A South West housing association’s new head of procurement is looking to harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to help deliver her role.
“In terms of opportunity, the sky is the limit,” said Maria Schingen. “We are yet to see all of the benefits of AI and modern technologies for building and procurement methods.”
Schingen, who is originally from Germany, is the new head of procurement at 40-000-home housing association, LiveWest, but it has ambitions to deliver more homes over the next five years.
The housing association has recently announced 5,000 “affordable homes” will be built across the South West over the period. Schingen will play an important role to ensure these new-builds are high quality for its residents.
She said: “LiveWest has an excellent reputation as an employer, a provider of housing services and for their work to help our community. Personally, I find it really exciting and rewarding to provide our customers with great homes.
“LiveWest is an amazing organisation and deserves a procurement function to reflect that. One of my first tasks will be to build the function and getting the right team together to support the organisation in the best way possible.”
Her role will manage the organisation’s sourcing, supply chains, the products they use, services and negotiate contracts to ensure the best outcome for its residents and the organisation.
Schingen added: “My job is to find the most efficient, and innovative way to benefit our customers and the whole organisation. I am focused on getting real value for our customers out of every commercial transaction we conduct.”
Indeed, that’s where her interest in the potential of AI comes in.
She brings a wealth of experience to the role. Her previous work has been in consultancy, sales and marketing, imports, materials management, production control, procurement and supply chains, and the private and public housing sector.
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