NGData has been working with Metropolitan Thames Valley (MTV) on ‘data fluency’ to optimise systems integration and improve operational efficiency.
This follows the housing provider’s formation from the merger of Thames Valley Housing and Metropolitan Housing Trust last year which resulted in over 300 business applications needing to be either integrated or mothballed.
MTV chose NGData based on the strength of its initial project proposal and holistic view to the adoption of technology. The focus of NGData’s engagement was not only which business applications to integrate and/or keep and which new software to implement, but also how to leverage the capabilities of MTV’s existing team of developers.
A key challenge identified during the consulting process was that each developer would apply their own method and choice of coding language to each integration; a shift towards a more consistent approach enabled the development team to quickly and easily understand integrations when optimisation or updating was needed. Implementing standard integration approaches also removed the need for developers to build integrations from scratch each time and allowed them to understand the underlying build of each integration across the different business systems.
Douglas Silverstone, head of data, Metropolitan Thames Valley, said, “One of our developers has reported being able to complete 70 integration jobs in half a day, whereas before this project our staff would require half a day for each integration. Other business teams have found that they are able to focus their time on key tasks rather than data-related admin, such as cross-referencing information and gathering reports from multiple systems.”
