Transportation companies are often faced with the need for a unified system for logging trouble calls and response dispatch. This system must be accessible from several, often-distant geographical locations. Preferably it should connect to a centralized database so everyone has access to the most up-to-date information. It should be flexible enough to allow for receiving and logging trouble calls, dispatch response crews, and generate reports.

ZETA-TECH Associates, Inc. has developed such a system. It is a complete client/server system designed to work over a Wide Area Network (WAN) with an easy to use graphical front end (GUI) that can be deployed on Windows 95/98/NT platforms with an Oracle database as the back-end. This system significantly reduces delays between receiving a trouble call and actually dispatching a response team. Once fully deployed, the Trouble Desk data and activity logs are always up to date and accessible 24 hours a day from several distant geographical points.

The Trouble Desk process is a fairly simple one. A dispatcher accepts incoming trouble calls at the Trouble Desk center. He or she then logs these calls into a database through a simple data entry. Following that is the option of contacting a designated team of maintainers according to their seniority or rank. These maintainers then inform the trouble desk of the action undertaken, and a call can be signed-off at the discretion of the dispatcher. The figure below presents the above process.

Logged data is immediately available for analysis and reporting from any location with the Trouble Desk client software installed. Once a day at a specified hour (usually after business hours), an Automatic Report Invocation System (ARIS) will launch a series of updates to specified offices via fax, printer, and email. That report will include all trouble calls received during the last 24-hr period.

Security is given a priority during Trouble Desk operations. Only personnel assigned by the supervisor to the Trouble Desk can access the system. Even then, each operator is limited to his or her security level. Security levels limit the type of action a user is allowed to undertake and how much data they can access.

The lowest security level is LEVEL 1, which is a minimum level required to enter the system. Security levels 2, 3, and 4 determine whether an operator can view, add to, modify, and remove records. Maximum level is LEVEL 5 (supervisory). It opens complete access to all subsystems of the application. Only the supervisor has the privileges to add and remove users, modify their identifications.

Special attention is given to easy access to the most frequently used subsystems of the program. Once a trouble call comes across an operator has a direct access to call specific shortcuts such as Available Maintainers Call List, and Apparatus Out of Service forms. These shortcuts are accessible directly from the trouble log form. This approach dramatically flattens the learning curve, and improves the response timings.