According to Michał Ciepielski from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology press office, the idea to develop the application appeared a year and a half ago, when a person managing urban greenery in Jelenia Góra approached the IT company founded by university graduates. 'Until now, all maintenance and cleaning work was planned based on phone reporting, sending dozens of e-mails and verbally assigning tasks, which was very time-consuming', he said.

Mikołaj Ostrowski, a graduate of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology responsible for marketing in the company, emphasized that the customer was primarily concerned with streamlining procedures. 'We went to see how it all works and decided that creating a proper application could be a good solution. The result of our work is the +Usterka+ (Polish for +Failure+) system, which is used in Jelenia Góra, for example to maintain playgrounds', he explains.

The system consists of a mobile application that can be installed on a smartphone and an administration panel, to which users log in via the website. The application is primarily used by employees reporting failures and repair crews, and the panel - by coordinators.

Ostrowski points out that simplicity of use was one of the goals of the application creators. 'It was important for us to ensure that adding information about damages and failures and subsequent management of reports takes as little time as possible', he adds.

One way to report damage, which works, for example, in urban space, is to scan the QR code on the damaged object, and then add a short description and photo of the damaged part. After sending, the report goes to the system and the administrator can immediately assign it to a specific person and then monitor the repair.

In the case of hotels, it is necessary to develop in advance an appropriate database of objects, e.g. room equipment, which is prepared by graduates of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology in cooperation with customers.

Ciepielski reports that the application is currently used for technical maintenance of playgrounds and hotels. 'But the system can be also adapted for companies implementing maintenance projects, renting office space, or residential property managers', he says. He adds that the company is already in talks on the implementation of the system in the university dorms. Then, students could use the application to report various types of failures to the facility administration.

The team working on the system consists of ten people, the vast majority of whom are graduates and students of the Faculty of Electronics and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology. They develop their startup in cooperation with the Academic Entrepreneurship Incubator of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology.

PAP - Science in Poland, Agata Tomczyńska

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