Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers Presents Innovative Practices Award to California State University, Long Beach

California State University, Long Beach was one of five U.S. universities recognized by APPA, The Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers, for its innovative efforts to improve practices and enhance services within higher education administration.

This is the first year for the Effective and Innovative Practices Award, which was co-sponsored by the Sodexho Corp. and included a cash prize of $4,000 for each institution.

“It was truly an honor to be the first university to ever receive this international award,” said Robert Quirk, director of Facilities Management at Cal State Long Beach. Quirk and Randy Walsh, information systems manager for the Division of Administration and Finance, accepted the award recently at APPA’s annual Educational Facilities Leadership Forum in Phoenix, Ariz.

“We are fortunate that the culture of our division through the vision of Associate Vice President Scott Charmack allows and encourages development of innovative ideas and the utilization of emerging technologies for the delivery of our services,” Quirk continued.

“This award would not be possible without the ideas, input, testing and implementation by a wide range of our co-workers,” he added. “They are to be commended for their willingness to test new waters and go beyond the status quo.”

The award specifically recognizes excellence in areas of facilities performance through innovative and creative practices for excellence in management, organization, new programs or
other areas. CSULB was honored for its submission of the effective practice titled “Mobile Integrated Facility Information System.”

“Physical Planning and Facilities Management set out to find a more effective method of capturing accurate and timely work order cost data, labor and material costs,” Walsh explained. “Our solution was to implement what we dubbed IFIS Mobile (Integrated Facility Information System). Basically, we implemented a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) interface to our commercial Asset Enterprise system with a Web-enabled Nextel digital phone/radio.

“The result was a ruggedized device that was capable of cellular phone communication, digital two-way radio, two-way pager and a live, real-time interface to our work management database,” he continued. “Essentially, we were able to take what would have traditionally been four separate devices and give our workers one compact, rugged device.”

Using the device CSULB employees in the field can do such things as access their current schedule of work, view work order and equipment details, sort/search their work orders by facility ID and enter their time on jobs.

The other winning institutions were Florida State University, University of Miami, University of Oklahoma and the University of Missouri, Columbia.