For the last installment of Fulcrum for Data Collection, we explore the stories of some of our government clients – enjoy!
Fresno County, California – After the Creek Fire in September 2020 burned almost 400,000 acres in California, Fresno County sprang into action to quickly assess the damage to share with FEMA and speed the recovery process. Within 24 hours of learning of Fulcrum, Fresno County had already deployed dozens of volunteers to complete damage assessments – a feat that would not have been possible with its existing GIS platform. With a Fulcrum app that mirrored the FEMA worksheet, Fresno County was able to share the needed information without re-entering or reconfiguring the data. In addition, the data collected in the field was also used to bolster Fresno’s existing GIS platform with new, geotagged records.
Client quote: Fulcrum allowed us to create easy-to-use apps — complex as well, not just simple apps that you fill out. It’s truly very easy to create and manage. With Fulcrum, it’s ready to go out of the box.
City of Wyoming, Michigan – In response to new requirements by the State of Michigan, Wyoming, the 16th largest community in the state, needed to perform a massive inventory of its water distribution system followed by an upgrade of its metering and billing systems for more than 20,000 water service lines. Seeking a solution to allow it to collect, report, and map the water line inventory as well as integrate with existing billing and work order systems, Fulcrum fit the bill. Field deployment was simple and easy to manage, with field staff using Fulcrum with little training, while data obtained was both complete and accurate, complete with rich geolocation information.
Client quote: We were impressed by Fulcrum’s GPS functionality, the ability to quickly and easily attach photos, the speed of the system in the field and the reasonable cost of the software. We also anticipate a time savings as we replace work order entry with Fulcrum entry only and will develop imports that will insert data into our billing system without a need for manual entry.
Santa Barbara County Fire Department, California – The Santa Barbara County Fire Department is responsible for protecting more than 420,000 residents and 2,700 square miles of land on the Central California coast. In addition to fighting fires and responding to other emergencies, the department conducts more than 16,000 inspections annually of structure defensible space – a brush-free area around a building maintained to reduce fire risk. Before Fulcrum, the SBCFD used paper forms to perform these important inspections, with unsatisfactory results. In addition to being inefficient, the pen-and-paper inspection system was difficult to track, and provided no visibility into each individual fire department’s inspection workload. Using Fulcrum increased the number of inspections able to be performed and enabled a smarter, more productive positioning of resources. The end result? Before adopting Fulcrum, the department could only get to less than half of the county’s properties each year. But in 2019, the rate of completion was up to 90%. SBCFD also uses Fulcrum for search and rescue operations during fire emergencies to streamline evacuation, as shown below in a local newscast – exciting stuff!
Client quote: Fulcrum makes it easy for the stations to collect the data and for us to receive and use the data in GIS. It made it so maybe you were able to do three inspections a day, and now you can do twenty.
Interested in learning more about Fulcrum for data collection and field operations? Read more about Fulcrum for field ops, or give it a try for yourself with our free 30-day trial!