Tops Day Nurseries, a company managing a group of 30 nurseries educating over 3,000 children across the south of England, has adopted the AltoSites software solution from Altuity, a maintenance and facilities management software company.
Cheryl Hadland, Managing Director of Tops Day Nurseries, explains that the system the group was previously using didn’t work for the needs of the company effectively.
“We needed a central place for information, giving the opportunity to have not just maintenance jobs on the system but assets for each building e.g. fire systems, property boundaries, contracts in place with a system to prompt renewal dates, contractors being able to access the system to upload certificates, lease details and noting who is responsible for maintaining the different assets of the buildings,” she explains.
The company evaluated several other software systems before choosing AltoSites. “With their experience in the education sector, Altuity seemed to understand our issues best, and also weren’t cost prohibitive,” says Cheryl.
Altuity founder Steve Voller commented that, given the current Coronavirus challenges and business disruption, it was good to support Tops Day Nurseries with their long-term facilities and maintenance management needs.
Altuity conducted an initial meeting at the beginning of January. Despite the current lock down due to Coronavirus, it was able to work virtually with key Tops Day Nurseries staff to implement the software. Â A Zoom group session, with over 30 staff participating, was used to remotely deliver the training, leading to go live on time at the end of March.
Benefits from adopting AltoSites include allowing for more data to be included under each asset e.g. the fire alarm system can have its make, model, service date, defects reported, certificates, and new systems installed all recorded. Additional benefits are that the company’s legal team will have the ability to store legal information on the system which can be shared. The system is also visually easier for maintenance to be able to see jobs using the floor plans on the system and prioritise work while contractors can automatically be notified of work needed.
“Until all managers are back from the lockdown situation and using the system to its full capacity, it is difficult to get feedback but we are confident the new software will have a positive impact on the way our assets are managed,” concludes Cheryl.
