University Times

A Senate committee is satisfied with recent changes in Pittsburgh campus building engineers’ schedules, but the faculty member who complained about the system is not.

The 21 day-shift building engineers now are assigned on a rotating basis to cover the campus’s 62 buildings, instead of having dedicated engineers assigned to specific buildings.

Lewis Jacobson of biological sciences, who had introduced a resolution at the April 1 Faculty Assembly calling for an explanation for the change in assignments, remains unconvinced that the new system is preferable to the old system of assigned dedicated building engineers. Jacobson said the new system created “a safety issue, and could threaten ongoing research.” (See April 3 and April 17 University Times.)

Facilities Management Associate Vice Chancellor Ana Guzman explained the new system at the May 5 Senate plant utilization and planning (PUP) committee. She defended the new system’s ability to take care of specialized laboratories. “Research systems are one of our major concerns. We take research very seriously, and we want to make sure that these systems are maintained and operated properly,” Guzman said. “Since most of the research facilities are located in the lower campus zone, this is the group of engineers that will be concentrating the most on fixing these types of systems. If one of these systems malfunctions, the most qualified individual to repair it will be sent to fix it.”

Guzman added that engineers are now being crossed-trained to cover their colleagues’ vacation and other leave time. The labs themselves also have control systems that automatically alert roving engineers’ beepers of hazardous or changing conditions. In addition, night-turn custodial staff are instructed to report potential problems during off-hours. “They are our eyes and ears in the buildings, and can alert our duty officers of any problems 24 hours a day.”

Under the old system, Guzman said, a dedicated engineer would be assigned to a building and wait for something to happen there. Now, the building engineers take on continuous preventive maintenance tasks on a systematic basis across the 62 buildings, Guzman told PUP. Preventive maintenance can pre-empt as many as 90 percent of potential crises, she maintained.

The PUP committee found Guzman’s explanation satisfactory, chair Attilio Favorini reported to Faculty Assembly May 6.

But Jacobson told the University Times following Faculty Assembly that he “remained unconvinced. I don’t see any objection to cross-training building engineers as a way of improving the generic system. That is not the issue. The issue is: In buildings with laboratories housing the most critical research across the campus, are these areas getting the needed attention?” Jacobson maintained that even small changes in temperature could be calamitous in research labs requiring special, highly nuanced environments.

“I think under the new system, where there is heavy reliance on centralized control systems like chilled water and heating, that mistakes, including catastrophic mistakes, are more likely to happen.”

Jacobson said that he wasn’t sure what recourse he had to pursue challenging the new system at this point. “But I’m thinking about it,” he told the University Times.

—Peter Hart & Bruce Steele