Kennesaw State University - Maintenance Optimization and Cost Analysis

The Department of Housing and Residence Life was looking for ways to improve the quality of their work while saving costs at the same time. The department allowed the team to look over their work orders where the team noticed over 50% of the work orders were related to room turnover. After this discovery, the team focused all efforts on room turnover and went over the process in detail with management. The team asked to see the standard operating procedure for room turnover and learned that most of the staff did not know they had one. The team wanted to investigate why the staff was not aware of the SOP, so the team met with the assistant director of housing facilities to discuss why the SOP was not in use. He expressed that the SOP was not specific enough to direct the technicians in what the department was looking for. This led the team to begin thinking about creating a new SOP. After some research, the team learned that reducing variability was a good way of saving costs and that standard operating procedures were a reliable way of reducing variability. The team spoke with the department and reached the decision that a new SOP was the right decision for the department. The team began by shadowing the technicians to learn how the procedure should be done and where improvements could be made. As the team shadowed, they learned that resident assistants were supposed to be performing the inspections. This inspired the team to continue with creating the SOP but to also fully shift inspection duties to the resident assistants. After discussions with the housing department management, the new SOP created by the team was accepted and the trial runs with resident directors performing the inspections began. The team recommended that the department make the new SOP available to all resident and student assistants to ensure that each inspection was done in the same manner to reduce variability and rework

Return to campus? Amid the covid-19 pandemic?

A descriptive research design was employed at a major university, Kennesaw State University, during the Fall 2020 semester to explore how the campus community felt about the cleanliness and safety in the campus environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team consisted of a full-time industrial engineering professor and two senior-level industrial engineering students. Results reveal that the majority of respondents felt a general sense of feeling safe when returning to campus during Fall 2020. The majority respondents had also received their KSU-branded cloth face mask by the time they took the survey. Half of the respondents indicated a feeling that KSU had taken appropriate steps to ensure multiple daily cleanings of high-traffic areas and nearly half of the respondents felt that high-touch surfaces were being cleaned frequently enough to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. Finally, other concerns shared by respondents include changes in stress level, worry, limited student interaction, social distancing issues, poor planning, and distrust of the KSU administration

Faculty Perceptions of Safety and the Impact of Online Classroom Modalities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected a number of institutions – one of which is Kennesaw State University (KSU). In the fall 2020 semester, KSU implemented safety protocols following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the University System of Georgia (USG) guidelines. A cross-sectional survey was sent out for faculty to complete at their own will regarding their thoughts on how the new guidelines are affecting their work as well as their safety while on campus. The survey consisted of 18 Likert-scale questions and eight free response questions. The survey results showed that 60.42% of faculty members reported that they were trained regarding their new work requirements and that while faculty generally felt safe, they had concerns about specific areas on campus. As most classes across the KSU campus were forced to become fully online classes, faculty reported that their relationships with students changed as their class modalities changed. KSU faculty and students alike tried their best to adjust to the new environment and will continue to do so to promote safety and stop the spread of COVID-19

Faculty perceptions of cleanliness and safety on a college campus during the COVID-19 pandemic

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected many institutions – one of which is Kennesaw State University (KSU). In the Fall 2020 semester, KSU implemented safety protocols following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the University System of Georgia (USG) guidelines. A cross-sectional survey was disseminated for faculty to complete at their own will regarding their thoughts on how the new guidelines are affecting their work as well as their safety while on campus. The survey consisted of 18 Likert-scale questions and eight free-response questions. The survey results showed that 60.42% of faculty members reported that they were trained regarding their new work requirements and that while faculty generally felt safe, they had concerns about specific areas on campus. As most classes across the KSU campus were forced to become fully online classes, faculty reported that their relationships with students changed as their class modalities changed. KSU faculty and students alike tried their best to adjust to the new environment and will continue to do so to promote safety and stop the spread of COVID-19