A2Dominion Group has enhanced its property development processes with the introduction of BluTek’s BluBrik project handover module. The BluBrik software automatically collates management information from multiple sources to produce real-world online view covering the development of an entire housing scheme. The project began 18 months ago and the system went live around the end of this summer.
The handover software is a new add-on module for BluTek’s BluBrik development management system. This application-specific system provides housing providers with an efficient means of handling the entire development process, from feasibility assessment and cashflow management to handover and defects management. The system is specifically designed to ease the process of collaboration between departments within an organisation – data only needs to be entered once, and is then automatically made available wherever it is required.
Doreen Wright, director of programme and quality, A2Dominion, said, “We are in the process of deploying a fully-integrated IT system across the entire group. The addition of the BluBrik handover module marks the latest phase of this deployment. The new software provides a very efficient means for our development team to share information with other partners and client departments in a controlled and timely manner, and reduces our administrative overheads significantly.”
The BluBrik handover module is intended to remove the problems associated with decentralised, ‘silo-based’ systems. As a fully-integrated part of the BluBrik system, the handover module accepts data feeds from other modules within the software framework and collates the information into a single online report with a full audit trail. The report can be made available anyone in the organisation from the moment the scheme has been approved by the development team and is then progressively populated with more data as the project evolves.
The handover module makes extensive use of context-sensitive menus, only showing questions relevant to each particular context. Context-sensitive ‘drag and drop’ functions further expedite editing; for example, a property can be added to a block or a street, but a house cannot be added to a block. Different teams, such as marketing, housing management or lettings, usually need access to information at varying times prior to project handover. The system therefore issues auto-alerts by email to relevant client departments when forms should be available for their use. It also prompts the person responsible for providing the data some time before the cut-off date to check that all the necessary information has been added to the system.
Following in-house acceptance trials and final product customisation by BluTek, the handover module went live at A2Dominion around the end of July 2009.
Wright said, “The BluBrik software positively encourages collaboration with client departments from an early stage in the development. The response from our staff has been extremely favourable – they feel that it has turned what was previously a very tedious part of their work into a significantly less complicated task.”
