The British Council goes live with Condeco Room booking system

The British Council has engaged NJW Limited to implement the Condeco Room Booking system for their London offices. This will replace an existing in-house system and provide greater flexibility in terms of user interface as well as system management.

Teams from NJW, the British Council and Condeco have worked together over recent months to define requirements, prepare data and get the system to a “live” situation following extensive implementation and testing phases.

The Condeco system will provide British Council staff with a much smoother process for reserving meeting rooms, catering and associated equipment via the existing Outlook e-mail and calendar facility. In addition, the system will generate automated notifications to support teams and provide dashboards to assist with scheduling of catering etc.

From an analytical view, the system is equipped with reports to provide key information surrounding room utilisation, costs, facilities etc.

Royal Bank of Canada embrace FM Interact 8

When major financial organisation - Royal Bank of Canada was preparing to move into a brand new building in London, they needed a set of tools to be able to manage the space and occupancy within that building.

For this purpose, they chose NJW Limited to project manage the implementation of FM:Systems latest offering, FM:Interact 8.

NJW have worked with the Bank in the past and have vast experience in this type of implementation. FM:Interact is a web based IWMS/CAFM system with functionality to provide the client with their specific reporting and move management processes and tools.

The FM:Systems will also provide end user accessible details such as people finder, locations of meeting rooms, vending facilities and other ancillary services that may be required by staff from the UK and overseas.

The system generates chargeback reports and statistics for internal use within the bank. The system is now fully tested and being migrated to a full production environment.

Dalcour Maclaren Scheme Management System

Dalcour Maclaren are one of the UK’s reputable Chartered Surveyors specialising in surveying national projects such as pipe laying, bridge building, wind farms and electricity pylons to name a few.

NJW proposed a custom built solution using FileMaker™, a cross platform web enabled database.

The system was designed around a central contacts table with fields to record an interests location as well as a selection of personal data.

A projects area was designed with a drag and drop interface that could auto populate a national project with its key milestones all the tasks associated with the milestone and most importantly - all the people that become stakeholders to the individual tasks.

Dates and times can be recorded and noted at every stage of a project. Intuitive layouts were design with conditional colour coding to highlight signed of stages with any issues flagging up in red when they occur.

Annual budget layouts designed to forecast the year and then measure targets se against a time sheet area which produces a detailed set of invoicing. Clients are then granted web access to the tailored customer area which is branded ‘Capture”.

Sodexo Connections partnership

NJW have been working closely with Sodexo senior management and engineers to develop the ultimate FM Services client portal.

The final solution has been released internally and is being fully road tested on the Global GSK account.

Sodexo Connections is a "Web Portal / Integration layer" from NJW that contains not only it's own capability but interfaces with a combination of proven components from global application providers such as AutoCAD, SAP, Maximo, FM:Systems, TRIRIGA, Archibus and many others.

Sodexo Connections integration layer allows the consolidation and combination of information from diverse data sources

Scalability (increases in users, geographic scope), flexibility (new applications, reports, analysis) and security (user profiles) are embedded

SLA analysis and KPI reporting is graphical, simple to use and directs attention to where focus and action is needed

Single version of the truth - Sodexo and client teams all view same information and details - from anywhere in the world

NJW & Sodexo have signed a true "partnership" agreement which is deliberately not a customer-supplier relationship. The rationale for this being that a partnership is both mutually beneficial (there are complementary services more than Sodexo Connections technology that will drive higher value for both organisations.

Managing Director 'Nigel Warrick' is delighted with the new partnership contract as Sodexo Connections will be rolled out Globally but more importantly NJW can commit to supporting a single FM company creating a unique selling point for any potential clients.

Utilise365 new Desk Sensor

The Utilise365 new Sensor technology has been designed using the ZigBee wireless mesh capability at its core. The sensor at the desk relays information to a hub which collects the data which in turn is presented back to the client to show people utilisation usage patterns over a specific period of time.

Suitable locations include: Desks, meeting room tables and video conference suites.

The sensors take readings from the work space every 15 seconds which in turn is translated into highly accurate utilisation statistics.

NJW offer the installation, 24 x 7 monitoring, Web based utilisation reporting , trend analytics, hosting and maintenance as a managed service offering.

• ZigBee wireless mesh-network solution: Dedicated separate network
• Sensors powered by battery with 2-year life and battery level reporting back to server
• Utilisation status reported every 15 mins to server
• Server in cloud, accessed via LAN or 3G card
• Hubs provided for groups of sensors, discretely located in Condeco room screen or wall/ceiling mounted

NJW India is in the pipeline

Managing Director Nigel Warrick is working with Sujatha Bharathan to set up NJW India in Chennai. Sujatha is currently in Chennai sourcing offices, recruiting developers and will be the Managing Director of the new division.

Sujatha joined NJW in 2009 and has been working as Lead Architect/Developer, during this time she has been involved in many projects including Sodexo Connections, British Airways, Suffolk University, HSBC and Oxford Brookes University.

Sujatha is a Sun Certified Java Programmer and Technical Lead with 8 years development experience and exposure to various phases of Software Engineering including requirements gathering, design, application development and system & unit testing in an agile environment. She is bestowed with the global credential Project Management Professional (PMP). This has been awarded by the Project Management Institute, Pennsylvania after formally evaluating her experience, knowledge and skills to lead and direct project teams.

She has a Masters in Computer Applications and secured the College Topper Award for overall high score in all semester subjects.

Prior to joining NJW Sujatha worked for Oracle, India PVT Ltd as a Solutions Specialist and achieved the Best Performer Award for her innovative ideas and performance.

Outside of work, she is a voracious reader of thriller novels and enjoys traveling.

IBM TRIRIGA Accreditation

Following IBM's acquisition of TRIRIGA, NJW Director Hamish Good and Developer James Gould were invited to TRIRIGA's Head Office in Las Vegas for an opportunity to become IBM Certified Application Developers.

The invitation consisted of a two week training course complete with an eight hour certification exam. The course employed practical development to teach the NJW Team good development practices and the theory behind successful development in TRIRIGA. Both Hamish and James found the course interesting and challenging, but managed to complete all the practical exercises set in the class, using team work to overcome some of the complex problems encountered. Completing the exercises (and some late night revision) provided them with the knowledge to score extremely highly in the exam achieving 97% and 95%. Both Hamish and James enjoyed the experience immensely and look forward to exploring the full capabilities of the TRIRIGA Application Platform for our clients.

Managing your energy

While energy managers are aware of the cost, regulatory, environmental, operational and reputational risks related to energy use, changes to the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) at the end of last year mean many organisations may well be confused about what is required from them by the scheme.

In a survey of businesses to mark one year of the CRC, NPower found that opinions about the scheme and it's future are strong with over 45% calling for the CRC to be abolished. At NJW we recognise businesses face a myriad of challenges in relation to energy legislation and compliance. However, it is of prime importance that they do not concentrate too much on the detail involved. Businesses should ensure that their focus is on the bigger picture of making energy efficiency a key priority so that energy emissions and costs are reduced.

Over the past 24 months NJW have been working with both clients and energy companies to develop and implement web-based reporting dashboards enabling businesses to take a tighter control on their energy efficiency and planning as part of their overall property strategy.

NJW Secures London Office

NJW is delighted to announce their new central London base. Located opposite Holborn Station, NJW are delighted to have been offered touchdown space, training facilities and meeting rooms by strategic partner and Global FM supplier Sodexo. The offices situated at 1 Southampton Row offer state of the art facilities with regards to workspace, client areas and hospitality.

As NJW continue to grow this exciting opportunity has allowed us to expand our London based teams and provide a flexible working environment for our remaining staff located across sites throughout the UK and beyond, whilst maintaining our Hungerford HQ, set in the heart of the Berkshire countryside.

Managing Director, Nigel Warrick comments " with an ever-growing clientele, a large percentage of whom are based within the heart of London, it seemed a logical step to offer a greater presence within the vibrant capital.

Should anyone like to pop in and say hello, don't hesitate to give us a ring on 01488 686276 and arrange your visit, our new London number will be announced shortly".

NJW work on government initiatives

Bedfordshire Council has recently embarked on a significant organisational change program resulting in the formation of the new ‘Central Bedfordshire Council’.

NJW were identified by the Council as experienced in Strategic Workplace Planning and Business Re-Organisation. After successfully tendering for this work NJW were appointed to undertake a series of tasks relating to the re-planning and rationalisation of the estate with the focus of making the Council’s properties both more efficient and more reflective of the newly formed ‘CBC’.

With a limited time-frame dictated by the Council’s restructure, NJW were tasked to undertake a significant workplace project to identify and understand both the current use of the Council’s estate and also plan for the future use of space and requirements. 

Due to the merger of several Councils the drawings and property data was found to be in most cases, out dated and inconsistent, we therefore were required to undertake a full data capture and furniture audit of all properties. Once completed we needed to understand how the space was being occupied within each building measuring the levels of utilisation and activity using NJW’s unique workplace auditing software.

This exercise was followed by a series of departmental interviews to understand future requirements and working patterns of each team. The information captured then allowed NJW to prepare a strategic plan across the consolidated portfolio whilst incorporating ‘New Ways of Working’ for many teams.

NJW Launch Training Academy for Autodesk and Best-of-Breed IWMS Packages

NJW Academy is a training centre of excellence.

As part of the NJW Group, NJW Academy is an independent Autodesk Authorised Training Centre (ATC) offering accredited Autodesk courses in both 2D and 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) as well as courses on various CAFM/IWMS systems such as ARCHIBUS, FM:Systems and TRIRIGA. In addition the Academy offers accredited courses on Autodesk Inventor and Google SketchUp.

Also on offer are Autodesk Certification courses that allow users to gain a recognised Autodesk professional qualification; either Autodesk Certified Associate or Autodesk Certified Professional.

Based in Hungerford, Berkshire the NJW Academy offers state of the art facilities in a relaxed and friendly environment. The Academy and our trainers are also equipped to offer flexible training within client or partner offices throughout the UK and beyond.

The Academy team draw upon a broad spectrum of skills and experience offering our learners high-quality training with a flexible approach, ensuring each of our courses are tailored to meet the specific requirements of our customers.

Through our network of experienced trainers, NJW Academy provides today's industries with the tools to develop a professionally trained workforce.

NJW’s Property and Facilities Seminar a huge success!

Property and technology experts NJW Limited were delighted by the over-whelming success of their latest VIP Seminar held in Central London on January 19th 2012.

The seminar was kindly hosted by consumer-brands giant Unilever at their prestigious offices at Victoria Embankment and saw a range of exciting and inspirational presentations delivered by international speakers including Unilever's Global Head of Real Estate - Adam Hoy and Industry renowned Workplace Innovation Leader - Gary Miciunas, Principal at NELSON Architects, Chicago.

In attendance were over 100 delegates from both the public and private sector all with the common goal of understanding the latest developments within the Property and Facilities industry.

NJW’s managing director - Nigel Warrick showcased the latest ‘365’ range of software products delighting the audience with a live demonstration of both ‘Fastrack365’ and 'Focal365'. These web-based information softwares are used for cleansing, processing and reporting management information to facilitate strategic optimisation, visibility and operational efficiency of both national and international property portfolios.

On-hand throughout the day were a number of subject matter experts from the NJW Team offering one-on-one sessions on topics such as workplace strategy, relocation, utilisation, resource booking and Integrated Workplace Management Solutions.

Following the busy daytime schedule, delegates were invited to unwind by joining the NJW Team for an evening Drinks Reception and Charity Auction at the exclusive OXO Tower on London's Southbank. The auction was a huge success with bidding reaching £5,000, all proceeds of the evening were donated to the brilliant Make-A-Wish Foundation, helping terminally ill children enjoy a magical wish.