The Story Behind Mobile Inspector

In 2008 I was the RSC Operations Leader at Quiznos, and was tasked with managing the data collection of our Operations Inspection program.  My team and I built an online inspection process that could be accessed on smart phones and created dashboards in Excel.  We were able to present to the executive team an accurate picture of how the restaurants were operating on a daily basis.
In support of the Torpedos Sandwich launch in summer of 2009 we conducted over 3500 restaurant inspections in a 2 week period.  Our entire field team, along with key operations people at corporate, visited every restaurant in the system. It was impressive.  We conducted our normal operations inspection and a specific Torpedo launch inspection that was aimed at insuring the restaurants were ready for the launch.  The Torpedo inspection asked the following types of questions:  had the restaurant received the torpedo bread and could the restaurant teams demonstrate the proper preparation of each sandwich, etc..

Later that year I left Quiznos and with my business partners started WEVO Group.  WEVO Group is a business process management consultancy primarily developing custom applications in the large enterprise space. Seven of our current/recent clients were in the 2013 Fortune 500 with two in the Fortune 25.

Mobile Inspector was conceived in Q4 2012 and we launched an early prototype in January of 2013 with a second prototype coming out in May.  We posted a video on LinkedIn and got immediate attention.  Unfortunately we were looking for a consulting engagement and our potential client was looking for a ready to implement product.  It was at that point that we committed to building a cloud based Mobile Inspector service offering.  We launched Mobile Inspector in February of 2014.

I think what makes Mobile Inspector unique in this space is that the software, the user interface, the functionality, and the licensing model were designed to support our inspection philosophy: Restaurant safety and sanitation as well as outstanding operations are a shift by shift battle and the way to win that battle is through consistent execution.  In support of that goal we recommend that restaurant management conduct:

• Daily BOH Critical Item and FOH Readiness Checklists
• Monthly Full Sanitation/Operations inspections
• Quarterly surprise corporate led Full Sanitation/Operations inspections

At every step of this process we are striving for consistent execution and follow-up that will insure safe and well operating restaurants.

We realize that a restaurant manager’s job is to run a safe and profitable restaurant and we believe that daily checklists and inspections help support that goal.  Our hope is that when you use the product you will experience the intuitive design aspects that were engineered into the solution. You will tell that this product was built by a restaurateur for restaurateurs.

We are 100% committed to making Mobile Inspector and our entire inspection philosophy the better practice in the hospitality industry.  We look forward to hearing from you and ultimately getting Mobile Inspector deployed in your system.  If you would like to contact me directly, please email me at Tommy@wevogroup.com.

By Tommy Yionoulis - MBA, Architect Mobile Inspector and Partner WEVO Group