Send maintenance requests; track the history of the maintenance works performed for a single facility/house; be involved in the community life and more. When we move to a new place, we typically care about the quality of our living and working spaces, as well as that of common community areas.
The UTMaintain Living Smart Campus project is proposing a new concept of “participatory maintenance” to engage people in the maintenance process of their neighborhood by using an online platform that enables them to easily point out existing problems, quickly submit maintenance requests and monitor the progress of the repairs.
Source: Rikkert Harink Fotografie
Creators of UTMaintain are the researchers Alberto Martinetti and J. Roberto Reyes García. Both have experienced how difficult it is to report flaws in their living environment for repair and maintenance. Alberto Martinetti states: "It's often difficult to find out where to go with maintenance and repair requests. If you don’t get to the right person right away, you are often sent from here to there. It will take a long time for something to be repaired. Or you'll hear nothing and one day you'll find out something has been fixed, or not. We thought it would be better to be actively involved in maintaining our own living environment as a resident on the campus. That makes you part-responsible and gives you the feeling to be part of a community."
Roberto Reyes explains: " The campus of the University of Twente is the perfect living lab to develop such a concept. We want to involve the individuals that live, study and work on the campus, into proactive and responsible behaviours, contributing to the maintenance process of the campus facilities. We believe that the ability to submit maintenance requests, without intermediate filters and delays, and to verify their execution, would not only improve the liveability of the campus, but also increase the sense of responsibility toward the campus community and its premises."
A win - win – win solution for user, maintenance company and University of Twente
UTMaintain offers benefits for the user, the maintenance organization and for the UT as well.
The user will have the opportunity to request for maintenance interventions, upload pictures of the problem, check the status of the request, be informed on future maintenance actions in his/her place.
The maintenance company will be able to communicate easily and immediately with the users, scheduling interventions or asking for further monitoring actions.
The UT, simplifying the communication process and facilitating the maintenance operations, will benefit in terms of reliability, maintainability and safety of the Campus structures. Furthermore, this simple platform will provide another proof of how the UT is deeply embedded in the digital era not only from a research point of view, but also from a day-by-day life on its Campus.
Currently developing UTMaintain
The UTMaintain project is currently under development. Housing Association De Veste has shown interest in the project and funds to support the development of the project are under discussion.
Furthermore, the project was presented as a case study for students of the Design for Maintenance and Operations master course of the University of Twente. As a result, some contributions in terms of ideas and sketches for the design of the online platform were provided by those students.
We expect to test the first launch at the beginning of next year and are now looking for students and developers that would like to get involved in the project, and sponsors for the development phase. So, if you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact us!
LIVING SMART CAMPUS
The ‘UTMaintain project’ is part of the University of Twente’s Living Smart Campus programme, which is aimed at fulfilling the potential of the campus. The Living Smart Campus programme is a collection of campus development projects (involving education, research and/or the support departments) which use the campus as a living lab.
More information
Available at: www.utwente.nl/livingsmartcampus. If you would like to get involved in this development project or want to know more about it, please contact Alberto Martinetti or J. Roberto Reyes García. Henk Swaters is the representative for the UTMaintain project in the Living Smart Campus programme.
