Esri > Case Studies > Ohio City Leverages IoT for Data Transparency and Personnel Decisions during Pandemic

Ohio City Leverages IoT for Data Transparency and Personnel Decisions during Pandemic

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Cities & Municipalities
Equipment & Machinery

Applicable Functions

Human Resources

Use Cases

Personnel Tracking & Monitoring
Smart City Operations

Services

System Integration
Training

The Customer

Akron

About The Customer

The City of Akron, Ohio, is the state's fifth-largest city with a population of 200,000. Governed by Mayor Daniel Horrigan and the Akron City Council, it is a midlevel municipality that manages a range of city services, from parks and recreation to fire, water, and sanitation. The city employs about 2,100 full-time and seasonal employees across all divisions. Like other cities and towns, Akron was thrust into uncharted territory when COVID-19 began spreading across the United States. The city officials had to make fast decisions to protect not only residents but also its employees, beginning with the initial stay-at-home orders issued in March 2020.

The Challenge

The City of Akron, Ohio, faced a significant challenge when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With a workforce of about 2,100 full-time and seasonal employees across various divisions, city officials had to make quick decisions to protect not only residents but also its employees. The initial stay-at-home orders issued in March 2020 necessitated accurate, real-time data to make important decisions on how to bring employees back to work and support active city employees. The city needed to determine which employees were essential and nonessential, manage benefits for essential employees, and track leave types to analyze its impact on staffing levels and overtime costs. However, the city's legacy applications made access to real-time data for decision-making difficult. The process of obtaining personnel data was time-consuming and involved several steps, including requesting reports from the appropriate staff member or department or directly accessing the database to pull data into a CSV format.

The Solution

To address this challenge, the City of Akron's four-member geographic information system (GIS) team implemented ArcGIS Insights, an analysis software that offers spatial and nonspatial analysis capabilities to explore data and visualize results. This software was chosen for its ease of deployment and comprehensive data analysis capabilities. The GIS team was able to accomplish all the traditional business intelligence activities with the licenses they already had, making it an easy choice. The implementation of Insights was simple and straightforward, and the team was able to become proficient in its use within an hour. Each morning, data is updated with a count of essential and nonessential employees on an Insights dashboard. This dashboard also includes financial data, such as overtime costs incurred during a period and what the overtime codes are.

Operational Impact

The use of Insights has enabled real-time access to personnel data and streamlined operations for city administrators. The administration can now access one platform, not separate systems, to retrieve data. This has improved the speed at which staff can consume information and get answers. The tool has also saved time and effort for the HR and finance departments, as requestors now directly go to the tool for information. Insights has also allowed the GIS team to visualize data, helping them understand relationships and patterns in nonspatial HR data. This has led to more informed discussions about the city's workforce and services. The GIS team can now supply city administrators with a substantial amount of information faster, leading to an 'increased thirst for knowledge.' Insights has also allowed the GIS team to provide dashboards, trending models, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in a simple, accessible way.

Quantitative Benefit

The GIS team now supplies seven or eight times more dashboard information than when the first Insights dashboard was created.
The number of requests the team has received for different types of information has significantly increased, leading to an 'increased thirst for knowledge.'
The implementation of Insights was simple and straightforward, with the team becoming proficient in its use within an hour.