In 2021, Broward County Resilient Environment Department concluded a three year project, which upgraded to the latest web-enabled version of POSSE for its subordinate agencies, including Building Code, Consumer Protection, Environmental Permitting, and Natural Resources Divisions. A continuation of the upgrade included expanded GIS integration and Single Sign-On which was completed in early 2023. This recent product update was the latest milestone in a 20+ year partnership between Broward County and Computronix. This transformative product journey started with implementing a POSSE Permitting Solution beginning in 2003. In June 2004, the Board of County Commissioners standardized Broward County’s licensing, permitting, inspection, and enforcement activities on the POSSE Platform. This was followed in March 2005 with the execution of a Master Agreement to enable the expansion of ‘Powered by POSSE’ services into other Broward County divisions, including the Highway Construction & Engineering Division and Waste & Recycling Services (WRS).
Leveraging the POSSE Platform as an enterprise pillar application, Broward County has developed over 100 configured workflows for business processes as diverse as “For-Hire” Vehicle Licensing, Development Review, Environmental Review, Master Permit, and Environmental Enforcement. The innovation continues in 2024 with Computronix working with the Broward Resilient Environment Department and Building Code Information Systems Teams and implementing a pilot project for an Electronic Plan Review (ePlans) software for the Broward County Building Code Division.
“Efficient permitting, licensing and inspection processes, facilitated by an effective enterprise application platform, are instrumental to business and economic development. Continuing to improve and streamline those processes, making them intuitive for the customer and agency user alike, drives real dollars in the local and regional economy.”
Philip McChesney
Director and Assistant Chief Innovation Officer
Broward County Consumer Protection Division
“With technology, we want to stay cutting edge. Whatever we can do to make our customers’ lives easier and their experience more streamlined, that’s where we want to go.”
Hipolito Cruz, Jr.
Director
Broward County Building Code Division
“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection” – Mark Twain
Bilal Hashmi
Innovation Initiative Administrator & Information Systems Manager
Broward County Resilient Environment Department
“It’s always looking at how we improve the processes, to make it not only better for the public but for our staff.”
Angel Wong
IT Manager
Broward County Building Code Division
In working with Computronix on the implementation of the award-winning POSSE Platform, government leaders within Broward County were keen to accomplish two strategic, long- term objectives:
“Many of the significant improvements and upgrades over the past decade have focused on streamlining internal processes for the agency business user. The focus is now turning to the customer experience and user interface with the transformation to WebUI, which will greatly enhance the ability of individuals and businesses to submit, update, and review the status of their applications online.”
Philip McChesney
Director and Assistant Chief Innovation Officer
Broward County Consumer Protection Division
“Participants in our Inspector Training Program come from swinging a hammer or digging ditches, to their first time in a front of a computer and the first application that they’re introduced to is POSSE. That’s part of their training — using a computer, using the POSSE system, and being introduced to how we do business digitally.”
Hipolito Cruz, Jr.
Director
Broward County Building Code Division
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
Bilal Hashmi
Innovation Initiative Administrator & Information Systems Manager
Broward County Resilient Environment Department
“Having WebUI with an interface that adjusts to the device that you’re using will help to facilitate that process even more.”
Angel Wong
IT Manager
Broward County Building Code Division
Due to the upgrades completed by the county in March of 2024, the average time required to complete a plan review with Broward County was cut to 2.88 days.
For the Building Code Division, this timeline was a notable improvement from the Division’s initial goal of 10 days, set when the County first embarked upon its journey to streamline planning and permitting processes for the County’s development community. In realizing this achievement, the County has eliminated the paper-driven processes of the past in favor of streamlined user workflows designed to facilitate intrinsic efficiencies across the County’s full gamut of licensing, permitting, inspections, and enforcement services. This same innovation mindset holds throughout the County with ‘Powered by POSSE‘ solutions now equipping numerous Divisions.
True to their vision of a true enterprise development platform, the County now contains over 450 licensed POSSE users performing over 100 unique business workflow types.
“Posse has become an integral part of our business operations. The software contains historical & current data which is used by staff frequently. Another valuable aspect is the ability for staff to electronically “route” projects to multiple departments at once and their subsequent ability to provide comments on those “routed” projects which translates to a significant time savings.”
Asif Ali
Environmental Program Supervisor
Urban Planning Division
“One thing that POSSE helps us out with is everything is combined into one. We track our time management and our permitting at the same time. Other departments are in POSSE, so that makes our processes much easier not only for us but for the customer as well.”
Ronald Puentes
Chief Building Official
Broward County Building Code Division
Never one to slow down progress, the ambitious Broward County Information Systems team, along with the Building Code Division, is working diligently alongside their Computronix product experts to introduce a range of powerful new capabilities to their POSSE Solution.
The County is progressing an ePlans integration anticipated to launch in December 2024.
In contrast to poorly integrated solutions, POSSE features a dedicated ePlans module seamlessly integrated with permitting/licensing workflows and the industry-leading markup tools. A complete product solution for electronic plan review process, the POSSE ePlans Module contains:
The County also plans to implement POSSE WebUI, a powerful toolset for agile customer portal provision.
“Once we do incorporate the ePlans into our process, then that will improve that number (Plan Review Turnaround) drastically, even though it’s already low, because we’ll be able to have multiple trades reviewing plans at one time.”
Ronald Puentes
Chief Building Official
Broward County Building Code Division
“If a contractor wants to check on the status of their permit or even schedule their permit inspection, they can do that through text. That’s another item that we’re going to be implementing in the future.”
“POSSE is a product that continues to evolve with new technology, so that is one of the reasons why we continue to invest in it, because we’re seeing progress and development on the product.”
Angel Wong
IT Manager
Broward County Building Code Division
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