Don't take our word for it. Let our customers tell you their story:
Background
New Britain Township is located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The population is 10,698 and the township covers 14.7 square miles. New Britain has 52 miles of township owned roads as well as an additional 20 miles of state owned roads. The township
has 32 employees of which 9 are employed in
administrative/office positions.
Like many suburban Philadelphia communities,
New Britain experienced rapid growth beginning in
the early 1990’s continuing through the last decade.
That growth brought many new residents and began
the transformation from a primarily rural area to that
of a more traditional suburban community. |
Management Issues
Rapid growth put stress on the traditional methods
of managing land development, zoning and code
enforcement. Increased development increased
the volume of paper- work making document
management, storage and information retrieval
exceedingly difficult and cumbersome. Customer
service suffered and important matters sometimes
fell between the cracks.
The Munilogic Solution
Munilogic municipal management software provided
the solution to the Township’s need to streamline the
land development, zoning and code enforcement
processes and also provided a 21st century approach
to document management. Prior to the installation
of the Munilogic system, the Township stored all
documents in old fashioned metal filing cabinets.
All township maps were stored in file drawers. The
simplest inquiry often took a much as 30 minutes to
find the information and answer.
The Township purchased the Munilogic core
system that included the Property module, the
communication package (e-mail, calendar, contacts),
GIS mapping, reporting, document management
and administration. In addition the subdivision,
permitting and inspections, roadway, storm sewer,
zoning and code enforcement modules were also
installed. The implementation was completed in 2008
and the system has been operational for 18 months.
Using the GIS mapping capability, the township
maps were converted to computer files that could be
quickly accessed by every administrative employee.
Details on the history of each property such as permit
activity, code violations, zoning variances or changes
in ownership were included. An ORTHO (aerial
photography) overlay was also added. When the
installation was complete, each employee had all the
information related to every property in the township
at their fingertips.
Munilogic personnel trained all township employees in every facet of the program and provided a package of
ongoing software updates and technical support.
The Results
Munilogic Municipal Software has successfully reduced
the amount of paper being generated, filed and passed
around the office by fully automating all zoning, land
development, permitting and code enforcement
processes. Munilogic has improved customer service
and communication by putting all of the townships
information in an easy to access and easy to use format
available to every employee. Citizen inquiries and
questions that used to require 30 minutes or more to
find in the files and make a response are now answered
in minutes. Tasks, such as zoning hearing notification,
that used to take hours, are now done in a few minutes.
In addition to the document management,
communication and process streamlining, New Britain
Township uses Munilogic to:
- Improve "right to know" effectiveness
- Answer questions about potential development issues
- Map and plan curb cuts to for ADA compliance
- Map all sewer and water manholes
- Map and manage the storm water system
- Plan land preservation/open space strategies
- Quickly identify fire zones
- Quickly identify water zones
- Delineate floodplains
- Help the police identify any issues with a property before taking action
- Create monthly building and inspections reports
- Provide citizen access to information via a counter top terminal
Township Manager, Eileen Bradley stated that
Munilogic "is an extremely effective source of quick,
accurate, reliable information." She went on to say that
at New Britain Township "every employee is expected
to provide customer service. If we can’t answer a
question while the customer is on the phone, we are
not doing our job. Munilogic helps us find that answer
right away."
A recent new hire summed up the benefit of Munilogic for her: "It made it simple for me to become
knowledgeable very quickly. It makes it easy to find
information quickly"
Munilogic transformed New Britain’s operational
platform from a paper based, labor intensive model
left over from the 1980’s into the picture of efficiency,
speed and accuracy expected in the 21st century.
