Who's Using Krinkle? Krinkle Debris/Damage Tracker️: Davis Disaster Consulting: Using Software to Drive Debris Removal Missions & FEMA Compliance
Davis Disaster Consulting (DDC), a highly recognized industry leader, has chosen Krinkle’s lineup of disaster industry mobile apps and reporting systems to run their growing post-disaster debris management and Public Assistance (PA) consulting business. Namely, they have chosen Krinkle Debris Tracker® for their debris management missions and Krinkle Damage Tracker® for their public assistance work.
DDC has been in business since 2014 and has helped several clients throughout the United States recover from tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, windstorms, and mudslides. As a full-functioning disaster consulting service, they have excelled in assisting their clients in obtaining federal reimbursement of over 500 million dollars in disaster funding. Benjamin Davis, the President/CEO of DDC, is a former FEMA employee who became involved in debris-monitoring and public assistance work as a contractor following Hurricane Katrina. He is a driven subject matter expert who is constantly looking for ways to improve his consulting company’s efficiency and thoroughness.
In 2016, DDC teamed up with one of the nation’s most successful debris monitoring companies for work on debris removal missions. While Ben and his company had experience using other Automated Debris Management Systems (ADMS) in the past, those systems were never built by actual software companies whose core competency is mobile software. Rather, those ADMSs were built by debris companies. This project was the first time Ben was exposed to Mobile Epiphany’s ADMS, Krinkle Debris Tracker®. For the first time, DDC was able to see how restricted and overly complex prior ADMSs were once he experienced the simplicity and comprehensiveness of Krinkle Debris Tracker®. Ben laments on his experience using other ADMSs when he recalls, “At the time, there were only about four ADMSs that you had to choose from. Three of them hadn’t been updated in years and were still running on less powerful windows mobile devices, even though iPhone and Android were the dominant mobile devices at the time. Those aging ADMSs were what they were and you just had to deal with it. We were constantly confronted with challenges stemming from the lack of flexibility inherent to those other ADMSs, many of which forced you to do huge amounts of data work outside of the system. Nothing was truly automated. Krinkle provided everything that the others could not. It is truly modern technology.”
Through working with their partner, Ben and his team were able to see quickly the advantages of using a comprehensive and flexible ADMS that could handle FEMA’s requirements for the entire mission. After the mission, DDC continued to communicate with the subject matter experts at Krinkle and help with updating and improving the mobile app and reporting system. With Ben and his team’s ability to make requested changes and see them so quickly and easily implemented, Ben made the decision for DDC to adopt Krinkle Debris Tracker® as his company’s ADMS. Since its adoption, Krinkle Debris Tracker® has been used to support many of Ben’s clients across multiple missions throughout the years.
In addition to Ben’s success with Krinkle Debris Tracker®, DDC also has a vigorous and growing business in the PA arena. Ben leverages another one of Krinkle’s advanced disaster mobile systems, Krinkle Damage Tracker®, to document all FEMA categories (A-G) of damage necessary to support the FEMA-required Project Worksheets (PWs) that his organization excels in. DDC is already engaged in joint ventures supporting the recently approved 1.9 trillion dollars American Jobs Plan using Krinkle Damage Tracker® as the backbone for the program’s highly detailed data collection and reporting requirements.
Krinkle Debris Tracker® is an Automated Debris Management System (ADMS) designed to help monitoring companies and jurisdictions prevent fraud, control their data, and quickly audit and reconcile after a major disaster. Krinkle Debris Tracker® meets and exceeds all the FEMA data tracking requirements during the debris removal mission. The application acts as a step-by-step guide for every monitor, recon team leader, truck certifier and more. Krinkle Debris Tracker® incorporates all of FEMA’s documented best practices, forms, and processes from the official FEMA-325 and the PAPPG documents. It keeps users’ data organized, accurate, and up-to-date. Whether you’re a monitoring company or a self-monitoring jurisdiction, Krinkle Debris Tracker® instantly provides all the relevant and necessary geospatial and summary reports you will need. Our variety of useful reports track the ongoing progress of every aspect of the project and calculate payments associated with the debris removal effort. Our system gives users the ability to run progress reports, daily and cumulative, including a variety of reimbursement reports and fraud detection reports. The system is easy to learn and use and thanks to Krinkle’s flexible Rapid Application Configuration (RAC) platform, changes can be made to the system as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible.
Krinkle Damage Tracker® is an advanced mobile application supported by back-office reporting software that accurately documents the damage caused by a natural disaster. This supports Project Worksheet writers to accurately track each reimbursable element of damage (categories A through G) at the level of detail FEMA expects. The mobile app acts as a step-by-step guided process for users in the field. First, it ensures that even the newest field data collection personnel can efficiently document every aspect of the damage, at just the right resolution of detail, needed to complete an accurate Project Worksheet. Second, the back-office tools make reporting on data simple and quick. Third, It allows easy exportation of this data in a highly detailed, line-item fashion so that the data can be imported into other systems you may use. Krinkle Damage Tracker® also supports taking photographs, measurements, and inputting material types to support cost analysis.
When asked about the process of implementing Krinkle Debris Tracker® and Krinkle Damage Tracker®, Ben stated, “All of Krinkle’s apps are incredibly user friendly. We’re able to quickly train our employees in all these mission types because the apps are standardized and are constantly checking data entries and reducing human error. For example, most ADMSs that I’ve used in the past take much longer to train users because they aren’t holding your hand and guiding you through the complex FEMA-required processes as Krinkle does. Krinkle takes me an hour to do the training, and in that time our users are already familiar with the app and FEMA regulations, which is unheard of in other ADMSs. Most of the time training for other ADMSs takes much longer than an hour and it doesn’t actually keep the users focused on the accurate management of FEMA rules.”
Soon after implementing Krinkle Debris Tracker®, Ben began to see more advantages of having the software handle more of the debris removal mission. Ben looks back on his history with Krinkle when he recalls, “We have done numerous missions with Krinkle over the years and we’ve used it for navigable waterways, Right of Ways, hazardous trees and debris assessments. We also use a combination of data from Krinkle Damage Tracker® and Krinkle Debris Tracker® to write our Project Worksheets (PWs) and it works perfectly for that as well.”
Ben continues to recall the advantages of using Krinkle when he states, “I didn’t have to go in and recreate anything. The system provides us with everything we need to submit to FEMA including the costs, documentation and more. Everything from capturing photos to creating financial/cost estimates are done within the system, which is powerful and saves tons of time. The flexibility that Krinkle gave us was a rare opportunity. That’s why we chose Krinkle and have stayed with it for so long.” Ben has also noted that he has received similar appreciation from his clients and even FEMA for the thoroughness of his data. DDC further reports that when they have submitted Krinkle data and reports to FEMA, the feedback has always been very positive. He attributes this to the comprehensive capabilities of the mobile app and reporting tool as well as his own thorough understanding of the software.
Over the last 5 years, Krinkle and DDC have continued to develop their partnership and make improvements to the mobile app and reporting system. When asked to advise other businesses facing similar challenges with choosing an ADMS, Ben offered the following: “FEMA requires you to have an ADMS. Many companies assume that just because Krinkle’s ADMS is the most comprehensive and intuitive in the industry, that it must be too expensive. We were pleased to see how reasonably priced it actually is. Monitoring and PA companies need to determine what quality of mission they want to run. How much manual work do they want to do versus letting the ADMS or damage assessment application unburden your team? We believe companies should look for comprehensive mobile apps and reporting systems, as Krinkle provides, which will allow them to do all of their work within the system instead of having to take data and manually build their own spreadsheets and whatnot. You need an A to Z system that handles everything and that’s what Krinkle can get you because they’re constantly adapting, updating and changing the system to better optimize the system for the next storm season.”
Mobile Epiphany, and its Krinkle brand of mobile apps, enable businesses to create and/or adapt existing mobile solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Contact us today to see how Mobile Epiphany can help solve your business challenges.
Who's Using Krinkle: Krinkle Fire Door: Northern Door & Hardware: A Door Hardware Company Helping Clients with Flexible Reporting
This is the story of how Northern Door & Hardware came to choose the Krinkle Fire Door® mobile app and reporting system to run their growing fire door and damper inspection and repair business.
Northern Door & Hardware is a commercial door hardware distributor that has been serving the Duluth, MN area for almost 40 years. Quality field services are a key component in Northern Door & Hardware’s business, which traditionally include hardware replacements, minor adjustments, door installations and more. Chris Benson is a forward-thinking Project Manager at Northern Door & Hardware, who is constantly looking for productive ways to help Northern Door & Hardware’s clients and increase the services they can provide them.
In 2020, Chris saw an opportunity for Northern Door & Hardware to break into the fire door inspection and repair industry. Multiple Project Managers at Northern Door & Hardware were certified NFPA fire door inspectors and repair technicians and they had multiple clients looking for these services. Chris knew that winning this business quickly was crucial, but he refused to compromise quality for the sake of time. While Northern Door & Hardware was new in this space, Chris realized that implementing a comprehensive fire door inspection and repair program would require consistent workflow in the field, automated professional reporting and a system with enough flexibility to adapt along the way. Together, these factors led Chris to begin talking to industry contacts and searching online for potential software solutions that would help drive this new business.
Chris began researching and testing mobile software solutions but was having trouble finding a system that was intuitive enough to be implemented quickly, thorough enough to satisfy even their most data-hungry clients and flexible enough to make any needed changes along the way. Additionally, Chris realized that the expectations of his clients about the deliverables (reports) they would receive varied greatly. Chris touches on this when he states, “From start to end, you have a ton of options. You have so much data and there’s so much to play with and so much of it that [clients] want to see. Some [clients] want to see everything we recorded and some [clients] just want to see if they passed or failed the inspection.” These varied client needs made it clear to Chris that what he needed was going to be a system that could quickly and cost-effectively change and improve. What Chris needed, was Krinkle Fire Door®.
Krinkle Fire Door® is an innovative software application that guides fire door and damper technicians to easily adhere to NFPA standards, speed up work and automate the inspect-Repair-Report cycle for fire door and damper inspections. The system tracks customers, buildings, fire doors (single and double), fire door frames and fire dampers, as well as all associated inspections. Krinkle Fire Door® goes even further (if needed) and tracks the repair process associated with deficiencies found in the inspections. Repair tracking includes parts and labor costs as well as “proof-of-work”. The mobile app comes with all the reports needed to thoroughly prove NFPA compliance. The professional reports provided clearly demonstrate the inspection data for every fire door and damper inspected as well as the repair data if the repair tracker is used. Reports automatically match the deficiencies recorded to their specific NFPA codes and lay them out for clients in an organized and easy-to-read manner. Together, these features effectively addressed all the professional requirements of Northern Door & Hardware, leading them to deploy and adopt Krinkle Fire Door®.
When asked about the process of implementing Krinkle Fire Door® Chris stated, “The process was smooth and quick, which was something we needed, because we had customers who wanted us to handle their inspections. We reached out to Krinkle, signed a deal and asked to get set up as soon as possible. Krinkle proceeded to train us and we were up and running quickly.”
Soon after implementing the new system, Chris began to see many more advantages of having software like Krinkle Fire Door® drive his business. Chris touches on this when saying, “The way the fire door app is set up is very repetitive, which is definitely a good thing. When you have a lot of inspections and you start to get rolling, it’s very easy to use. If we go into a building and there are 500 doors to inspect, and we aren’t using an intuitive, easy-flowing app, then that could burden our inspectors and waste our time and energy.”
Not only was Chris satisfied with how quick and easy it was to collect comprehensive data, but he was also impressed with Krinkle’s client-facing reports. Chris recalls this when he states, “The way you can utilize all the data that Krinkle tracks is very helpful not only for us but our clients as well. Other platforms have set reports and you can’t change anything. With Krinkle we really like how if we need a slight adjustment [to our reports] we can do that ourselves. We don’t have to develop something new.”
In the last year, Krinkle and Northern Door & Hardware have continued to develop their partnership and make improvements to the mobile app and reporting system. “Krinkle has allowed us to expand into a new sector that Northern Door & Hardware hasn’t been in before, involving fire door inspections. Using the app we’ve been able to dive into that world and help customers in a different way than before”, stated Chris. When asked to advise other businesses facing these challenges while attempting to implement similar programs, Chris offered the following: “My advice would be to do your due diligence and research the different stages of the app. There’s the data entry stage, and how easy and intuitive that is for your users. There’s a stage after where you have your data entered, but where does it go from there? Is it cloud-based? Is this secure? Am I stuck on one LAN computer?” With Krinkle Fire Door®, all these issues are handled, as professional software should.
Chris continues, “Then there’s the final stage of distributing the end result to your customer”. This is accomplished with the multiple styles of reports that come included with the system. Ultimately, the solution you should choose has to meet all these requirements. Krinkle Fire Door® meets and exceeds all these industry needs.
Mobile Epiphany, and its Krinkle brand of mobile apps, enable businesses to create and/or adapt existing mobile solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Contact us today to see how Mobile Epiphany can help solve your business challenges.
Who's Using Krinkle?: Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro: Sport Environmental: Perfecting LDAR Services with Mobile Technology
Sport Environmental Services, LLC, a Terracon company, is an environmental consulting company serving clients in the energy production industry with a focus on oil and gas operators in the Permian Basin. They selected Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® for its best-in-class capabilities to help them drive compliance for their clients. Sport Environmental has been operating in several states including Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana for more than 15 years and is headed by Ms. Deborah “Debi” Sport Moore. In 2014, Ms. Cianna Logie began working for Sport Environmental and endeavored to find practical ways to drive progress towards the company president’s vision of a lean consulting firm that could handle the diverse range of environmental compliance issues associated with the oil and gas industry. Ms. Logie is Sport Environmental’s Environmental & Regulatory Project Manager and is a dedicated leader who handles federal and state regulatory compliance matters, air quality, environmental social governance (ESG), and a variety of other environmental and regulatory projects including Leak Detection And Repair (LDAR) program management.
In 2019, Ms. Logie and her team were looking for solutions to better serve their clients in the oil & gas industry and ensure compliance with regulations as efficiently and economically as possible. Since Sport Environmental already collects a significant amount of data that can be utilized for multiple environmental filings each time a client’s site is visited, Ms. Moore and Ms. Logie’s vision for Sport Environmental focused on further enhancing the wide array of environmental compliance services offered (e.g., air quality permits, Spill Prevention Control & Countermeasure (SPCC), and stormwater management, and other filings) to include LDAR data. Ms. Logie expands upon this by stating, “When we are on-site, we want to hit as many state and federal programs as we can with a single visit so that our clients enjoy the benefit of having that data at their disposal and we can utilize it to their benefit in a cost-efficient manner.”
Ms. Logie realized that increasing the quality of Sport Environmental’s regulatory services in a cost-effective manner would require automation in the form of mobile software. Sport Environmental had been in the process of developing their own LDAR software in-house; however, the projected costs associated with creating software and constantly supporting multiple operating systems were too great and the benefits of having a third-party partnership became more appealing. A better solution would incorporate supporting documents and guided processes to reduce the level of upfront regulatory knowledge required for field users to be successful in their work.
In order to increase the quality of service offered to her clients while remaining cost-effective, Ms. Logie understood that it would be worthwhile to explore other third-party software solutions. This dedication to her clients and drive to pioneer new technology for her industry is what led Ms. Logie and Ms. Moore to the comprehensive Leak Detection and Repair mobile app and reporting tool, Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®.
Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® enables seamless and automated OOOOa compliant work order sharing (we call it “Shared Work Orders”) between LDAR program managers, Infrared (OGI) camera inspectors, repair techs and OGI verifiers. Even client executives who must decide how to handle leaks on “Delay of Repair” status are supported. This ensures that every required step of the OOOOa regulation (in addition to state regulations) becomes a simple, guided process for users. The end result is consistent workflow in the field for all users, assured compliance and a system that drives the process through to its full completion. Together, these features effectively addressed Ms. Logie’s software needs, leading Sport Environmental to adopt and deploy Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®.
When considering what it was that led her to choose Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® over other mobile software, Ms. Logie remarked, “When looking at a product, of course, we ask, ‘is this going to work’, but we also ask ‘is the relationship going to work’. We had been looking at other software solutions, but when it came time to make a decision, [Krinkle] stood out by returning our emails, answering our calls and supporting us with training while others did not. It was an obvious choice in that regard.” Not only did Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® distinguish itself from other third-party software, but it also had a clear advantage over the in-house software being developed for LDAR compliance. Ms. Logie recalls, “The software that we were currently using didn’t have the same level of control over users’ profiles and what they had access to… Seeing it built out and so well implemented during our testing with Krinkle made it appealing. The back end syncing to the server and the operational stability of having a third-party partner made it a perfect fit for our program. Because OOOOa is a complex regulation, it was exciting to see it built out with an added layer of protection.”
When commencing with training and deploying the app, Ms. Logie saw firsthand the amount of regulatory knowledge and guided processes built into the app and how intuitive it was for her field users to learn. Ms. Logie recalls, “Within about 15 minutes of picking up the software, making a profile, logging in and running through the training, [field users] were up and running as if they had always been using it… Krinkle walks them through their work as if they were reading the regulation themselves without having to deal with the 120+ pages in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Even a newer employee, someone who hasn’t had as much field experience, can operate at a level that is closer to someone who has had significantly more training and experience in the field.” Field users are not the only ones who have benefitted from adopting Krinkle, Ms. Logie recalls this when she states, “We have several clients who have been impressed in particular with the compiled leak tracker reports we issue through Krinkle. We have also had really good feedback from clients who have submitted final reports to the EPA… The process was fast and didn’t require a lot of back and forth to complete.”
Over the last year, Krinkle and Sport Environmental have continued to advance their partnership and improve the mobile app and reporting system. When asked for her experience adopting and working with Krinkle, Ms. Logie had the following to say: “The process was smooth and the implementation went exceptionally well. Anytime that we have hit a hiccup or speedbump, it’s been very easy to send a message to support or give them a call and be taken care of promptly.”
Mobile Epiphany, and its Krinkle brand of mobile apps, enable businesses to create and/or adapt existing mobile solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Contact us today to see how Mobile Epiphany can help solve your business challenges.
Who's Using Krinkle?: Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro: Maverick Natural Resources: An Oil & Gas Company Trailblazing An In-House LDAR Program
Maverick Natural Resources is an independent Oil & Gas development and production company serving East Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Their Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) Specialist, Kaleb Foster, is a hardworking innovator who was looking for an efficient way to ensure compliance with environmental regulations such as OOOOa.
In late 2019, Kaleb was looking into ways to improve Maverick Natural Resources’ (MNR) environmental compliance programs. For environmental regulatory services like Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR), Maverick’s program had traditionally relied on hiring out to third-party environmental service companies to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations. In their instance, they felt that 3rd party outsourcing presented significant costs and uncertainties. Kaleb recalls this when he stated, “We would hire out to third parties and that comes with a pretty substantial cost. You’re at the mercy of the contractor. They build the pricing model and tell you how much the service costs and you may not entirely understand what it is that you’re getting.” Additionally, Kaleb wanted to improve Maverick’s reporting capabilities, without losing track of steps in the LDAR process or slowing down inspectors, repairmen and verifiers.
Kaleb touches on other areas of improvement in Maverick’s LDAR program when he recalled, “Doing LDAR Programs with their inspections and reports is a manual application that is tedious. A nightmare really. Dealing with stacks of paper from contractors’ invoices and reports got to be unmanageable for an efficient company like ours.” In order to increase Maverick’s LDAR reporting capabilities while being as cost-effective as possible, Kaleb decided to bring the work traditionally hired out to third-party environmental service companies, in-house. However, Kaleb knew that taking on this work while still ensuring environmental compliance was going to be challenging. To accomplish this, Kaleb needed a solution with processes and the actual regulations built into the system’s guided steps to reduce the upfront regulatory knowledge required for his LDAR crews to be successful in their work. Kaleb also wanted a system that would automatically push the LDAR process forward, from inspections to repairs and then final verification, without losing any data or any steps in the process. After researching a number of different systems, Kaleb and MNR realized what they needed was Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®.
Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® enables seamless and automated OOOOa compliant work order sharing (we call it “Shared Work Orders”) between LDAR program managers, Infrared (OGI) camera inspectors, repair techs, and OGI verifiers. Even client executives who must decide how to handle leaks on “Delay of Repair” status are supported. This ensures that every required step of the OOOOa regulation (as well as any additional state regulations) becomes a simple, guided process for users. The end result is consistent workflow in the field for all users, assured compliance and a system that drives the process through to its full completion.
When considering what led him and his colleagues to choose Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® over other software solutions, Kaleb had the following to say, “I felt like it was really intuitive and I liked that Krinkle was a guided process. It allows for an easy user experience and reduces the opportunity for errors. In this business, when you’re trying to be good stewards of the environment, there is no room for error.” Not only did Kaleb immediately see the improvements in reducing human error and the regulatory knowledge required for users to succeed in their work, but Kaleb also found that Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® had automated professional reporting that would ensure environmental compliance. Kaleb states, “There’s definitely a time-saving aspect to using [Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®] versus a traditional paper report. When you’re out [in the field] using the app, you’re essentially done when you leave, whether you’re inspecting, repairing or verifying, you don’t have to go back to the office and crunch numbers or transfer info over to another piece of paper for reporting. It’s all done in real-time.” When asked about his experience training users and deploying the software, Kaleb stated the following, “It was an intuitive process. The support by Mobile Epiphany/Krinkle was very thorough. [They] helped each user understand the process, the app and how it functions…You could tell that they were clearly subject matter experts.”
Over the last year, Krinkle and Maverick Natural Resources have continued to advance their partnership and improve the mobile app and reporting system. When asked for his advice to companies facing similar challenges as Maverick, Kaleb had the following to say, “The benefit of using [software] versus using paper is substantial. You may be hesitant or reluctant to transition, but it will pay dividends in cost and time. At our company, we try and embrace technology, because it’s something that’s going to drive efficiency.” With the new, in-house LDAR program established, Maverick Natural Resources has been able to ensure compliance with state and federal environmental regulations while being as time and cost-efficient as possible.
Mobile Epiphany, and its Krinkle brand of mobile apps, enable businesses to create and/or adapt existing mobile solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Contact us today to see how Mobile Epiphany can help solve your business challenges.
Double Your Fire Door Inspection & Repair Efficiency with Our Latest Double Door Update
Krinkle’s newest fire door update includes the ability to download and run reports online via any web browser. This web reporting feature rolls out on March 8th, 2021, at which time we will be transitioning all pc based reporting to this new web reporting system. Expect to hear from us later next week as we will be reaching out to Krinkle Fire Door® users and sending them their new web reporting login credentials. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us.
At Krinkle Apps, we are constantly working to create and update our intuitive and comprehensive mobile software to unlock the full potential of our clients’ business processes. Over the years of working with subject matter experts in the fire & life safety industry, we’ve come to understand the subtle nuances of our clients’ processes and how our software could service their needs better. As part of this continuous effort to improve our product offerings, we are excited to announce a variety of quality of life and ease of use improvements to our enterprise-class fire door (and damper) inspection and repair software, Krinkle Fire Door®. While Krinkle Fire Door® previously guided users through inspecting and repairing dampers, single doors and frames, Krinkle’s newest update includes guided processes and smart forms specifically built for guiding users through their double door and frame inspections and repairs.
The following features are included in the newest Krinkle Fire Door® update:
- Each door within a double door has its own unique identifiers within the system, making it easier for inspectors to identify and specify which leaf within a double door has the deficiencies
- The system now focuses the inspector on those aspects of the doors that can only be referenced as common to both leaves (like the gap between them)
- The system now focuses the inspector on those aspects of the frame that relate to the individual leaves (like the doorstop attached to the frame for one specific leaf but not the other)
- The system now focuses the inspector on aspects of the frame that are common to the entire frame
Along with the updates to the mobile app itself, Krinkle Fire Door®’s reports have also been updated to include this new level of precise detail in its double door reporting. This creates a clearer and more comprehensive view of work done on-site, as well as parts and repairs required, which your client will greatly appreciate. Finally, Krinkle’s newest fire door update also includes the ability to download and run reports online via any web browser. You can even run reports from your smartphone!
If you have any questions about Krinkle Fire Door®’s latest web reporting feature or are interested in learning more about our fire door inspection and repair software, check out the video below and click here to learn more.
Who's Using Krinkle?: Krinkle Fire Door: Victory Fire Door: An Industry Pioneer of Mobile Technology
Victory Fire Door is a fire door inspection and repair company serving hospitals, universities, government facilities and more around the Atlanta area and the American South. The founder of the company, Vickie Evans, is a dedicated leader who wears many hats within the organization, including being responsible for fire door inspections and repairs as well as managing the business as a whole. Vickie had tried other fire door inspection software she had found online, but they simply did not meet her standards for thoroughness in NFPA compliance, comprehensiveness in reporting and ease of use.
In 2019, Victory Fire Door was looking for solutions to better serve their clients in the Fire & Life Safety industry. The business was growing rapidly and increased efficiencies were greatly needed. As the owner, Vickie’s main priority has always been the safety of first responders and the occupants of the buildings she inspects for NFPA compliance. To be successful here, Vickie had goals for Victory Fire Door to improve the thoroughness of collecting data on fire door and damper inspections and repairs and to increase her clients’ visibility of this data through professional and easy-to-read reports. Vickie had experience using pen and paper as well as other mobile applications in the market to record and report on Victory Fire Door's fire door inspections and repairs in the past. However, she had seen first-hand the shortcomings of these "solutions". Vickie recalls,
“One of the first inspections we did with the software I tried, we did on pen and paper anyway. It made no sense. I had 3 people inspecting, but only one person could be using our current software at a time, in the same building. So we did about 200 doors, and it was a nightmare.”
Vickie goes on to describe the additional steps in her previous fire door/damper repair process. This process had previously required her to manually create spreadsheets for her technicians, who would then need to record their repair efforts by hand. While Victory Fire Door had previously supplied their clients with good reporting details about these repair efforts, Vickie wanted true proof of work in her reporting that would be highly visible and ironclad. Vickie’s industry expertise and her dedication to constantly improve the quality of service provided to her clients and community led her to keep looking for new technology to pioneer in the form of mobile software with comprehensive reporting. She eventually found it in Krinkle Fire Door®.
Vickie began researching and testing a wide variety of mobile software solutions but was having trouble finding a system that would not only thoroughly address the needs of her business and her clients’ businesses but also her internal tracking needs. Every application she found only addressed inspections and even those were not comprehensive from an NFPA perspective. Additionally, none of them managed the downstream business requirements after inspection, such as automatic repair estimates, parts preparation for the upcoming repairs, tracking proof of repairs and other unique capabilities her growing business could leverage. While conducting this research, Vickie noted, “The software for fire door inspections and repairs is very unique. And so is the process of inspecting and repairing dampers. Our business manages both and we needed software that could manage the unique aspects of both. Because we do repairs on both doors and dampers, I needed a system that would integrate my repairs into the inspection system and automatically update as we went.” Some of the solutions Vickie researched handled door inspections but not repairs. Some solutions allowed users to capture data on doors, but not dampers. Other systems could automate reporting, but none of the reports provided were thorough enough or organized enough, to meet the high-quality standards Vickie sets for herself and Victory Fire Door. Vickie states,
“Other software we looked into had inflexible reporting features that didn’t give you access to the backend system. Meaning we had to go through our software provider to generate reports which could take a week to ten days. Customers just didn’t like that. We needed a system with lots of professional reports that covered all aspects of the process, and we needed them right out-of-the-box.”
What Vickie was also looking for was speed without compromising detail. She needed a system that allowed her to capture high-quality data without slowing down her inspectors and repair people. Vickie needed a system that could automate reporting, but in a professional manner that would clearly and thoroughly layout the work completed, and ensure her clients were compliant and protected in the case of a government audit. Finally, she needed all of this to be done in a manner that was as cost-effective and easy to adopt and deploy as possible. What Vickie needed, was Krinkle Fire Door®.
Krinkle Fire Door® is an innovative software application that guides fire door and damper technicians to easily adhere to NFPA standards, speed up work, and automate fire door and damper inspection/repair reporting. The system tracks customers, buildings, fire doors (single and double), fire door frames, and fire dampers, as well as all associated inspections. An additional module even tracks the repair process associated with deficiencies found in the inspections, including parts and labor costing. The mobile app comes with all the reports needed to thoroughly prove NFPA compliance. The professional reports layout the inspection data for every asset inspected as well as the repair data if the repair module is used. Reports even automatically match the deficiencies recorded to their specific NFPA codes and lay them out for clients in an organized and easy-to-read manner. Together, these features effectively addressed Vickie’s software needs, leading Victory Fire Door to deploy and adopt Krinkle Fire Door®.
Vickie states, “Adjusting our process to Krinkle wasn’t difficult at all… It was simple to learn and welcomed by my workers… The trainer was very patient and answered all of my questions.” Shortly after receiving training and deploying the mobile app, Vickie soon began seeing results.
“From a day-to-day standpoint [Krinkle] probably saved us about 20 hours of paperwork per ~200 doors inspected. And that was just the tip of the iceberg as far as efficiency and thoroughness were concerned. Now everything falls under the Krinkle umbrella… Basically, it took about 4-5 steps we previously had to do and automated them for us. It’s saved us time and reduced human error.”
Not only did Krinkle Fire Door® help Vickie improve the quality of data her users were collecting, but it also made the data more visible to her clients. “[Krinkle Fire Door®] has really improved our ability to share with the customer the repairs that we’ve made and what is still non-compliant on their doors (if anything). Krinkle addressed the repair needs that I had; it allowed me to show my repairs and the work we had done in color-coded, easy-to-read reports that the customer could understand.”
Over the last year, Krinkle and Victory Fire Door have continued to advance their partnership and improve the mobile app and reporting system. When asked for her experience working with Krinkle’s other departments, Vickie had the following to say: “In regards to support after the fact, I just recently submitted a support ticket…and [customer support] addressed and fixed the issue within the day. Customer support has been very responsive to the needs that I have, which is awesome because most of the time customers aren’t willing to wait a couple of days for the turnaround. They want it done instantaneously. All of the departments I have worked with within Mobile Epiphany have been very gracious and helpful.”
Mobile Epiphany, and its Krinkle brand of mobile apps, enable businesses to create and/or adapt existing mobile solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Contact us today to see how Mobile Epiphany can help solve your business challenges.
