The University of Tulsa

The school provides excellent services for students including autonomous “lunch boxes,” robotic vehicles that deliver snacks and boosts of caffeine to students from the student union to campus apartment complexes. These vehicles even mow the campus grounds. The University has multiple campuses, some spread out all over the state.

“It’s tough if we’re off-site, and we need some information about a piece of equipment,” he said. “In the past, we’ve had to drive back across town to go to our print room and dig for hours through documents,” said Michael Gammill, Director of Facilities Management.

One way that they’ve been able to make their guys more efficient is by digitizing all their archives and blueprints and making those readily available remotely from their mobile devices.

Jake Miller, the University’s Inventory Specialist explained the advantages of tapping into mobile devices for information about replacement parts for aging equipment.

Michael emphasized that technicians have a vast knowledge of the campus and excellent mechanical abilities, but fears of institutional knowledge losses are real with an aging workforce.

“We’ve got to be very creative about how we get important building and equipment information to our technicians,” he said. “If we don’t have the information, then it’s hard to operate, maintain, and improve our campus, and that’s what we’re here for.”

Electrical & Plumbing Manager Chris Tuttle shared an incident when the lights went out during a major basketball tournament.

“Our outside lighting shut down, which made it unsafe for fans exiting the building,” he said. “I was at home, pulled up the correct electrical panel from my phone and gave directions about what to look for. We restored it back on and didn’t have to call anyone in the night to take care of it.”