for when we could come and visit the high-speed transit center? >> right now there during preparation for the site. this is an amazing operation. it is fairly simple machinery, but a lot of operations. i really want the commission to see it to appreciate how well the project is coming along. commissioner clinch: i would be happy to host a quick meeting to give a slide show on the site. commissioner walker: i have been

the occasion to watch the general hospital bill that is going on, as there during the cement pouring, and that is another huge pouproject our staff is in, and it's pretty amazing. if you have the opportunity to go to general hospital, go to the fifth or sixth floor and you can see this amazing work they're doing with isolation systems. i think so, because they just finished it. >> topping off ceremony at the children's hospital. on 3rd? >> we do not have jurisdiction over there. commissioner walker: it is pretty amazing >> for those

projects, i feel that the commission should take a look at. we use a very special excavation where we tunnel in. it is a very good observation pierre ye n. >> is there a photograph recording of these event that would also be good for at least being available to look at? >> well, i have myself taken a picture of it. i think the project sponsor usually takes a lot of pictures. ok.

commissioner murphy: it is exciting to see these projects moving forward, and especially the scale of them are very exciting. we also want to emphasize we pay as much attention to the smaller projects as also the single- family renovations and additions. >> that is why our operation at the fifth floor is really affected. we're taking care about 80% of those projects go through that floor. >> item 5e, update on the q- matic and status of activation.

>> ok. again, commissioners, i was tasked with the q-matic launch in early september. the committee has finished the development base during the last two years. on september of this year i was passed to make sure we go into operation implementation stage, and i am happy to inform that -- to report to the commissioners that we will have a new launch on the operation next month,

the 21st. the reason we think the 21st, during that time we can amend anything that needs to be improved or getting ready for the next phase. another thing, at this time, i want to train a group of staff so they could be the person that we go to during operation that we need. we cannot just depend on the whole crew, because that would put a lot of hardship and operation. so the schedule right now, we will train that special group

that has staff from department of building inspection, informations that, and also the central permits that, plus we will have staff from the city planning and department of public works. so those -- that training to the group of staff will be our go-to persons when we launch operation. that is why we will take another two weeks as we try to prepare that. and then we want to put the answers into the website so people have a chance to see what we are going to launch. maybe when they read the question and answer ---

from them to us, what kind of things we need to improve. so that is why we think four weeks to prepare for that. we tried to launch that at the end of october, but thaat that e we may have to approve or amend the system we already have. so right now we're going to launch the system what we have three months ago. the same system we're going to launch. during the operation we will improve things that we encounter during the path of

operation. i feel i have confidence in the system. the q-matic system is to replace our charging system for our customer, a mixturmake sure we e the service to them in an orderly fashion so that they can get their permits as quickly as possible. it is not a process we tried to delay. it is a process we tried to improve our order. we try to keep track of the number of people using our service. we do not have bought automated. this q-matic system will help us to provide the data, and help us to provide the manpower we need

and improvement in the certain area. that is the good data we can get out from q-matic. it has been in the making for the past two years. we have already paid for it. we have to launch it and get the value we spent on it. commissioner hechanova: is it the same process for everyone? >> we can provide a permit at that time. any more questions? commission>> will this be able o

accommodate the small homeowner, as also the large permit? >> yes. most of this operation is for the fifth floor operations. when you look at the flow chart that i have, a very simple flow chart, when the customer comes in, we go to the information conduct. we will look at the scope required for services, and they will review them to all the stations we have, and then the most important station is the initial permit and takintake one fifth floor. they will input in the record the permit record, and also determine the station they need. we give them a ticket how many

produce stations they have to go through, and each station will perform the check, and hopefully they will go for permit. right now we have two screens. i would like to have more when we see the need of it. commissioner hechanova: do you have some sort of a system that people can hear when they're called? >> yes. in the future if the system launches very effectively, we will have it on the third floor

and 64. it is the same way of operation. we give you a number and you will get served based on your number. first-come, first-served. commissioner heckanova: have you got a lot of complaints about the system? >> i invite them to give me their input, but i did not receive a lot of input from them. commissioner heckanova: so they're probably not happy? >> they are concerned that they cannot be flexible enough. on our last try to improve the system every staff can review the station. the flexibility is are there. -- that flexibility is there. >> this is being clearly

communicated, such as there is representation to have them understand? >> at the last staff meeting, director sweepney and me announced there was some public expediter in that, and i did not hear too much complete so far, but i would like to maybe during this time one month, i will invite them, maybe have a meeting with them so we will hear the concern. >> i have talked to a number of expediters. their main concern will be the flexibility of a computerized system. for instance, if you have three stations and one is fire, one is building, and one is mechanical, and you see the fire -- you have the option to walk over to fire,

but all the way you sign up for mifire and mechanical. there is some concern that flexibility might slow the expediters down. things like that will have to roll out the system and see what we can do. >> can we have an update, our report from q-matic? >> it will be similar that you just got, but it will be discussed. >> that is a good comment from the user. we tried to -- that is why we try to make it more flexible. we had the planning staff at each station can modify the route, so when they see people

at fire have an opening, instead of go to mechanical planchette, but we can grow people to buy your next, and then we wrote them to mechanical and plan check. we are already aware of that. that is why we are ready have the system modified to have that capacity. >> let me restate what i think i heard. and if someone is -- if it is time to go to fire in still has a mechanical and plumbing left, and he carries on to fire in seas of with the backlog on mechanical and plumbing he cannot say i want to go there first? he is afraid that when he finishes with fire planning and mechanical will be back up again. is that what it is? >> the fear is they will be put at the bottom of the list.

what the computer does now is tells you the easiest path to go right then and there. that means you finish fire and the computer sees the list, and they say there is only four people of mechanical and the route you to mechanic. their concern is right now i will be second at mechanical fifth in building. they figure they can go to fire that will only take 20 minutes. mechanical will be ready for them when they finish fire. they are the expediters, the ones that are every day. they know the system. they are a little afraid that that knowledge could stand in the way for them. we decided to go to q-matic prior to the fifth floor. it is very popular. it gets people out of there quicker, and i think people are

afraid that is a little more inflexible. commissioner lee: i think our answer may be that this is a tool for us at the department to see where the backlog are, and maybe we can adjust to make sure there is enough time at each station so we can reduce the time for each station. am i correct? >> will it also allow on the allocation of personnel from the different floors so that they cannot float relative at the third or fourth floor there is someone that could be needed at the fifth floor? those that allow for recognition of how management and personnel can be executed? >> right now at each floor we

have a floor manager. for example in the fifth floor we are so crowded we need more space. then we have to get staff from the first floor. we do that anyway, but the q- matic you only try to put service in order, and also tracking how many service for the space that comes. you do not get people from other station to help. it is still our managers pastas when they see the large number of people at one station and more people needed, we have to call help from other floors. >> it will allow for it to be a tool for the floor managers to basically call requests and

allocate personnel. >> if you call a person and says mechanical has 10 people, maybe we have to call one more mechanical engineer from second floor, so we do that now. q-matic will say we have 10 people there. before you do not know how many people, because people conjugate at one area appear did you do not know what kind of service they are looking for. right now we did think that we can see what kind of service they want. commissioner hechanova: will this service alleviate the problems we have been having at the cashier area? >> i think the system will facilitate the time of waiting. right now we have the data in front of us that how many people are waitingthis will be improve.

>> how is it right now? do we have the cash years that we need? >> is, we have increased one people in cash year. that should help. >> we're also in the process of putting out, with dhr, to hire additional staff. i think there would be two additional 1408's to alleviate the problem of backlog and lines at the counter. >> yes, i had a complaint recently that somebody waited two hours. >> oh, really? sometimes it can help. >> it should not happen at all. stakeholders have to wait two hours to write their check. >> i think we have to improve on

that, yes. commissioner lee: these are not really questions but more of a comment. i know q-matic has been a long time coming, a couple years maybe. but lacy a lot of movement in the last three to four months, which i appreciate. i think the directors we need for moving this along, getting it to this point. i suspect it is not as complicated as permanent tracking. but i still appreciate you guys pushing this, moving this along, and now we have a firm start date. i would like to be about to broadcast to everyone that november 21 is the new date, the start date, and that is it. >> that is pretty firm. the date is pretty firm. >> it is not going to take 24 months. i think the other is also the

challenge to the culture of change get it from within, how things had been done before and how our staff worked with each other. hopefully everyone within the department can embrace this change and that we are essentially a big team. but also, the members need to work and cooperate, and hopefully the better service through all this cooperation and the system will make the service and make q-matic successful. >> thank you. the staff basically already received at least two training already on q-matic. the system can go to play around in that the computer. right now, we're training the special team. we want a special team to be

readily available when operational difficulties, up. we are preparing for that. even this morning before i came to the meeting, i had a staff meeting. they're already refreshing the training this morning. >> i also suggest that there would be comments or an evaluation from the users, that they could provide the input as to what level of service and how efficient our staff is at providing them the service, and get and put it that way so we can tweak and/or make the changes necessary. >> right now, we will posed the question and answer. then we will have a place for them to post questions. >> great, thank you very much.

>> item 5f, update on other technology projects. >> i am from the department of building inspection, deputy director administrative services. i want to highlight four projects that you receive the materials on. the first project is something that we just moved to the -- the department just moved to the outlook e-mail system. we are still shaking that out. so we appreciate everybody's patience in that. the second is today we are going live with the electrical inspection scheduling over the web. which should be really helpful. the next is the refresh. president hechanova, new mentioned about whether we were

going to need some new servers for the permit tracking system. essentially what the refresh is for the infrastructure is we have about 50 servers that are out of service. in other words, we do not get any maintenance at the end of december. we have been working with the department of technology to determine what service can be ritualized. this is a new way of doing things, essentially on a cloud, but it is located here. we're looking at what applications and what kind of servers can eliminate and not have to replace. we're going to give some in our department, put some in the department of technology. paul street is where it is located. the third issue, the most problem for us, is that when the permit tracking system becomes operational in 24 months, it is going to be posted outside the

vendor, which means that we will not need these servers. however, until that standpoint, we will need servers here for the permit tracking system. the worst thing that could happen is we could have a situation where we cannot issue permits and how to keep everything by hand. we're working with the department of technology this afternoon to try to figure out how to replace those permit tracking servers in a fashion that when we go live with the hosting, we have not wasted resources. that is going to be our biggest trick with that. the other is the cash management systems. the vendor has been meeting with us on the requirements. when we get to the new permit tracking system, those will be integrated, but we're going forward now for a new system. we're hoping that will help us process payments faster.

people will have more control, more accountability, of how much the revenues that they have actually taken in, and hopefully that will make things go smoother. the project is moving on. we expect it to be life no later than april -- i think it is april 12, 2012. that is for the whole system. we expect that hours will be much sooner than that. thank you. >> pamela, what was allocated for the refresh? >> the budget that we submitted to the board was $1 million. we had scope it out -- and this was to replace all servers and locate them all in dbi. since then, we have gone through

several different iterations. of course, that makes the requirements come down. you know, we may have savings in that project that can be reallocated to other technology types of projects. but we are really trying to work with the city and helped implement the policy that the committee on information technology has set forth, which essentially is, in every possible way, we need to consolidate server rooms. so we are working with dt to put some applications over in their server farm. >> i would like an update on this, and the legendize this item on the standpoint of what we do now. this will stand for how we will approach the final outcome when we make the transfer from either

paul streets or into the cloud- based vendor service. >> sure. >> any questions? thank you. >> item 5g, an update on new hires. >> yes, commissioners. i have the report for this month. five new hires. we have two 6331 building inspectors. one was -- one is now working in the third floor in inspection services. the second is on the fifth floor in plan check. as discussed previously, we hired two 5207's. they both came on board two years ago. their classification is mechanical. they started two weeks ago on the fifth floor. finally,