Auburn City Council is the local government for a 31-square-meter area including the Sydney Olympic Park and the Auburn Botanic Gardens. Council workers use smartphones and tablets for tree, food and fire safety inspections, and Sahu aims to expand the program into other areas like buildings and public health, he said. The workers use a variety of devices purchased by the council, including BlackBerry, Apple, Nokia and Google Android, he said.

Tree co-ordinator, Scott Wilkie, performs a tree inspection using an Apple iPad. Credit: Auburn City Council.

Before BlinkMobile, tree inspections were a long and cumbersome process, Sahu said. When the public lodged a request, the Council staff would log the request in a CRM application. Then, the request would be printed and handed over to a tree inspector, who would go to the field with a four-page paper form. Finally, the inspector would return to the office and manually enter the data in the back-end system.

BlinkMobile allowed the Council to automate that system, Sahu said. Now when a request is logged, the process is completely automated and staff use an Apple iPad 2 to review and enter information. The information is also accessible through other mobile devices, he said. Staff need not come to the office at all and the paperwork is eliminated altogether, he said.