Drum Housing Association has integrated geographic information with its housing management system, resulting in organisation-wide improvements in information access and productivity.
Drum Housing Group was formed in 1997 from East Hampshire Housing Association and Hangras Housing Association. Drum Housing Association was formed in 2002 after consolidation into a single RSL and now owns or manages 5000 properties around Portsmouth, Chichester and Gosport.
Its existing paper-based land terrier hampered Drum due to maintenance difficulties, single-person access, limited depth of information, update costs and its vulnerability to loss or damage.
SIA’s dataMAP system was considered as it had already been implemented by East Hampshire District Council from which EHHA had originated. It is now used daily for resolving boundary disputes, predicting problems such as flooding, supporting a pro-active maintenance programme and answering customer service queries.
Having used a housing management system from IBS for many years, its recent integration with dataMAP has resulted in further improvements. These include an almost limitless range of data overlays, improved information storage, web- and handheld access, better information provision across the organisation and easier maintenance. The next steps are expected to include the integration of an asset management system.
