Elmhurst Digital- Strategic Asset Management Solution

In 2016 Northgate Public Services needed to find a solution to replace their existing energy calculator/module within their Strategic Asset Management (SAM) System. The software solutions arm of Elmhurst, 'Elmhurst Digital', analysed the requirements and developed a bespoke solution for them.

About Northgate Public Services

Northgate Public Services’ supply IT solutions and services to the public sector and are based in the UK and around the world.

One of their flag ship solutions is the provision of Strategic Asset Management (SAM) to public sector housing providers. This solution provides a snap shot of asset value and condition for customers, helping them to streamline compliance and remain focused on the future.

Customers can design surveys, input data in bulk and capture information on the move, as well as analyse whole-life costs. A valuable part of  SAM is the Energy Module which enables customers to accurately capture survey data, download Energy Performance Certificate information and calculate energy ratings. These ratings can then be used for a variety of legislative and reporting purposes, along with modelling the effect of implementing energy efficient measures in the property to achieve the most cost effective results.

Elmhurst Digital's Solution 

Elmhurst Digital analysed the requirements and determined that an integrated solution would require data input screens, complex calculators and a central connection to Elmhurst’s online portal (Access Elmhurst) in order to provide a seamless user experience, as such it was important that the solution would be indistinguishable for the user whether using Northgate or Elmhurst functionality.

Another key requirement was to ensure that regular updates to material databases and legislative changes to the input screens and calculators were applied with minimal impact to the user.

Finally, to enable SAM to access online data collected in Access Elmhurst, integration was developed which delivered a full end-to-end workflow allocation solution. This allowed a SAM user to request an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to be carried out by an accredited Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA).

The solution provided delivered the following key functions: Complex data capture screens with full input validation to ensure the accuracy and quality of input data in the SAM Energy Module Complex RdSAP calculation engine capable of producing energy ratings for properties form the input data in the SAM Energy Module Work allocation integration web services to directly instruct a DEA to carry out Energy Assessments on properties from the SAM Energy Module Data retrieval integration web services to import data collected by DEAs along with the EPC direct into the SAM Energy Module Boiler database update via integration web services

Elmhurst Digital completed the work in 2016 to enable SAM to capture and calculate energy ratings to the RdSAP 9.92 specification. In December 2017 Elmhurst Digital delivered new data input screens and an updated calculator to enable SAM to capture and calculate energy ratings to new RdSAP 9.93 specification.

Elmhurst Digital are proud to have been able to implement both the original product and the recent legislative update on time and to budget.  If you are interested in finding out more about the solutions that Elmhurst's digital arm can provide feel free to visit their website: http://www.elmhurstdigital.co.uk/ or why not drop them an email: softwaresales@elmhurstdigital.co.uk

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Article Published: 1st February 2018