The Cloud-Based Solution helping Melbourne Girls Grammar redefine its approach to facilities and asset management
One of Melbourne’s most prestigious schools, Melbourne Girls Grammar, has enlisted Australia’s leading cloud-based building management platform Urbanise to automate the maintenance of its world-class facilities and in the midst of a pandemic and remote learning, is proving to be an invaluable solution.
Prior to deploying the Urbanise platform, Melbourne Girls Grammar managed service requests manually via email, making it difficult to oversee service-level-agreements, reporting or analytics on overall operations and performance.
Since adopting the platform in January, tasks and requests are now automatically assigned based on priority level and available trade, while the platform can identify and monitor trends, ultimately leading to improved efficiencies and operations.
Additionally, the Urbanise Force mobile app for trades uses voice and photo recognition to collect and provide access to valuable information, establishing a new benchmark for visibility and accountability for stakeholders.
Urbanise Global Customer Development Director Ashley Austin said the cloud-based platform optimises both contractor and asset processes by acting as an innovative connection point between the school, suppliers, and contractors.
"With such a high standard and calibre of building facilities, it was important for Melbourne Girls Grammar to add an extra element of service delivery by adopting a single repository for all requests from the community."
“The Facilities Manager no longer relies on email and phone calls for requests, rather, if the supplier completes a job, the system notifies the FM alongside notifying the person who requested the job,” he said.
As part of the implementation process, Urbanise completed an asset verification of the campus using their mobile application, Force. The verification included capital replacement details to allow Melbourne Girls Grammar to conduct real-time capital replacement forecasts based on assets expected life, condition and criticality.
The platform also provides access to documented workflows, training materials, data loading tools and project governance templates, as well as a visualisation map view of the school’s grounds and facilities.
Discussing the adoption of Urbanise at Melbourne Girls Grammar, Facilities Manager Karin Parker, said that despite having a fairly concise method of managing maintenance requests, the process was not conducive to tracking issues.
“Although reliable in many ways, our paper-based system made tracking issues much harder, we were undoubtedly double handling a lot of information or wasted time sifting through paper copies for written notes on a job."
“Adapting to suit our educational context we can now function seamlessly as individuals and as a team. Being a cloud-based platform we have been able to shift our internal staff and contractors to use the app to view, review, notate, add images, and track asset-specific information, all whilst on the move.”
Beyond the efficient management of the team, Karin said it is the software’s ability to intuitively provide data on a number of key administrative tools that made Urbanise a standout amongst its competitors.
“We now have clear visibility on performance, comments, response times and updates, all captured in the one location. From a management perspective, it is a game-changer being able to access critical data such as asset life cycling, budget forecasting, planned maintenance and adherence to compliance requirements."
“This level of detail has enabled our department to provide full transparency and accountability to the school’s management, saving us valuable hours and ensuring precision accuracy.”
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