Accident Report Services (ARS) is in the business of providing various reports to the insurance claims industry. They locate reports for automobile accidents, crime, fire, driving records, vehicle ownership, automobile title histories and worker’s compensation records. They secure reports from anywhere in the United States and Canada using the latest in technology to locate and secure reports in the most efficient and timely manner possible.

ARS receives a large volume of requests for reports on a continuous basis. Keeping track of the report requests and each requests current status and billing is handled manually. Reports are requested from various agencies across the United States and Canada and the turn around time for receipt of the report can vary and must be monitored by ARS staff. ARS clients need faster turnaround and improved accuracy in report delivery. ARS needs to streamline operations, decrease request turnaround time and adapt to growth with minimal increase in personnel.

High Plains Digital (dba The Austin Consultant Group) was engaged to develop a solution to streamline ARS’s operations. We began by analyzing the workflow involved in ARS’s business model. It became evident that the online system needed to be accessible to ARS’s clients as well as internal ARS personnel allowing clients to submit and monitor requests online. ARS staff needed requests presented to them so that required actions could be easily determined and turnaround times be monitored easily. Billing information would be collected as requests were processed and a consolidated billing report would be generated for each client.
We determined that a web based or thin client system would provide the access capabilities required along with rapid development with minimal cost and turnaround time. With the right selection of tools and platform, future enhancements and features that may need a more robust interface could be developed as traditional programs in Visual Basic. Since the audience for this application was limited, advanced features specific to the Internet Explorer web browser that allowed more robust interface elements were utilized.
Since the new system was implemented, the volume of requests processed by ARS has continued to increase. The turnaround time for report delivery has decreased. ARS clients enjoy more convenience and better service, and ARS has reduced overall costs and avoided expansion of staff and facility.
In December of 2002 ARS was acquired by Choicepoint, a national provider of municipal report information.

The ARS application is hosted by High Plains Digital utilizing Windows web servers with IIS and Microsoft SQL Server. ARS connects to the High Plains Digital facilities using a high speed Internet connection. ARS clients access the web application via the Internet through High Plains Digital’s Internet backbone connection.
The site is constructed using a combination of business objects developed in Visual Basic, SQL Stored Procedures, ASP script, and JavaScript/DHTML