Bournville Village Trust’s Asset Maintenance Team wins coveted National Housing Maintenance Forum Award for ‘Best use of IT’.
Bournville Village Trust was presented with the NHMF’s award for the ‘Best use of IT’ at their National Conference. Short listed along-side competition from Gedling Homes and Merlin Works, the award is testament to the hard work and innovative thinking of all the team at Bournville Village Trust.
The award came as a result of a submission last year to the NHMF (National Housing Maintenance Forum). The Forum sets out to showcase best practice, enabling other organisations to learn from success stories within the sector. Whilst there were various categories for submission, it was felt the ‘Best use if IT’ was most relevant.
Steve Fellows Head of BVT’s Asset Management Team said
“Building on previous recognition in the area of tenant empowerment, it is particularly pleasing that our use of IT has been acknowledged as our systems are used to directly improve the customer’s experience.”
The submission focused on the efficient and effective use of IT and systems to deliver improvements across the organisation with a particular reference to renovation and upgrading works to customers’ homes.
Initially set up in 2003, the way in which BVT’s uses its Stock Condition database has been recognised by industry experts as a leading example of how IT and data can transform the services offered to customers.
Unlike many systems that rely on the batch import of data, the Planned Maintenance Team at BVT made a strategic decision to manually collect data on every single property from the outset, ensuring only accurate records on the condition of stock assets be used. The impact that this has had nearly 10 years on is significant.
The use of IT now enables BVT to plan maintenance and repair of their properties over a 30 year lifecycle. This foresight means customers are aware of when works are due on their properties, avoiding the need for them to invest in redecoration unnecessarily.
As a social landlord, BVT understands the importance of investing in systems that will benefit the entire organisation. The Integrator system provides additional benefits to other parts of the Trust that helps inform the investment decisions of the Trustees. It is this innovative use of IT that resulted in BVT’s Asset Maintenance Team being awarded first place.