As part of the university’s journey of continuous improvement, a new Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) system called Planon is being launched across Estates this year.

This means for staff across our campus’s is that there will be a new and improved Estates Helpdesk web portal. The information gathered at the request stage will be more standardised, which will enable the Estates teams to triage the issues faster and allocate the work to the right person, first time, every time. It is anticipated that the new Estates Helpdesk will be available on the University of Nottingham website from July.

This system represents a big investment by the university and is a key strategic enabling project for the Estates team. It replaces a number of outdated systems that are currently used and enables the function to make a number of improvements in how our 500 buildings and 100,000+ assets are maintained and serviced.

Some of the key improvements this system will enable are:

• Assets and Buildings – improvements to how they are maintained and serviced
• Data and Reporting – vastly improved management of the information we hold, providing us with better insight and the ability to make data-based decisions. A single source of truth, everything in one place
• Customer experience – a better system for staff to use to raise work requests
• Processes – automated and streamlined administrative processes, making us more efficient
• Contractor engagement – improving the way we work with and communicate with external contractors carrying out work across our campuses
• Costs – better insight into building maintenance and assets costs
• Compliance – being able to measure and provide assurance about our statutory maintenance obligations

Updates on this project will be provided on the lead up to the ‘go live’ date. The vision is to provide a safe and compliant environment for university staff, students, contractors and visitors across all our buildings and spaces. This new system will help us make the key improvements we need, in order to continue this important work.