September 29, 2006
Agility heads the way in providing simple, easy-to-use maintenance software solutions for schools
SoftSols Group, a leading provider of maintenance management software, today announces that the Emmanuel Schools Foundation (ESF), which promotes high standards within comprehensive secondary education, has purchased its web-based maintenance management system – Agility. Agility will help the Emmanuel Schools Foundation to manage its main assets effectively - £75 million worth of buildings and infrastructure across three education sites.
ESF is based in the North-east of England and covers three educational sites in Middlesbrough, Doncaster and Gateshead. Emmanuel College opened in 1990 and is among the top five percent of schools in terms of academic results in England. This was joined by The King’s Academy and Trinity Academy, which were set-up at the request of local authorities to replace under achieving schools.
Using Agility Maintenance Management Software, ESF is developing a register of its assets across all three sites. This will enable them to control and maintain all of its assets and develop work records and job sheets for all its maintenance staff to replace the in-house timesheet system.
Mark Boyers, Project Manager at The Emmanuel Schools Foundation comments: “There was a need to manage the plant from a financial perspective, but more importantly from a maintenance point of view. Schools are historically pretty poor at managing their buildings efficiently. We want our buildings to be immaculate and effectively managed.”
“We chose Agility because it is web-based and gives us the flexibility to manage ours assets across the three sites centrally and to update the system regularly. What attracted us to Agility is its simplicity. Other systems we looked at seemed over complicated. All our staff need to be able to use the software, not just the IT specialists, and Agility makes this possible. With Agility, we have an advanced solution that allows us to manage a large number of assets effectively, saving time and money.”
The ESF is a charitable organisation that aims to raise the quality of education by focusing on the development of the individual, regardless of ability. All three schools operate within areas of socio-economic deprivation and are designated by the Department of Education and Skills as ‘independent schools with religious character’.
David Hipkin, Managing Director of SoftSols Group concludes: “Because Agility is web-based it is ideally suited to organisations like The Emmanuel Schools Foundation. It will allow the schools to manage all of their assets across the three sites consistently, enabling them to maintain high standards through managed maintenance.”
