Showing posts with label Council Housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Council Housing. Show all posts

Saturday, 21 September 2024

Aint No Room

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I have come across BIM / Building Information Modelling in many recent projects. Mostly in London based providers who are developing, however these are also innovations that can be leveraged in more historic and traditional situations and environments, 3D design and visualisation. Its clear to me that standards are being defined. The Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie) non-proprietary data format, looks like the early leader. Hopefully this is the VHS survivor, not the innovative Betamax format, back in 1990’s we all wished had won!

Providers, consultants and professionals I have worked with in Development, are all excited at the way standard formats like COBie, can smooth collaboration throughout the build. Post handover, contractors and Socialhousing staff can also use this data to take better informed decisions going forward.

In terms of the direction of the individual UK social housing regulators, providers having better information on the location of all fitted features, with ability to share more info with residents and manage our assets better is where we are going.

BIM is good and its clearly going to be a strand of how we will better manage assets in the future, hopefully recording and identifying components mapped to three axis and easily represented visually. The potential is there to improve the performance of our assets and how they use (or lose) energy well. Successful mapping of data points, hopefully in the thousands not hundreds in our buildings can provide a vast amount of information, which can be manipulated and overlaid with other data, perhaps collated via IOT sensors.

For all the excitement of virtual modelling and having all this information to hand, its interesting how many building organisations, still have limited Asset Management solution capability, or it is siloed and looked after by two men and a dog, who fiercely gatekeep access to it. Worse of all there are still too many organisations stuck with data in Keystone, hampered by Silverlight vulnerabilities, now further isolated from the main network by ICT, for security reasons. Asset data is better integrated into wider solutions, such as CRM, Repairs, Compliance, Voids and for general use of the housing team. While BIM might be aware of an M&E installation for ventilation, does the servicing team realise that the filters should be checked & cleaned annually to keep the kit working well?

So, if considering getting started with BIM, ensure you consider it as part of your wider Asset Management data regime. Thinking about it as a whole, the #Socialhousing sector will potentially be in a better position to improve the lives of our tenants, shared/leaseholders and satisfy those evolving regulator demands, from whatever corner of the UK, we need to conform to.

 

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*** Join the discussion with Claire & Aiden ***

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Are you getting best use of your Asset Management information?
Get in touch , for a chat soon over a cuppa and a biscuit or two 😋

       Related Post: Does your organisation feed your development data into asset management ?

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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 Vines – Ain’t No RoomThe Vines – Ain’t No Room.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.


File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica 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Thursday, 17 February 2022

I Owe You One

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

A few months ago I focused in this blog, on how good solutions can help better manage repairs delivery. Spookily enough on Twitter, LinkedIn and other places, discussions on why a good proportion of RSLs, have continued to rage. Worthy of much credit is @KwajoHousing – go check him out!

Getting more repairs right first time leads to higher resident satisfaction and better control of what we spend.

In this post I am looking to tackle the other side of the coin. How efficiently socialhousing providers manage effective getting in of the cash that supports all that great asset management and addressing repair issues. Typically everyone monitors percentage of GAD (Gross Annual Debit) collected, but how can systems contribute or not to that blanket figure?

Traditional logic going back to the 1970’s is that arrears are generally chased using an arrears ladder. This is by size and comparison with period charges, rather than based on aged debt, like in most financial situations. If I had £50 for every time I have explained that to finance leaning non-housing staff, I would have probably retired by now and running a successful pedalo business on the Costa Brava by now.

All housing systems tend to come with an arrears and service charge capability, although strangely, not all social housing landlords tend to implement in their core system. Clearly this is the first place to start, even if over time this doesn’t work perhaps long term for the organisation.

Arrears procedures do evolve in time and one major problem is often chunkiness of systems to get a change done, or your supplier looking to charge an arm or a leg to modify. I have come across a few HMS solutions which look flexible when demonstrated, although in practice anything slightly less vanilla, ends up in some bespoke developed SQL SP’s (Stored Procedures). So clearly, not an easy matter to tweak going ahead. With hindsight, the key to having flexibility here is contractually agree that if your supplier creates this bespoke fix, some maintenance charge is paid and they maintain/modify it going forward.

When designing arrears ladders, be sure to consider how automation can progress early stages, without the need for 100% of ‘recommendations’ to be accepted. Where exceptions are known, set a manual status (allowing extra time for a payment to come in, or a bereavement to be managed sensitively etc), instead.

HMS or other suppliers can come across as very unresponsive. RSL’s can clearly get quite hacked off by this understandably. No wonder that other avenues end up being considered.

What avenue is sitting on everyone’s desktop? Yes your friend and mine, Microsoft Excel. Scary but true. Do your staff export accounts and arrears cases to Excel and try to manage from there? Have some of your spreadsheet space cadets built some models and pivot tables, probably that few others actually understand?

It’s a well known fact that most people with Excel on their desktop, were never trained to any level of competency in it. Probably under 5% of Excel users are properly comfortable with formula’s, macros, VLOOKUP (don’t get me started on that one!), or even Pivot tables. Where staff manage arrears in this kind of manner, its often separated from the core system of record. On more than one occasion I have encountered spreadsheets that have been used for years with erroneous formulas and providing incorrect insights for ages.

Another top gotcha, is putting barriers in the way of residents, trying hard to pay their rent. To be clear, my belief is that most people in Social Housing prioritise paying their rent, as keeping a roof over your head is way up there with feeding your family and keeping them warm. When I was a child living with my parents in Council Housing (as was) on the edge of Manchester, that’s what my family prioritised in the mid-1970’s.

My old man was a skilled engineer, one industry already in decline in the 70’s. I recall when he was between jobs, rent was prioritised (fortnightly Gilbert Strip collector expected). Some months we ate a lot of egg & chips as that was all we could afford. Those principles certainly shape my attitude even today to money.

However, our residents no longer see a fortnightly rent collector. Are we providing lots of easy ways to help residents pay? If we offer Direct Debit, how many days can residents sign up for it to be deducted? Do we offer Allpay, or An Post (in the Republic Of Ireland), so residents can easily pay their rent in outlets located in their community?

More important these days, how do we buy Home Insurance, Car Tax and other bills? Well on-line. How easy can your residents pay online? Can they easily pay a period debit, outstanding balance or a bespoke amount? Also, more importantly how fast can they do that from your resident self-service portal? Have a look at your own self-service if it offers payments and count the number of clicks needed to initiate a payment. Is it really friction free?

What I mean in terms of really ‘friction free’, is how close your resident experience of paying rent, in terms of clicks, compared with Amazon. Today I made a repeat purchase on Amazon and it took me just three clicks, to part with £39.99 with Prime free delivery. If your self-service needs re-entry of much info every time, you are making it harder for residents to pay their rent. Challenge your HMS/self-service provider or payments provider, to cut down the number of clicks required.

On the subject of providing multiple MOPs (Methods Of Payments), always be aware of the underlying costs.

Remember too, that most housing systems have the concept of main and sub-accounts. This again is a very under-used (and misunderstood) facility in my experience. Consider how these features can be used, keeping alternative debts away from main rent (possible court action) and considering separate arrears tracking procedures for each. EG Rechargeable Repairs, Court Costs etc.

Lastly, ‘Predictive Analytics’.  This alternative way to target resources, can point effort at accounts that need to be chased, and skip ones where its very likely that a clearance payment will be made, based on past behaviour. Until quite recently, in the UK its fair to say that Mobysoft had close to a virtual monopoly with Rentsense, although many others these days are looking to ‘steal their lunch’ with similar advertised productised offerings. (see MRI/Orchard and others). 

At some point in the next few months, I must try and put together a more detail blogpost on Predictive Analytics, as the landscape has evolved somewhat in the last eighteen months or so.

Predictive arrears is an interesting intervention. Do be sure when considering these, introduce one change at a time and always look into utilising a ‘Control Group’. I am always surprised when I find a client using ‘Predictive Arrears’ that like it, who can rarely tell me that their arrears team, has actually shrunk.

A quick reader question – If you use Predictive Arrears Analysis, have you a smaller, larger or same size arrears team, after using it for 12 months or more? Do leave a comment. I would love to hear any real-world insights from your experiences

Do let me know your feelings via DM or comments 😉

Related Post: Its actually not such a tortuous path to a successful go-live


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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.

Shalamar - I Owe You OneShalamar - I Owe You One.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.


File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Agile,Agile365,AirWatch,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, Citrix,Civica,Civica CTX,Civica Cx,Civica Genero,Civica Saffron,Clearview,Clik,Cloud Dialogs,CloudDialogs,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Commontime,Community Reward Services,Company,Competitive Dialogue process,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation, Consultancy,Consultant,Consultants,Contact Manager,Context,Contractor Systems,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,Crystal Reports,Customer Relationship Management,Cx, DRS,Deeplake,Designer Software,Development Systems,Director,Document,Documotive,Docuware,Dynamic AI,DynamicAI,Dynamics 365,D365,Dynamics365, ECMK,EDM,EDRMS,ERP,ESRI,Elmhurst,Enghouse Interactive,England,English,EnterpriseBI,Estatecraft,Etive,Exhibition,Exponential-e, Facebook,Factorwise,Field Service management,Finance,Financial Systems,Financials,Footprint,Forms,Freezes,Fusion, Gas Tag,G-Cloud,GCloud,GDPR,GGP,GIS,GasTag,Genero,GeoSolveIT,Getting best from,GoTonySmith,Grasp,Grip,Group Apex, HFI (Housing Financials interface),HG,HRA,Hardware,Hitachi Systems,Hitex,HomeMaster,Hometeam,HouSys,House,Housemark,Housemark survey,Housing,Housing Contact,Housing Group,Housing Insight,Housing Management,Housing Management Consultant,Housing Partners,Housing Portfolio Management System,Hub Asset Management,Homeswapper,Housing jigsaw, Housing Support Pro,HousingIT,HousingSupportPro,HyperOptic, IMS,IT,IT Budget,IT Training,ITIL,Impact Response,In,In4,In4Systems Promaster,InfoBoss,InHouse,InMotion,InMotion2015,InMotion2016,InfoBoss,Infoflow,Information,Information Technology,Information@Work components,Informix,Innovation, Informetis,Inphase,Inside Housing,Insight,Internet Portal,Internetalia,Invu,Ireland,Irish,itLab, Keyfax,Keylogic,Keypera,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera, Landlord,Ledgers,Linkedin,Liquid,Locality,Localz, M3,MAVIS,MD,MDM,MI,MIS,MIS-AMS,MISCS,MRI,MS Dynamics,MRI,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Microsoft365,microsoft 365,MWL,Management,Management Server,Manifest,Measuring,Mebus,Microsoft Dynamics 365,Microsoft dynamics GP 2013,Miracle,MobileIron,Mobysoft,Monopoly board images and pictures,Montal,Mr Void,MriEngage,MrVoid, NDL,NINTEX,NINTEX workflow,NPS,NPS ASSIST,NPS Housing,NPS Job Manager Mobile,NROSH,Natural,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Nintexworkflow,Northgate,Northgate Codeman,Northgate Public Services,Notice, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,OJEU Limits,ORS,Ohms,OmFax,Omniledger,One,OneAdvanced,OneServe,Open source,OpenContractor,OpenHousing,Opti-time,Options,Optitime,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OutSystems, PIMMS,PIMSS Data,PM,PRINCE2,Paloma,Pamwin,PanConnect,People Value,Peoplevalue,PfH,Pick,PlanForm,Planned maintenance,Plenfific,Plus,Portfolio Management System,PowerObjects,Pro,Pro-Points,Prodo,Progress,Promaster,Propoints,Proval,Providers,Pyramid, QL,QuantSpark,Qube,QLX,Qlikview,QueryView,Queryview reporting,Quiss, RM865,ROCC,RPs,RSL,Rave,ReAct,Reality,RedkiteCRM,Red Olive,Registered,Registered Social,Rent Increase,RentSense,RentSenseLite,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,RobotAutomation,Rocket, Salesforce,Salesforce.Org,SAP,SASSHA,SDM,SHBVN,SM,SOTI,SP,SQL,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting,SQL Server,Saffron,Safron,Saturn,Scenario,Scotland,Scots,Scottish,Scout,Sequoa,Serengeti,Serros,Server,Service,Services,Servitor,Sharepoint,Sim,SimPro, Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Housing ICT,Social Housing Software Applications,Social Media,Software,Software solutions,Spotlight Service,Spotlightservice,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic,SunAccounts,Sunguard,Surveys,Streetwise, Swordfish,Sx3,Symatrix Human,System alignment,Systems,Systemwise, T-Files,TEAMS,TED,TFiles,TP Tracker,TSG,Tagish Casework,Tagra,Task,TAIM,Technologies (India) PVT Limited,Telecetera,Template,Terminal Services,That,Three Star,Tilt,TiltAffinity,Today,Tony Smith,Tony Smith That Housing IT Guy,TonySmith that housing IT,TonySmithHou,TonySmithHousing, ,TonySmithHousingITguy,Total,Total Mobile,Totalmobile,Trace,Tribal,Twitter, U2,UC,UK,UK Housing,Ukhousing,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,United Kingdom,Universal,Universalcredit,Universe,Unrest, Valueworks,Van Stock,Vantage,Vantage Sentinel,Version,Virtualisation,Visualmetrics,Voice,Voice and data,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Wheatley,Windows Server,Workflow and,Work Hub,Works Connect, XML,Xen App,XenApp,Xmbrace, ...
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Friday, 23 August 2019

Rise Up

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy


Any watcher of the current social housing landscape of integrated solutions will have noted the growth and almost fetish (maybe we should all get out more?), around solutions delivered via browser, which has emerged of late. One particular supplier has driven the growth of this way of thinking, but overall in the last four years,

I have felt a mood shift in the sector, which has been long coming.

I have recently been working with a particular Social Housing client who has stipulated it’s ‘cloud or nothing’. I totally get it, I really do. A supplier that can reliably deliver cloud in a browser, quickly and to timescales, would be a novelty these days for integrated housing solutions, for sure. Harsh maybe, but that’s where we are at.

One sector supplier who has often been wrongly associated with big councils and (quite candidly for me to say), felt to have left their eye off the UK ball in previous years, has seriously surprised me of late. Some serious praise is deserved I think.

Key in transformation of Northgate Public Services (NPS) has been in the injection of £3.2m+ of capital and over 36,500 days of development already,  plus an extra £3.3m approved to come from its acquisition by NEC of Japan , much offshore (not that that is a bad thing, as it has visibly resulted in quality releases), and has visibly ‘got stuff done’. Who else is investing that many days into making its housing solutions better?

Few suppliers in the medium to large social housing supplier zone have over £6m to spend on improving product and I know from experience, that bringing a product with modern ‘work anywhere’ technology to market, is a massive challenge, most often under-estimated by a factor of three or more. NPS’ browser approach frees up teams to support their communities, where interactions originate, escaping from the shackles of their desk. Some suppliers currently anchored in old tech or databases, are possibly fooling themselves, and reasonably never going to invest to reinvigorate legacy products.

Embracing economic cloud delivery is something that NPS has realised as being a key driver going forward. Large clients such as Wolverhampton Homes are seeing this currently as a reliable, low risk, way forward. A quarter of the customer base has already embraced the new solutions.

The tech underneath the bonnet, ticks all my boxes, restful API’s delivered in an open manner. A lot of suppliers still levy too high a charge for integration kits, NPS has really sensibly taken an approach that clients taking a hybrid strategy is cool, if they choose not to use all their offering and its complete capabilities including CRM. Why should it not be? Using perhaps MS Dynamics 365 or an alternative ERP, linked underneath to NPS housing, is possibly the best of both worlds. In many situations, it’s a most sensible way to go.

Many of those new development days have gone towards a new asset management solution.with integral Component Accounting coming soon . This is the way the sector seems to be coalescing. Better Integration trumps specialisms that only benefit your asset team’s two persons and a dog. Apologies if that sounds brutal, but I think it’s true.

Another area in NPS Housing of note is its attitude to document management. This to me is the missing link to so many systems and solutions, particularly with regard to GDPR. Clearly NPS provide their industry strength Information@work solution, providing superior links with document consumption and generation. Security and performance is no after thought, it’s clearly built in from inception, and so great to see.

Exposing those documents within staff mobile solutions is a big driver for efficiency.  The NPS Housing mobile solution for assets launches in September 2019, the start of new options for users.

Follow the sakura, the brighter thinking in housing...
I chatted to contacts on the busy NPS stand at CIH in Manchester, back in June and could see that beyond all of the above, IOT and predictive analytics, was being incorporated into the latest solutions. Users were clearly at the centre of these developments, which I find really positive. In the realm of other HMS offerings, I see little that approaches the predictive analytics capabilities of the well known leader for arrears. NPS have the advantage that the Oracle tech stack already comes with advanced data/analytics capability. This is starting to fundamentally alter how housing providers operate in a leaner fashion, targeting resource where necessary, predicting where it’s needed, in a more data-led fashion.  

Checkout the video from Northgate at CIH Manchester here.

Based on the current take up of Internet Of Things, I think NPS look to have one of the best chances of pushing this forward, for the sector.

Keep an eye on NPS. They look to me as perhaps the next surprise in UK Social Housing. Get them in your procurement, see if you are surprised too! It really is “住宅の明るい思考” or as you or I might say, “Brighter Thinking For Housing”.


Related Post: Are your users using Excel to better present your standard reports OR deal with gaps you have in that source BI/MI ?  
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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.

Skunk Anansi – Rise UpSkunk Anansi – Rise Up.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Thursday, 1 March 2018

Internet Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmm

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy



Regarding a subject close to my heart, last week I was pleased to receive a copy of the Housing Technology, ‘Internet Of Things in Housing’ report 2017/18. Its very timely as next week its #HousingTech2018 at the Oxford Belfry, and a number of sessions I notice touch on IOT experiences.

Of course, if you read this blog, feel free to stop me and say hi, pick my brains on any of the sector products or suppliers. Aareon QLX/QLF users will probably have plenty to ponder about, based on the recent MD reshuffle announcements. Its always great to meet everyone at HT, which has become the de-facto place to see what organisations are doing and see what products emerging. If you have any ideas for future blog posts too, come and fill your boots!

Back in November 2017, I did a spot at a Knightstone Housing day on data, around IOT. Part of that was a graph indicating explosive growth, anytime soon, in IOT. Much of my session did caution around the security aspects of emerging IOT and the patch-ability of devices. I illustrated this at the time with the story of the hacked Samsung internet fridges, coerced to do a classic denial of service attack. This neatly brought the problem home. I.E. that we are looking at quite raw technology here, that still has emerging standards being carved out.

The HT IOT report does seem to bear this aspect out quite well. While its maybe not the blazing saddles era, it might still be that of the ‘Good, Bad and the Ugly’, where IOT pioneers dare to tread. Barriers to adoption include recognised areas of security (11%), integration (18%) and a whopping 34% thinking IOT is plain ‘unproven’. Not brilliant for a pretty risk-averse sector, like social housing. So, manufacturers have work to do on the techie stability of these devices.

In a sector that often has large organisations lacking even the most basic necessities, for 2018, it is hardly surprising that between 39% & 69% of organisations, did not think that IOT was important, from an overall strategy viewpoint. Now I can understand if organisations are still awaiting enterprise-wide EDRMS, CRM, Mobile Working and usable customer self-service, in shoving IOT to the back of a large queue. These outfits clearly need to pull their socks up. 

Fact of the matter is that IOT is here and already happening.

I did some work with a construction and building services corporation, last Spring, who specialise in ‘Smart Cities’. They were successfully scaling up a lot of techniques from ‘domestic gadgets’, into new built environments. Car parking and energy efficient lighting, the former which is highlighted in a case study, brought substantial benefits. 

Any organisation lucky enough to be building new affordable housing, needs to embrace the possible benefits of IOT on offer here. Existing voids and care & support environments to different degrees, can easily leverage low cost IOT.    

Interestingly, a rich variety of IOT devices were in use, or planned. Humidity and temperature sensors are by far the most popular installed. Considering the number of our residents, struggling with high costs of heating their homes, and in potential fuel poverty, this is an excellent place to start. Humidity, motion and chemical detectors have been proven in transient void environments, to manage our assets, at a time when damage can certainly occur and every day without a tenant really counts.

For me the key trick with IOT, to make it a success, is integration with our business applications. That is the icing on the cake and means we potentially can build systems that react to information, rather than just record a growing glut of data, we have to mine ourselves for insights.

For instance, we want to know when that care & support resident has not boiled the kettle this morning, (if they usually do), rather than the previous 48 times they managed it between 08:35 and 09:42 hrs. Without clear, useful, clever integration, we create yet more admin. If we have a frequency sensor on a lift motor, we need to know when its oscillation frequency changes, so we can do that (low cost) service check. Ideally too, that smart boiler, notifies us that it is poorly, a long time before it fails.   

This report tells me a number of things. Socialhousing is not being ambitious enough in planning for IOT deployment. Perhaps CEO’s are not being sufficiently informed or enthused as to its potential. Secondly, finance teams & budget holders need to understand the potential efficiencies of the ‘smart estate’. Real time data about our stock, customer usage of energy and behaviour, will reduce repair spend, provide more proactive care & maintenance, potentially reduce energy bills and increase customer satisfaction.

Related Post: Automation via ICT is not always the right thing to do. Just look at the evolution of the Car Wash 


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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.

C+C Music Factory - Things That Make You Go HmmmmC+C Music Factory - Things That Make You Go Hmmmm.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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