DINLabs: Revolutionising Asset Management – Virtual Stock Condition Surveys

Stock condition surveys are a vital component of asset management planning.Yet the process and methods in housing have hardly changed for years. In commercial real estate sectors, there has been rapid adoption of new Proptech solutions that allow for highly accurate, efficient, low-cost surveying of their property portfolio. This DINLab will explore the extent to which such innovations could work in the social housing space and what are the challenges and business benefits of using virtual stock condition surveys.

In this lab we will test how technology could transform stock condition surveys to reduce the time and expense whilst still delivering the accuracy and data the business requires. Spotr technologies have the remarkable ability to accurately inspect thousands of buildings in minutes, using image recognition from photos taken from on satellites, airplanes, drones, cars as well as images from inspectors and tenants. In the lab, a small number of housing providers contribute in a joint effort to:

• Remove the need to send a physical team out to survey 20% of your stock each year, yet having access to accurate, up to date information on all of your properties and estates that is updated at least annually.

• Understand where virtual surveys can support planned maintenance programmes and safety inspections for fencing, walls, drives, roads and pavements

• Testing whether Spotr can replace/enhance estate inspections, identifying repairs and maintenance needed for pavements, roads, trees and vegetation

• Exploring how the rich data can add further value to the organisation and residents

What is a DINLab?

DINLabs is our rapid prototyping platform which offers housing providers a low cost and low risk approach to trial new tech products or business models. Test before you invest.

This DINlabs project will be a joint experiment between the housing providers, DIN and Spotr to explore how this technology could work in practice and what lessons there are for the sector as a whole. By participating you will be able to receive a survey of up to 300 of your properties to understand how the technology can work in a real world situation.

So if you would like to learn more about what this experiment will involve, the method, the resources, the data requirements and the costs then please reserve your place and we will do our best to answer your questions and see if this is the right approach for your organisation.