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How can a word-class university manage and maintain its facilities across multiple buildings and three campuses? Idox’s CAFM Explorer® provides the solution!
Universities provide a central hub for education and community to coexist. With multiple facilities being used around the clock by students, staff, and guests for learning, rest, leisure, business, and more, it can be quite a challenge to keep these facilities working in top order. With Idox’s CAFM Explorer®, that job becomes easier.
Situated in 60 acres of parkland and catering to 20,000 students, the University of Salford was faced with the challenge of ensuring a compliant and coordinated estate. The University has 31 buildings across three campuses, Castle Irwell Student Village comprising 68 houses, 10 blocks of flats, and ambitious plans to evolve further with several multi-million-pound investments in new academic facilities scheduled. To gain tighter control of its ever-growing assets, the University needed a reliable solution that could support a 350-strong estates team in delivering smoother, compliant operations across a vast campus.
The University of Salford moved to Idox’s facilities management software, CAFM Explorer®, in the early 1990s. The solution now handles all the University’s planned and preventative maintenance, from fixing a door handle to upgrading boiler systems. With CAFM Explorer®, the team has a tighter hold on facilities tasks and can coordinate all aspects of the estate using a single, web-based tool. By delivering a more holistic view of all operations, the University can make informed, strategic decisions to ensure the cost-effective use of space. CAFM Explorer’s® maintenance management and self-service helpdesk functionality ensures planned and reactive tasks can be responded to quickly. This feature is essential for students in the Castle Irwell Village who can access a portal – designed specifically for them – to report problems around-the-clock. As well as functionality to monitor, track and analyse stock levels, the software solution also coordinates room and resource bookings, streamlining the entire process.
“The CAFM Explorer® software has enabled the facilities staff, as well as academics and students in accommodation, to get the fast, well-coordinated maintenance service they deserve. Each student flat and house can access the portal which is a direct link to the onsite facilities people. If something needs attention, then reactive maintenance happens very fast.” – The University of Salford
For more than 25 years, CAFM Explorer® has been essential to the University’s estates team, managing around 157,000 square metres of space. The University’s building drawings have all been uploaded into CAFM Explorer® for improved visibility on size and maintenance history and estates maintenance staff are kept organised through the solution’s Help Desk, handling upwards of 1,400 requests a month. Around 1,500 items in the University’s on-site warehouse are strategically monitored by CAFM Explorer’s® Stock Control module. With Idox’s CAFM Explorer®, the University of Salford continually achieves greater efficiency and visibility for its facilities management needs, resulting in a more effective and streamlined estate.
“The biggest strength of CAFM Explorer® and working with Idox is the partnership. People, especially those in user development groups, share experiences to make a great product even more user friendly and better all round.” – The University of Salford
As the education sector continues to advance technologically, facilities managers are challenged to keep pace with current working trends and solutions. Accessibility to work orders, maintenance requests, and resource inventory are now top priorities for facilities managers and users, especially in a hybrid working environment. CAFM Explorer’s® web-based software provides all users with the ability to access, send, and receive their requirements from their mobile devices and laptops, ensuring visibility, real-time response, and all-around efficiency.
CAFM Explorer® is more than just software, it is the essential partner for the innovative, forward-thinking facilities manager. Idox works across sectors such as healthcare, education, tourism, and more. Read about the four ways CAFM Explorer® can help you move from reactive to proactive facilities management in our blog here.
