Public Works’ Electronic Plan Check System

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

During the course of each year, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (Public Works) receives more than 3,000 submittals for plan and map review with submittals ranging from only a few pages to hundreds of pages, some including large scale maps. This presented a great cost to the developers and is unfriendly to the environment, due to the large volume of paper used to print the required material, and then travel to the public counter to submit the plans for review. If questions arose during the plan review, an in-person meeting with the developer and/or engineer would frequently be needed. This meant all involved parties had to travel to the same central location to resolve the issue. With the development of the Electronic Plan Check System, Public Works is now able to receive plan submittals online, host internet meetings, and perform plan checks electronically. These abilities have allowed Public Works to reduce the use of paper for each submittal, reduce the number of vehicle trips made to the Public Works’ headquarters, and reduce the overall project review time. In addition, storage space has been reduced by digitally scanning hard copy files for reference.