From weather to limited staffing, there are a number of factors that can cause delays in work order fulfillment. The Facilities Management team is working to smooth out these bumps where they can, by analyzing data to develop and implement innovative strategies to streamline maintenance requests and ensure campus spaces are not only functional, but pleasant for students, employees, and campus community members.

Have a Maintenance Request?

For non-urgent requests, please submit a work order online.

Non-urgent requests are non-threatening to life or research. Each non-urgent request will be assigned as "elevated" or "routine priority".

Read about how Facilities Management prepares for the academic fall quarter in our latest Seasonal Update. 

Prioritizing work orders

The Facilities Management team already has processes in place to address the most pressing issues quickly.

When the customer experience center receives a work order, they assign it a priority level explained Kirsten DePersis, executive director of Building Operations. Items that pose a threat to the wellbeing of campus community members (including animals) or affect the university mission — disrupting lectures, research or other work on campus — are labeled as high priority. Facilities Management staff members work to address high priority items, like water leaks, power interruptions, fire system issues and sewer backups, within one hour.

Lower priority items, like cutting keys, flooring repairs/replacement or painting, typically face a longer timeline. 

Why the delay?

There are many factors that impact the time period in which a work order can be addressed. For example, weather can limit outdoor work, like roofing, and supply chain issues for materials can delay a fix. There’s also an amount of coordination and problem-solving inherent to each maintenance request.

“Each space is different,” DePersis said. “For instance, there are sensitive labs on campus that need equipment running 24/7. Performing maintenance in these spaces without disrupting research requires coordination.”

Similarly, Facilities Management staff members must coordinate with professors when performing maintenance in lecture halls to avoid disrupting classes or, when there’s an issue at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, they must coordinate with hospital staff to ensure they can continue their vital animal care. Facilities Management must accomplish this work with limited staff members, spread across a growing university.

“As UC Davis continues to grow and add square footage, our staff numbers stay largely the same,” DePersis said.

This already limited bandwidth is split between maintenance requests and vital preventative work that typically must be done four or more times a year. This includes things like filter changes, bearing lubrication, and fire alarm/sprinkler testing.

The Facilities Management team is dedicated to developing solutions to shorten the turnaround time on these items. With these factors in mind, Facilities Management established a team to take a deep dive on data related to work orders to develop solutions that will streamline maintenance requests.

Findings and solutions

This team began analyzing data from Tririga, the system through which work orders are requested and tracked, to find patterns and other information that can be used to improve the maintenance request process.

The data analyzed included how work orders were distributed amongst shops. Building Maintenance Services is divided into four different shops, each with their own specialty: structural, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing/steam.

“By breaking down how many tasks each shop is receiving and looking at the priority and time spent on those tasks, moving forward we can staff the shops more intentionally,” DePersis said.

Facilities Management staff members continue to analyze data and create dashboards and reports looking for patterns and opportunities for improvement. One pattern that is already being addressed with an innovative new program that targets one of the most common maintenance requests, while helping the university meet a state sustainability requirement.

After attending a Lean Six Sigma, Matt Bradshaw, electrical superintendent, had a lightbulb moment – in more ways than one. He was inspired to implement a program around replacing lightbulbs. 

 “Many of the [lighting] fixtures on campus are old and when one burns out typically the rest are soon to follow,” Bradshaw explained. Previously, the electrical team would take care of requests as they came in, which usually resulted in the team being called back to the same space before long.

“We were kind of chasing our tails,” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw’s solution was to not only replace the lightbulb that is out, but also nearby lightbulbs. Since implementing this program at the end of 2022, the electrical team has been able to eliminate 90% of existing lighting tickets in the queue and, in doing so, shorten the response time for incoming maintenance requests. 

This anticipatory work not only cuts down on the trips the team needs to take to the same area, but also helps UC Davis make significant progress toward completely phasing out fluorescent lightbulbs in favor of LED lightbulbs, in line with a California state law. LED lights are not only more sustainable than fluorescents, they also last about twice as long and generally require less maintenance. 

As Facilities Management staff members gather and analyze more data, they will be looking to find similar opportunities for innovative solutions that improve maintenance request workflows and reduce wait times.