AUTOMATION CREATES EFFICIENCY

The Department of Facilities Services increased its efficiency in both costs and effort by embracing new automation. New technology in the forms of machinery, software, and tools was introduced in the ventilation and landscape divisions, which enhanced our ability to serve our community with minimal errors.

Robotics

Pepperdine hosts 96 athletic games per year on world-class fields. The Landscape and Irrigation Division conducted a study to evaluate the benefits of introducing robotics to the field striping. We determined that it would take nearly 1,300 hours to paint the fields by hand with the game strips according to precise NCAA-standards but a robot, aided by GPS technology, would require fewer than 300 hours. Now, our robot is deployed to create impressive and accurate field markings for our games.

Events2hvac

The energy management system at Pepperdine University entered into a pilot program that integrates with the space management software that reserves rooms on campus. The integration provides precise temperature control when the space is in use. The system automatically brings the room to a comfortable temperature for the event and returns it to the correct energy-efficient midpoint after it ends. During the nine-month pilot, the integration saved nearly 3,000 hours of air conditioning resulting in cost savings and furthering sustainability initiatives.

Nanobubbles

Pepperdine has a sophisticated reclaimed water infrastructure for irrigation that includes two water reservoirs. The maintenance of the reservoirs can be time consuming, but the installation of new technology increased maintenance efficiency by providing aeration with nanobubbles. This aeration method counteracts algae bloom causes and restores the ecosystem of the area, and the increased oxygen of the water has the potential to improve irrigated plants’ root health and nutrition uptake. The Landscape and Irrigation Division took careful measurements to document the decrease in sediment and increase in dissolved oxygen.