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preferences and allergens, access FAQs, connect with UMass director of Auxiliary Enterprises at UMass Amherst. “Our
Dining social media brands and contact UMass Dining directly team worked very hard to create and improve our world-
for assistance and submit feedback. class UMass Dining app. I’m very proud of what we have
“We are honored to receive this prestigious award from accomplished. Be on the lookout as we provide additional
the Web Marketing Association,” said Ken Toong, executive app updates to improve the customer experience even more.”

Students Power Purdue Dining Upgrades Through Academic Partnerships

o one likes waiting in line, but the lines are a little shorter efficiency, and relaying that back to the dollar values that we
Nat the Lemongrass restaurant in the Purdue Memorial save customers.”
Union at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., thanks Along with the Lemongrass project, engineering students
to some literal engineering by Purdue students. studied line queueing in the dining courts and the efficiency
The results of an Industrial Engineering 431 senior design of the Hillenbrand Dining Court take-back program last fall.
capstone project include an average 23 percent reduction in In the spring semester, IE 431 teams are doing projects on
wait time in line at Lemongrass, a Far East eatery in the Union operational efficiency of Harrison Grillé, Pete’s Za and the
Commons that shares a space with sushi spot Ah-Z. Based Daily Bite food truck; Ford Dining Court outside patio layout
on daily traffic, that reduction in time in line adds up to two and design; and efficiency in the Purdue Memorial Union
hours saved for Lemongrass and Ah-Z customers every day, catering kitchen and dish room.
time that could be better spent in a class-
room or study lounge. Additionally, the
four-student team proposed a new digital
self-service ordering system and rede-
signed seating layout for the restaurants.
IE 431 classes together complete 20 to
30 projects per semester with organiza-
tions within the industrial, governmental,
financial, healthcare and pharmaceutical
sectors. Most of the organizations are
Indiana businesses, but one last semester
was as far away as British Columbia,
Canada.
Purdue Dining & Catering has been
partnering consistently with the class
for seven to 10 years, and Dave Kotter-
man, director of industry relations for
the School of Industrial Engineering,
recalled classmates doing projects on
campus dining when he was an industrial
engineering student himself in the 1980s.
“Dining & Catering is one of our more Inside the Lemongrass restaurant in the Purdue Memorial Union, the site of
substantial and consistent customers,” he said. “They are so an Industrial Engineering 431 senior capstone project.
good about giving us projects, and it’s all about increasing Photo courtesy of Purdue Dining & Catering.
student service and satisfaction of the dining experience here
at Purdue. They’re always trying to improve, which I think Students have a hand in helping put forth ideas as well.
is a great characteristic of a management team that gets it.” Dining & Catering administrators meet monthly with a student
Each senior project lasts the duration of a semester, with advisory group, which has more than 40 students this semester.
up to 100 hours of work per student. Students are mentored “A couple of the projects we’re working on now were
by a graduate student and a faculty member and meet weekly recommended by our student advisory group,” said Greg Min-
with an organizational representative, like Manager of Student ner, director of Dining & Catering. “We talk to them about
Success Mary Jo Zeiser for Dining & Catering. The teams the projects we’re working on and ask them about ideas for
act as consulting groups, tracking costs within a hypotheti- more projects.”
cal $60,000 budget. Nearly half of the projects from the fall Dining & Catering’s academic partnerships also extend to
semester reported cost savings through their projects, with the Department of Agricultural Economics, which initiated a
average annual real-world savings of $73,868 for those spon- waste management study in the dining courts that will begin
soring organizations. in March, and to the Department of Food Science, which has
“One thing we do stress is to actually introduce engineering a team of students preparing a new type of chicken wing for
concepts and quantify our outcomes,” Kotterman said. “It’s one qualitative testing in Ford Dining Court this month. Last year,
thing to be anecdotal in nature, but we really stress working Dining conducted research in partnership with Food Science
the engineering side and the business side — cost-savings and on locally sourced soybean oil’s cooking performance and
engineering concepts like minimizing waste and improving impact on food quality.

ON-CAMPUS HOSPITALITY MARCH 2017 | 7