Smart Inspect Case Study – University of Notre Dame
How the University of Notre Dame dramatically improved its quality assurance process, cleanliness levels, professionalism, and customer satisfaction with Smart Inspect™
Situation
The prestigious University of Notre Dame has always taken pride in its appearance and the condition of its campus, which encompasses 8 million cleanable square feet. The university’s cleanliness is thanks to the nearly 350 employees in the university’s custodial department, who service approximately 150 different university locations across campus, including residence halls and academic spaces.
Though the department takes quality assurance seriously, its tedious manual inspection process wasn’t fitting for the university’s reputation. It involved a significant amount of pen and paper and the inputting of data, and there wasn’t an efficient way to produce Key Performance Indicator (KPI) reports for senior leadership.
“The quality assurance system we used was quite cumbersome, very database-heavy, and didn’t always work, and we didn’t have a way to quantify information and house it in one place,” said Jeff Edgerly, the university’s Associate Director of Building Services, “so we reached out to Core America for a review of our operation.”
Core America, a custodial consulting company that offers expertise and software to help colleges and universities transform their custodial operations, performed a detailed assessment of the university’s quality and staffing levels, quality assurance process, and customer expectations. After the baseline custodial assessment was complete, Notre Dame had the data and roadmap to upgrade and digitize its custodial inspection process.
Core America’s custodial experts worked with the university to implement the Smart Inspect quality inspection platform, which included a customized reporting website and app configuration, offsite/ onsite training, and the development of a new quality assurance standard operating procedure (SOP).
Core America has designed Smart Inspect to support a successful custodial operation. Do you want to save time during your day? Then go with Smart Inspect.
Associate Director for Building Services, University of Notre Dame
Solution
Smart Inspect is custodial software for colleges and universities that provides a simple, digital way to perform quality inspections and share reports with internal customers and teams.
“It’s the tool we use to ensure our custodians are not only performing the work, but also performing it at an acceptable level,” Jeff said. “I can use the custodial dashboard to look at a specific supervisor, specific zone, or entire shift, and see a Quality Success Percentage (QSP™) score over specific months and determine what’s acceptable for the area. All of that information is right at our fingertips.” The QSP also translates to the APPA level of cleanliness, an important metric that campuses across the U.S. use to benchmark with their peers.
The custodial software has dramatically streamlined the department’s inspection process. Gone are the days of using pen and paper for inspections and manually inputting information into a complicated database. Now, twenty custodial department employees use Smart Inspect every month to inspect nearly ten thousand items and take approximately one thousand photos. The resulting data promotes accountability within the department and makes it easy to determine areas for improvement. It also provides supervisors with reliable metrics that can be used when considering additional training or providing positive feedback.
“Supervisors have to do or review inspections with staff members so that the staff members understand what challenges or shortcomings are in that area, or maybe they’re doing such a good job, it’s time for us to give praise,” Jeff said. “That interaction between supervisor and employee is so important for building the relationship, and Smart Inspect forces that interaction.”
Jeff acknowledges that Smart Inspect and Core America’s team of expert custodial consultants have made a significant impact on the university. “We’re constantly receiving positive feedback about the condition of campus, and we’d be naive to think that Core America and their Smart Inspect platform didn’t have something to do with that.”
Results
Increased Cleanliness
Smart Inspect helps the University of Notre Dame maintain a clean, well-run campus, with a QSP score consistently in the 90 percent to 94 percent range, which equates to a high Association of Physical Plant Administrators (APPA) cleanliness level between 1.5 (Orderly Spotlessness) to 2.0 (Ordinary Tidiness).
User-Friendly and Low-Maintenance Platform
Jeff liked the layout of Smart Inspect’s custodial dashboard and appreciated that his department no longer had to do any database management. “Smart Inspect is pretty user-friendly, and their team manages the database—it isn’t something that we have to do anymore.”
Robust Reporting Functionality
With Smart Inspect, Jeff can easily generate reports that both aid senior leadership’s decision-making and offer insight into cleanable areas. “It’s nice to be able to generate those reports when necessary,” Jeff said. “It’s nice if we’re trying to determine the appropriate level of service an area should require, and we can use these reports to help us make appropriate service level decisions.”
Responsive Customer Support
Jeff appreciates the Smart Inspect team’s flexible and dedicated approach to customer service, which is 100% in-house and always a phone call or email away. “They have committed to help custodial businesses be successful.”