We’ve mentioned before, great investigation management software needs the ability to map your investigative process directly into the software itself, and to give you a visual overview of where you are moving your chess pieces on the board. This gives you a leg up on the logistical process and provides many key advantages to investigation management.
In military science, Logistics involves the art of carrying out troop movements. To your business, it means making sure you have the right personnel conducting the right investigations in the right areas to give you the highest degree of efficiency and effectiveness. Good on-line mapping functionality can help tremendously when it comes to this area of your business.
Logistics are one of the most overlooked aspects of the investigation business and they are perhaps the area where the most savings and operational improvements can be made. From a cost standpoint, there are travel and overtime savings that can be realized by implementing good logistics management. From a strategical standpoint, putting the right investigator on the job can be the key to a successful investigation.
Good investigation management software should do all of that for you. The right business application, one that integrates mapping, scheduling, and case management will give you a leg up on your competition and save time and money in the allocation process. You should know how close your investigators are to their weekly hours-worked capacity, who is best qualified to do the case, and who is the most geographically desirable person to allocate to. With that knowledge in hand, you’ll be able to make the right logistical decisions for your company.
Let’s say for example that on Thursday you get a call from a client assigning a two-day weekend surveillance in Bakersville. Your investigator, Albert, is only two miles away from Bakersville and would seem to be the logical choice for allocation. When looking at your map, you see the following: Three investigators Albert, Brenda, and Charlie, all within a 30 mile radius of Bakersville, and Dan, who is 80 miles from Bakersville. If you have the right application, you can roll over each of your investigators and drill down to the details to get a complete story and decide who to give the case to.
When you roll over Albert you see that he’s already done four surveillances this week and posted 36 hours. If you assign two more days to him, you could be looking at 12 hours of overtime. So you roll over Brenda’s icon and see that she has only 16 hours of work so far this week. You click to take a look at her schedule. Turns out she’s booked this weekend for an important client. When you look at Charlie, he too only has 16 hours logged and he’s free this weekend. But as you drill down into the detail, you realize that his cover was blown on a case in this very same neighborhood just two weeks ago. You decide not to send him on this one.
That leaves Dan. Even though Dan has only worked 20 hours this week, you’re still reluctant to send him all that way to do the case which is 80 miles from his home. But when you drill down to Dan’s schedule, you see that he has a Saturday afternoon statement only 15 miles away from Bakersville. Now you realize that you actually have a great opportunity to “piggy-back” a case for Dan so that you don’t incur extra travel costs! Perfect! You decide Dan is the best guy for the job and give him the assignment.
Good investigation companies have an edge over their competition when it comes to scheduling, personnel management, and moving the chess pieces around on the board to maximize the use of their investigators. The right kind of software makes that process a whole lot easier for you.
Key points:
- View subject address(es) on map.
- Show closest investigators, their workloads on map.
- Show future events in that area to ‘piggy back’ on another assignment.
- Show past events for intel purposes – have you ever been sprung by a prior claimant..?
All the Best
Richard Shepherd
President US Operations