Sightlines

In 2005, Business Operations retained Sightlines, an independent facilities benchmarking firm, to develop a comprehensive historical profile of capital investments, annual maintenance, operating effectiveness, and service satisfaction for the division. To date, information has been compiled for fiscal years 1995 through 2007. The Sightlines effort uses a series of data points to measure and monitor the performance of the University’s physical assets on an annual basis. The findings are then benchmarked against peer institutions using the Sightlines database.

Sightlines has compiled the largest verified database of comparable operating, capital, and service performance metrics in the country, assuring the accuracy of these facilities and environmental data through annual site visits and data collection. The Sightlines membership database now includes over 230 campuses in 33 states, representing over 750 million gross square feet and 21,500 buildings.

As part of the University’s continuous improvement initiative, the Sightlines data has become of increasing importance in measuring the performance of the division. As such, Sightlines was invited back to campus in July 2008 for a presentation and to review the study findings with individuals across campus who will be working with this data over the coming months. They returned in August 2008 to gather and compile the data for FY08 and are currently working on a final presentation to summarize the data.