They also include the bus driver in the process, giving him a driver comment card to complete, right on the Palm device! "This helps sync up views between ServiceMaster and Greyhound as to what a clean, squared-away bus looks like," Morrow says.

Implementing the solution wasn't entirely smooth sailing, however. "Putting the application together was probably the easiest part. Getting the data viewable by those who needed it was the issue." Putting the back-end together turned out to be the most difficult part of the process, as they had to figure out where the data would be delivered and how it would be maintained. Eventually, they ended up acquiring a server locally and using that for the back-end.

With that problem solved, the ServiceMaster supervisors at the Greyhound maintenance facilities throughout the country have been able to standardize the inspection process, put structure around it, and report their results quickly and efficiently. This has made Greyhound a very happy customer.

Morrow sums up the results quite eloquently. "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, and we're now measuring inspections for Greyhound much better than we did in the past thanks to this solution." And thanks to ServiceMaster, traveling on Greyhound is a pleasant experience for travelers.

Contributing Editor Chris Phillips is a Senior Project Manager for UMB Bank and a member of the Kansas City Palm Users Group (at http://www.interpug.com/kcpug). Comments can be sent to chrisof4@hotmail.com.