Page 321 -

Chapter 7 Processes, Organizations, and Information Systems
320

Receive Permit Application Reject Permit

No
Complete?

Yes

Engineering Review

No
Approved?

Yes
No

Need
Septic or Yes
Water Review? Approved?
Health Department Review
No
Yes

Need
Highway Yes Approved?
Dept. Review? No
Highway Department Review
No Yes
Figure 7-21
Building Permit Process,
Old Version Approve Permit

process slow and very frustrating. For one, they did not like its made three copies of the permit and distributed one to each
sequential nature. Only after a permit had been approved or department. The departments reviewed the permits in parallel; a
rejected by the engineering review process would they find out clerk would analyze the results and, if there were no rejections,
that a health or highway review was also needed. Because each approve the permit.
of these reviews could take 3 or 4 weeks, applicants requesting Unfortunately, this process had a number of problems,
permits wanted the review processes to be concurrent rather too. For one, some of the permit applications were lengthy;
than serial. Also, both the permit applicants and county person- some included as many as 40 to 50 pages of large architec-
nel were frustrated because they never knew where a particular tural drawings. The labor and copy expense to the county was
application was in the permit process. A contractor would call to considerable.
ask how much longer, and it might take an hour or longer just to Second, in some cases departments reviewed documents
find which desk the permits were on. unnecessarily. If, for example, the highway department rejected
Accordingly, the county changed the permit process to that an application, then neither the engineering nor health depart-
shown in Figure 7-22. In this second process, the permit office ments needed to continue their reviews. At first, the county