out of overseeing ordinary tasks and allows managers to concentrate on big picture items that truly require their attention. Yet how easily the little things can add up when no one, not even an intelligent software system, is keeping track.
Updated May 4, 2011. Published January 19, 2011. Paul Hixon
