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It's been a little while since I have properly emersed myself in components, Asset Management and stock condition surveys, although I have been involved with many projects over a couple of decades.
Obtaining decent component information is a challenge, while an even bigger one is keeping it up to date afterwards. Its not easy but rewarding from the viewpoint of being able to make insightful budget and planning decisions, going 2, 5 or up to 30 years ahead.
Unless you are managing less than a few (3) hundred homes, an Excel spreadsheet will not cut it. There’s many a module out there of decent quality and some good standalones too. Anyone who has been out into the market to choose one will also know that each has its blind-spots. One I saw a demo of recently (obviously I wont name the guilty party), was only capable of reporting past expenditure, rather than planning potential future budgets based on providing (English) Decent Homes, SHQS or the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS). Clearly a software supplier with no socialhousing solution, they then asked “why a landlord wouldn’t just do the replacements?”.
It seemed inconceivable that there would not always be budget to just do the work, quite the reverse of what generally needs to be worked with. Decent graphical modelling tools are a boon to productivity in a planning process like this, rather than manually moving assets around a Life Cycle Costing report piecemeal.
The quality of surveyors vary and also their understanding of socialhousing. Often this can be corrected by issuing surveyors with the actual data we want them to collect, before they start a traditional 20% survey. Surprisingly this is rarely the case. The most extreme example I ever saw was a socialhousing asset condition survey completed by an outfit who previously specialised in surveying North Sea oil rigs. I kid you not. We could see how many hanging baskets our units had, but not the state or existence of kitchens or bathrooms.
Often too, surveyors get hung up on life of components and a predetermined idea of condition coding. If we were surveying passenger aircraft, there are certainly many parts for sure, that will need to be serviced after every 5,000 logged flying hours. Unlike an Airbus A320, after 30 years kitchens and bathrooms just don’t drop out of the skies desperately requiring replacement. Clearly in student accommodation or bigger households, these might not last 30 years. Where an elderly resident on the other hand have some from the 1960s that they have looked after and actively refuse upgrades. These would now be getting on for 50 years old.
Surveyors love the idea of doing a survey this year to determine a remaining life and counting it down annually, towards a ‘poor’ or ‘failed’. One popular surveyor used to charge to take data away each year for ‘aging’. While we could at this point make parallels with fine wine, I would make it with real ale. Our asset data like proper beer which is a living breathing thing and is better when nurtured and carefully looked after.
At the end of the day, socialhousing condition of components can only be based on a sampled view at a point in time. While predictions could be assumed, within decent home calculations, many criteria are defined based on components being old (i.e. exceeded expected life) and poor (i.e. usable condition), in order to define a failure.
If we are unable to disconnect ‘Condition’ and age exceeding expected life, we will apparently have more failures than actually defined in the legislation. Our (incorrectly) budgets (incorrectly) may then need to be higher. In fact the biggest obstacle to being more accurate in planning budgets is ensuring all internal improvements are properly recorded. IE timely recording in your system of major void work and planned maintenance improvements. Relevant examples may be whole boiler, heating, kitchen, bathroom replacements, rather than minor upgrades. The former will also reset the clock for component accounting for these items. Another area there which often is spreadsheet or standalone application based. Probably one for a future blog since I have helped suppliers to design in this area as a critical friend too.
For sure, keeping a tight asset component database is of benefit to landlords and residents, opening the door to providing better informed service. Newer boilers, lifts and other M&E equipment where selected, often now have IOT capabilities. Yet another aspect where the asset management solution can earn its keep in flagging up issues before residents realise them, or protecting the asset from much more expensive damage.
Investment in targeted surveys, good data management for assets and some more blue sky thinking, will all bring together potential for better decision making and improving efficiency.
Related Post: The case for closer systems between #ukhousing development & assets..
I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.
The Monochrome Set - Jet Set Junta.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009
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