Jupiter Taps MobileHWY for Mobile Building Permit Program

Published: April 24, 2007

by Alex Woodie

The city of Jupiter, Florida, has deployed MobileHWY's PC-based field automation solution, called MobileHWY INSPECTOR, to provide remote, offline access to its OS/400-based building permit and inspection software from Sungard/HTE, the software vendor announced last week.

Jupiter, like many communities in Florida, is dealing with big changes in the face of unprecedented population growth. With the population in unincorporated Jupiter projected to increase 33 percent by 2010, the town's building department has its work cut out for it if it hopes to maintain the cozy small-town feel.

While the new software from MobileHWY won't affect supply and demand, it can have an impact in another way: making the department more efficient and reducing administrative tasks, thereby keeping fees down.

MobileHWY partnered with Inventu, developer of the 5250 emulation and integration product known as FlyNet, to enable MobileHWY to connect to the AS/400 running Jupiter's HTE building permit application. The solution resulted in a laptop-based building permit program that worked in connected and disconnected modes.

Roger Held, deputy building official for Jupiter's building department, said MobileHWY provided the town with what it needed. "We needed a solution that worked with all the systems we already had in place, but would also be easy to adopt for our field inspectors," he says. "Improving customer service and turning around information faster was important but MobileHWY also proved that the system can be easy to use too."

Currently 15 building inspectors in Jupiter are using MobileHWY. The department next plans to deploy the solution to its code enforcement division.

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