Bauwert & Industria Residential

Living Circle: Defect management to the power of two

Defect management with data sharing

LIVING CIRCLE residential complex on Grafenberger Allee in Düsseldorf, © INDUSTRIA WOHNEN

The former Thyssen Trade Centre in Düsseldorf, which has been converted into the ‘Living Circle’, is not only a well-rounded project in terms of its design language and redesign concept: the residential quarter, which is laid out in semi-circles, is also a showcase for successful defect management. The recipe for success: project developer BAUWERT and investor INDUSTRIA WOHNEN handle all steps in defects management with the mydocma MM software solution and ensure extremely efficient data exchange with the mydocma SH interface application.

Housing shortage is the mother of invention

With ‘Living Circle’, Berlin-based BAUWERT, known for its numerous new-build projects at top city centre addresses, killed two birds with one stone: in terms of urban development and the market. The former office building had been vacant since 2011 and the previous owner had major letting problems. At the same time, there was a considerable lack of affordable living space in the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. BAUWERT acquired the property and converted the derelict office complex into 340 new rental flats, a daycare centre, a supermarket and large green spaces with great political approval – without interfering with the original basic form. A tricky conversion on a scale that is unique in Germany to date, which was also duly recognised by high-calibre experts: the client won both the 2017 Real Estate Award in the ‘Project Development Existing Buildings’ category and the 2018 German Building Owner Award in the ‘Conversion for Residential Use’ category for the nationwide flagship project. The property developer owes its wealth of experience to over 330 projects with a considerable investment volume of around five billion euros. The extraordinary residential complex was completed at the end of 2017 and handed over to the buyer, the special property fund Wohnen Deutschland II, as planned. The fund manager is INDUSTRIA WOHNEN – a subsidiary of Degussa Bank, which has been operating successfully on the market as a housing company and property manager for over 60 years.

Initial situation

The beginnings

BAUWERT: The desire for standardisation

‘Living Circle’ residential complex in Düsseldorf, “Box Seven” city quarter in Berlin, “Klostergärten” luxury flats in the historic centre of the capital, … – “With our many projects running simultaneously, a standardised approach to defects management is absolutely essential in order not to lose productivity,” says Holger Kroß, Project Manager at BAUWERT. The desire for an efficient digital solution was expressed within the company back in 2015, whereupon the company’s management and defect management officers took a closer look at three products. The aim was to find software that would map and automate the entire process with all project participants – from mobile defect recording on site to documentation in the warranty phase. ‘mydocma MM meets our desired overall package,’ summarises Kroß and praises: ’edr software’s defect management offers maximum user-friendliness with functions such as photo documentation, plan localisation, automatic deadline tracking and easily generated VOB correspondence.’

INDUSTRIA WOHNEN: Reaching the limits with Excel

‘Until the introduction of mydocma MM, we recorded defects using Excel lists,’ reports Andreas Jacobi, Portfolio Manager at INDUSTRIA WOHNEN. ‘These are large wallpapers in which you can filter, but gradually the overview is simply lost.’ During the construction phase of ‘Living Circle’, they realised how efficiently BAUWERT was using the digital assistant for defect management and became curious. The decisive impetus came from a joint meeting in which the INDUSTRIA project managers were introduced to the topic in more detail. ‘We realised that it is a very simple solution for systematically entering defects and keeping all users up to date at all times,’ reports Jacobi.

Solution

And so, in February 2017, it was a done deal: the company introduced mydocma MM as a cloud application for the defect management of ‘Living Circle’ and also equipped Omega Immobilien Service, which is responsible for letting and managing the residential complex, with the powerful software. Beforehand, edr software used the mydocma SH interface application to transfer a large number of defects from Excel to INDUSTRIA’s mydocma MM, each residential unit was assigned the corresponding floor plan and the building structure of the newly created living space provided by BAUWERT was transferred to the system. This sealed the deal for digital defect management and paved the way for smooth collaboration between the business partners during the warranty phase.

Benefits and advantages

Proven defect management in day-to-day work

Systems in harmony thanks to mydocma SH

Roughly speaking, defects management in the ‘Living Circle’ neighbourhood follows the following recurring pattern: the buyer INDUSTRIA WOHNEN reports defects to the seller BAUWERT in order to assert warranty claims. After the builder has fulfilled his obligation and repaired the damage, the investor receives the release notification and the local property service Omega is given the go-ahead for the follow-up inspection. To make the entire procedure as simple as possible for all parties involved, edr software also brought the flexible mydocma SH interface management system into play here. It synchronises the defect data from the various mydocma MM systems at a set time interval, so that everyone involved is immediately aware of new defect notifications and any status changes – without detours, without bureaucracy and without having to hand over their own data. In order to ensure the exact synchronisation of the project data, the Munich-based IT service provider drew up a detailed protocol for the configuration in advance. This provided concrete answers to the question: What information should be exchanged, to what extent and at what time?

Transparency across the board

‘Thanks to mydocma SH, the entire project team speaks the same language,’ says Kroß from BAUWERT. Instead of transmitting information via various channels such as e-mail, post or telephone or having to transfer it manually into systems, the exchange between business partners takes place directly via the system and is therefore structured, seamless and unambiguous. Thanks to the previous configuration, the susceptibility to errors is zero, and users are also informed of each successful transmission by means of a confirmation of receipt.

‘mydocma MM is a clean management and control tool,’ emphasises Jacobi from INDUSTRIA. ’Without having to set foot in Düsseldorf, I can get an accurate picture of the status quo in the property within ten minutes. And I can easily check the work of our partners and give them a push if necessary.’ According to the portfolio manager, users appreciate the fact that they have clear to-do lists at their fingertips thanks to the many filter options. Whether ‘Create defect report’, ‘Need to clarify with NU’, ‘Grace period expired’, etc. – in each selection, they receive a clear list of the processing status with all the necessary information and can tackle upcoming tasks in a targeted manner.

Conclusion

A look into the future

The future of defect management is called 4.0. and BAUWERT and INDUSTRIA WOHNEN are ideally equipped for this. After the project developer of ‘Living Circle’ kick-started the digitalisation efforts at its buyer, the ball really started rolling. The successful property entrepreneur is now expanding the topic to the following areas:

Use in all new construction projects

INDUSTRIA will be using mydocma MM in all new construction projects in future and would also like to win over its sales staff to the solution.

SAP integration for data updating

The experienced portfolio manager immediately recognised the great potential of mydocma SH and took the topic further for ‘Living Circle’: Since 2019, the universal interface management system has automatically synchronised relevant data from internal management programmes with mydocma MM to keep the data pool up to date.

Use for all types of ironers

Soon, not only warranty defects but also all wear and tear-related damage to the residential complex will be properly handled by the competent software.