Welcome to BluTek

Historically, many housing associations and property developers have handled building defects management using a combination of email, telephone and fax. This makes it difficult to follow the progress of current defects resolution, and compounds the problems of measuring contractor performance and evaluating the reliability of fitted equipment. BluTek’s new Defects Manager software overcomes all these issues by centralising the defect records on a web-based server, supported by secure user access.

Defects Manager features a purpose-designed user interface to minimise data input error and to provide clear and unambiguous visual feedback. Once details of a housing defect have been entered into the system, the software automatically contacts the appropriate contractor and employer’s agent (EA) by email, notifying them of the issues that need to be addressed. Each contractor and EA can access only their specific file within the centralised defects record database, allowing them to update its status. Organisations can easily monitor progress and obtain contractors’ key performance indicators (KPIs), and at the end of the defects period, the software can automatically pass all reported defects back to the organisation’s housing management system if desired.

The Defects Manager software runs under Windows on any industry-standard PC with internet access, using a standard web browser to access defect records maintained on a secure, off-site web server. The software accommodates literally every aspect of housing stock defect management, enabling organisations to expedite problem resolution while maintaining a clear audit trail for quality control.

BluTek’s Defects Manager software can either be used as a standalone package, or as an integral part of the company’s BluBrik development management system, which facilitates BluTek: Advanced software package simplifies management of housing stock defects 2/2 complete lifecycle management of multiple and mixed property development portfolios. Based entirely on standard PCs, secure web-based data servers and modular software modules, BluBrik can be configured to meet the precise needs of organisations, regardless of their size, and can be reconfigured at any time to accommodate changes in business activity.

A 6-page brochure highlighting the benefits of BluTek’s Defects Manager software is available free of charge, and can be requested by emailing the company at Email:

The handover software is a new optional add-on module for BluTek’s BluBrik development management system. This application-specific IT system provides Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and housing developers with a very efficient means of handling the entire development process, from feasibility assessment and cash flow management to handover and defects management. Based on standard PCs, web-based data servers and modular software, BluBrik provides a highly flexible, cost-effective and scalable solution. The system is specifically designed to ease the process of collaboration between departments within an organisation – data only needs to be entered once, and is then automatically made available wherever it is required.

According to Doreen Wright, Director of Programme & Quality for A2Dominion, “As part of our strategic business plan, we are in the process of deploying a fully-integrated IT system across the entire group. The addition of the BluBrik handover module marks the latest phase of this deployment, and highlights our commitment to using the best available tools to maximise the quality of our services. The new software provides a very efficient means for our Development Team to share information with other partners and client departments in a controlled and timely manner, and reduces our administrative overheads significantly.”

For historical reasons, many housing developers currently continue to use decentralised information management systems that have evolved over time in a piecemeal fashion, as their organisations have grown. The problem with this fragmented, non-integrated approach is that it is notoriously inefficient, which can lead to errors, decreased productivity and staff dissatisfaction. Work invariably ends up being duplicated many times over, with different versions of the same documents being held by various people at various times, and with no-one being confident that they hold the latest version. Worse still, from a management perspective, it is impossible for anyone to see a complete snapshot of a project until all the information has been collected and verified at the very end of the process – which is often way past the deadlines of associated management teams and other parties with vested interests in the information.

The BluBrik handover module obviates all the problems associated with decentralised systems. Forming a fully-integrated element of BluTek’s BluBrik development management system, it accepts data feeds from other modules within the software framework, and collates the information into a single comprehensive online report, with a full audit trail. The report can be made visible to anyone within the organisation from the moment the scheme has been approved by the Development Team, and is then progressively populated with more data as the project evolves. Data only needs to be input once, eliminating time-consuming and error-prone work duplication, and is propagated automatically to all associated modules. A powerful auto-inheritance feature further minimises the need for manual data entry – users merely have to specify any exceptions to automatically-populated menus.

The handover module makes extensive use of hierarchically-structured context-sensitive menus to simplify information management, only showing questions that are relevant to each particular context. Easy-to-use ‘drag and drop’ functions further expedite editing, and again, these are context sensitive; for example, a property can be added to a block or a street, but a house cannot be added to a block. All menus employ colour coding to highlight information that has been inherited and to indicate whether or not it can be changed at this level. Auto-notification of impending events or deadlines enables users to disseminate information precisely when and where it is needed.

Typically, information needs to be made available to the Marketing Department about six months ahead of handover, to allow sufficient time for the preparation and planning of advertisements and promotional materials; the Housing Management Team and the Letting Team will then need to know about three months in advance, and the Property Maintenance Team will also need to be kept informed so that it can budget for future property maintenance. The system prompts client departments via email when forms should be available for their use. It also prompts the person responsible for providing the data some time before the cut-off date, to check that all the required information has been entered.

Following in-house acceptance trials and final product customisation by BluTek, A2Dominion took the handover module live about six weeks ago. To quote Doreen Wright again, “The software positively encourages collaboration with client departments from an earlier stage in the development and the response from our staff has been extremely favourable – they feel that it has turned what was previously a very tedious part of their work into a significantly less complicated task.”