KC Scout innovationwins second place in People Choice

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Each year MoDOT's Kansas City district hosts a district-wide showcase for its annual Innovations Challenge. The Innovations Challenge is a MoDOT event that recognizes new ideas that help the department improve safety, simplify work, save time, and save money. This year, KC Scout submitted one innovation that took home Second Place in the district's People's Choice category. Their innovation replaces paper forms with digital versions.


This innovation replaced the paper form of KC Scout's Daily Vehicle Inspection Form. This form is completed on their mobile phones daily and tracks the condition of KC Scout vehicles, along with various safety and work related items that should be in them. According to Special Projects Coordinator Nancy Powell, utility locators like using the digital form as it eliminates having to keep paper forms in vehicles and makes the daily reporting much easier

According to the team (Mohammad Shehada, Dominique Gonzalez, York Morlan, Christopher Butler, Scott Banes, Randy Johnson and Nancy Powell) this innovation was a no-cost, easy solution using Adobe Acrobat Pro to create the necessary fields of the PDF that the user can fill in, being it text, check boxes, etc.

"I use their emailed daily forms to chart their compliance and note any mechanical issues that need to be addressed. I then chart the results on a monthly basis," explains Powell.

In addition to the benefits on convenience, the innovation can be easily replicated by other MoDOT divisions using Adobe Acrobat Pro. 

This innovation is eligible for the Statewide Innovations Showcase scheduled for this spring in Columbia, MO. The team will find out in the coming weeks if it has been selected to move forward. In the meantime, they'll be completing their Daily Vehicle Inspection Forms digitally thanks to their hard work.




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