We’re all about the customer here at Appian. Designing a product or service to meet the exact specifications of each and every customer is just as important as any other function it may serve. And that’s not just for Appian in the BPM space. Whatever your line of work may be, the customer experience must be a top priority.
And we don’t take it lightly when one of our customers gets noticed for doing great things. Over the past several months, the Queensland Government Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning (DSDIP) has been recognized with numerous awards for planning excellence for its “one-stop-shop” State Assessment and Referral Agency (SARA) application.
To date, DSDIP’s SARA program has been recognized as the overall winner of the Planning Institute of Australia’s (PIA) 2013 Award for Planning Excellence, the PIA’s National Process Improvement Award, and most recently the 2014 Gartner Business Process Management Excellence Award for the Asia Pacific region.
SARA supports the Queensland State Government with key initiatives to create the most efficient and effective planning and development assessment system in Australia. DSDIP aims to reorganize and streamline development applications covering everything from high-rise building permits to clearing vegetation.
In July of 2013, DSDIP built a completely new system that would support the efficient on-line operation of SARA for the department, state agencies, and developers. Appian was able to develop and deploy the system in less than three months, creating a single agency assessment point for development applications, where the state has jurisdiction and decision making authority. SARA provides all parties involved in the assessment process with greater visibility into project statuses and the ability to communicate to key stakeholders in real-time.
During the SARA program from July 1, 2013 to February 24, 2014, 3,660 applications were lodged, and 1,339 decisions or referral responses were issued. SARA is also facilitating a large number of pre-lodgement meetings between applicants and technical agencies, coordinated by case managers across the 11 DSDIP regional offices. SARA reduces development information requests, saving applicants further time and money while driving process efficiency and transparency of critical project data.
Congrats to the Queensland Government team on their outstanding accomplishments and those yet to come!