Feather in NWU’s cap as it bags prestigious prize

Thabani Mhlongo (left), chief director for facilities and finance at the NWU, received the award on behalf of the university.

As its digital business strategy begins to gain momentum, the North-West University (NWU) is being recognised for its digitisation progress.

On 20 April 2022, the university received an external award for the successful implementation of Planon, an integrated workplace management system (IWMS). The award was presented by the South African Facilities Management Association for the Technology Implementation of the Year 2022.

The NWU was nominated by the Vetasi Group, an international enterprise asset and facilities management consultancy, which was the university’s implementation partner in this successful project.

A notable achievement was the migration of class/exam schedules from a legacy system to Planon. “This was a significant accomplishment because we were able to book roughly 50 000 time slots across different NWU campuses with more than 1 300 buildings,” says Akshay Maharaj, Vetasi’s global facilities solution manager. This enabled the university to manage contact classes within the COVID-19 regulations.

In a statement following the awards evening, the NWU expressed appreciation for the award. “It is an honour to be recognised for a project that was done under difficult circumstances,” the statement said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that the entire project was run remotely over 24 months. “We are grateful to the NWU project team for their dedication that ensured a very successful project.”

The Planon system can be used to log and track requests for maintenance services, including scheduled maintenance, condition inspections, lease management and space reservations management.