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Arya Rao, a student at a leading engineering college in Bangalore uses an app for various day-to-day activities about her student accommodation inside the campus. From applying leaves to raising maintenance requests for a broken bulb in her room, Arya uses an app to communicate with her warden and to raise requests if any. Arya and her engineering institutions are among the many who have seen the benefits of technology-driven solutions for a better student experience in on-campus living.
In this era of technological advancements where there is an app for almost everything, hostel management and student accommodation in institutions appear to be more than a decade behind in adopting innovation.
Manual paperwork, standing in queues for leave requests, raising maintenance requests by visiting the warden’s office are some archaic methods that are still followed. Managing hostels and student accommodations have been rather tedious in terms of labor dependency and paperwork. Tech-based solutions can completely transform the way on-campus accommodation is managed.
Here’s how
Ease of tracking and resolving maintenance issues
A huge cost center for any student housing community is the maintenance of assets. Simple tasks such as replacing a tube light, water issues, or leakage can become a burden for the provider and can cause an unpleasant living experience for the student. Timely intervention and resolution of the complaint can result in significant savings in time as well as cost.
Most of the institutions have some sort of pen and paper mechanism to take down maintenance-related complaints. The first step is to transition to a digital mode if they haven’t already done so. The second step is to look at the analytics i.e. the kind of issues that are often reported.
Once these systems are run over a significant period, the organization can have enough data generated to leverage AI models. Using them, the institute can do predictive maintenance. Like the famous quote goes “A stitch in time, saves nine”.
Once the assets are monitored over a significant period, the AI system automatically sends you periodic status updates about its health. At the same time, it will let you know if assets need timely maintenance, thus averting significant costs incurred at a later stage.
Mess Management and avoiding food wastage
“Nearly 1,000 kg of food is wasted daily at IIT-B”, read a report in a leading daily a few years ago. 1000 kg of food could easily feed 800 people. Food wastage is a common issue in most college canteens and mess.
For the canteen staff, it’s always a challenge to decide on the menu that is most liked by the students and to estimate the number of plates to cook for each meal. This is where AI can be used. If we can create a system, where we know students’ dietary patterns along with the nutritional requirements for each of them, then we will be able to plan meals that suit their needs and choices. Before every meal, students can be asked to RSVP.
Based on this data, predictive analysis can be made overtime on the kind of meals for which students turn out in large numbers. The AI model can also help calculate the expected number of students daily per meal.
Based on this analysis, the kitchen staff can find out the exact number of plates that need to be prepared daily. This in turn can be linked to the inventory system of the Mess, which will help the mess manager with their budgeting, inventory planning, and meal management.
AI can play a key role in providing data-driven actionable insights. These insights not only help institutions to streamline their operations but also leads to significant cost savings and improved student satisfaction.