Ongo Homes has saved over £300,000 after implementing Kirona’s Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) software by improving the efficiency of its repairs and maintenance teams arounds its management of void properties.
The introduction of Kirona’s DRS software replaces the housing provider’s previous reliance on manual processes to collect data on its empty properties, allocating work to its tradespeople on pieces of paper.
Margaret Slingsby, maintenance service manager, Ongo Homes, said, “After our operatives had completed one job, they would then have to return to the office for the next job – they would be back and forth all day. It was a process that not only left the empty homes team wasting much of their days and inviting errors, but our KPIs were flatlining.”
Kirona’s DRS is designed to handle the complexities associated with voids, which may require multiple tradespeople, each with different skills, entering the property at any given time. The software determines the most efficient course of action and allocates tasks to the appropriate operatives through dynamic resource scheduling.
Slingsby said: “We wanted to give our voids department real-time visibility of assigned and completed tasks while also syncing data with our back-office team. By introducing DRS, we’ve been able to reduce the number of tradespeople and upskill existing operatives to carry out void inspections rather than relying on our area managers. As a result, our costs have reduced by around £300,000.
“The main benefit our office staff have seen is the visibility of the void progress, especially when we need to let our allocations department know how voids are progressing and a potential return date. This also helps with workloads and cross-functional working between repairs and voids staff.”
