The smartphone-based application, NAinA, is developed and successfully deployed by JBS for routine patrolling, inspection of transmission lines, before charging, inspection for due diligence, and routine O&M of substations.

The smartphones pre-loaded with the application are provided to the person-in-charge of project/hubs, who plan and schedule regular patrolling and inspection using the application. The application operates with a simple question and answer interface making it user-friendly for many semi-skilled employees who work across various teams. The application has a predefined list of checkpoints and parameters which are necessary for health assessment of a transmission line and quality patrolling. The software behind the application has a consolidated list of tower names or identifiers, along with the latitude and longitude (Northing and Easting) as geographical identifiers which verify the location at the time of inspection. The check-list, tailored for each site, location of the project, is pre-programmed in the smartphone application in the form of questions and menu driven answers, eliminating the need to record observations and notes in any other form, and to generate reports. The check-list has drop-down menus for selecting tower leg or circuit number or selection of answer, etc. The range of answers in the drop-down menus is extensive and exhaustively covers the range of scenarios that can be encountered during monitoring or patrolling. The iterative loops in the drop-down menu of questions and answers is programmed in a way that all the critical and relevant information is captured immediately, along with a requirement to provide photographic evidence for any significant abnormalities, which is sent back to the central repository for an immediate review. The application covers all the relevant scenarios through the check-list before completing the site report and triggering the follow up actions before restarting the process for next monitoring or patrolling site. While the smartphone application captures and collates data in a user-friendly manner, at the head-office the data is monitored, analyzed and further action taken upon any abnormal observations.

At head-office, a dedicated team follows up and monitors all the work progress at sites everyday and creates reports based on the data generated during the patrolling or inspection. The reports of the previous three months are available on the portal in Excel format, which can be tailored for specific periods and downloaded as and when required. All the information collected during inspection is available instantaneously on the web portal for the application, which is shared with the clients to improve visibility of the progress and transparency of the process.