Peabody Housing Association builds a clear view of its assets

Overview

The Thamesmead area of London developed in the 1960s as a new kind of community, with three nature reserves and canals connecting six major lakes. Thamesmead is home to a cross-section of London’s workforce, many of whom live in housing managed by the Peabody Group. As well as housing, Peabody also owns extensive assets in the public realm, including parks, waterways, roads and associated infrastructure throughout the area.

Business challenge

Tom Broad, head of environmental services at Peabody is responsible for the maintenance and repair of assets in Thamesmead. “We cut grass and shrubs, clean up graffiti, maintain trees and canals, offer pest control services, cleansing and waste management, and provide hard landscaping works along with property repairs in communal areas,” he says.

“As an RP (Registered Provider) of social housing, we charge our residents for these services,” Broad adds. “We require absolutely accurate data to ensure that we are meeting residents’ needs, providing the services and charging them the right amount. Previously, we were recording the data on paper, then transferring this to spreadsheets to calculate our cost.”

Solution

To streamline processes and improve data quality, Peabody implemented Brightly Confirm enterprise asset management software, loading data on all its assets into the highly configurable system. “For trees, we record one set of information, from trunk condition to the safety of the branches,” Broad says. “For play equipment, we record different types of information about the safety of the play area and equipment. We can configure the data to the requirements of each asset type and operation.”

Brightly Consulting Services helped design and configure the solution, connecting it with Peabody’s mapping software and transforming operational processes. Now inspectors and maintenance teams carry mobile devices running Confirm Connect, which enables them to enter information directly into Confirm while they’re in the field.

Before deploying Confirm, we had a very cloudy view of our assets. Now that view is very clear.

Tom Broad

Head of Environmental Services, Peabody

“We use Confirm for quality, environmental health and safety, tree, drainage, and play area inspections,” Broad says. “For all these inspections, Confirm Connect enables mobile creation and editing of assets, with maps synchronized in real time. Any inspector who finds a defect on an asset can report it from site. Confirm dashboards show a live view of any incoming works for scheduling with teams.”

In addition, Broad says, the maintenance teams can report on work they complete. “Information about the problem, photographs and a description of actions taken can upload immediately into Confirm. For many of our services, we operate ‘find and fix’ on Confirm Connect. This allows our teams to provide immediate resolution to repairs on site, with great customer satisfaction and no paperwork.”

We can provide our service charge estimates down to the penny for every single site and asset. Our finance group is amazed by the speed and accuracy with which we can answer inquiries.

Benefits

“We’ve been gradually developing the solution by bringing in different activities one at a time,” Broad says. “We’re well on our way to having a completely paperless, seamless process.” One key benefit of the Confirm is its reporting capability.

“We have all our asset data in one place,” Broad says. “If we have an inquiry about any asset, for example a specific tree, we can immediately pull up information on the historical condition and maintenance of the tree. This includes pictures from any inspection or completed works. We’d need an army of administrative staff to pull the same data out of spreadsheets.”

Peabody uses the Confirm to track £7 million of work per year. “The detailed data supports more accurate service charges benefiting Peabody and our residents. We can provide our service charge estimates down to the penny for every single site and asset,” Broad says. “Our finance group is amazed by the speed and accuracy with which we can answer inquiries.”

“The Confirm software is a great package off the shelf,” he adds. “Our relationship with the consulting team has enabled us to further mold the solution to exactly meet our needs. We have long trusted Brightly consultants to deliver small or large projects in a flexible way. “Before deploying the Confirm solution, we had a very cloudy view of our assets,” Broad says. “Now that view is very clear.”