QA/QC Inspection Scheduling System

2026 — Present Professional · Internal Tools / Microsoft 365 / Workflow Automation

I joined OEG as a Site Administrator and identified an unstructured inspection-request process that was creating incomplete submissions, manual follow-up, and inconsistent scheduling visibility.

I proposed and delivered a production scheduling application using Microsoft Lists and Power Automate. I owned discovery, stakeholder demonstrations, architecture, testing, launch, and support. A working prototype was ready within days, and the redesigned production system launched in approximately two weeks.

A process ready for structure

Inspection requests had been arriving through calls, incomplete emails, and manual follow-up. Important details were easy to omit, management had to reconstruct the information needed to schedule work, and field teams had no consistent view of approved times.

I proposed one governed intake and scheduling system: a mobile-friendly form for the field, a central operational record for management, explicit human control over status and approval, and a read-only calendar for communicating approved changes.

Prototype first, then a mid-build pivot

I began with Microsoft Forms, Excel, Power Automate, and Office Scripts and delivered a working prototype within days. Stakeholder feedback then introduced a type-ahead lookup requirement against the internal personnel directory—an interaction the original approach did not handle well.

That requirement led me to replace the prototype architecture with Microsoft Lists before launch. The decision cost time inside an already short schedule, but it produced a simpler production system with a better field experience and one shared data model. The complete cycle from discovery through production launch took approximately two weeks.

How the production system works

  • A mobile-friendly Microsoft Lists form creates each new List item directly
  • Power Automate reacts after item creation to validate and normalize the data, apply mappings and updates, and send notifications
  • Management reviews each record and controls status, approval, and scheduling in Lists
  • Approved scheduling changes are published one-way to a shared Outlook calendar for read-only field visibility

Lists remains the system of record. The calendar does not write changes back, and the automation does not make approval or scheduling decisions on management's behalf.

Adoption and early impact

The launched system supports approximately 15–20 field users, each submitting about one or two inspection requests per day. A management stakeholder estimated that the system could save hundreds of labor hours as adoption grows; that is an early management estimate, not a measured post-launch result.

The response to the launch led leadership to begin discussing additional automation projects with me. More important than any single tool, it showed that I could use operational knowledge, product judgment, and rapid technical learning to create a development mandate that had not existed when I was hired.

What this demonstrates

  • Opportunity discovery and initiative outside the original job description
  • Rapid delivery in Microsoft Lists and Power Automate
  • Stakeholder discovery, demonstrations, feedback translation, and product judgment
  • Architecture that keeps the operational record, automation logic, human decisions, and communication surface distinct
  • A willingness to replace a working prototype when a better production model becomes clear
  • End-to-end ownership through testing, launch, adoption, and support