Houston Airport Systems Case Study

George Bush Intercontinental Airport · William P. Hobby Airport

Overview

Houston Airport System selected TRAX Analytics, LLC. to improve and automate their custodial operations by installing smart restroom technology in 73 restrooms across two airports, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport. Houston utilizes predictive flight information coupled with real-time data to manage schedules, cleaning needs, and staff breaks.

The TRAX mobile application was deployed to iPads mounted to every custodial cart which alerts the custodial staff when to clean a restroom, shows what tasks are assigned to them, and allows staff to input inventory they have used. Once the work orders are completed, the staff member is navigated to the next work order of priority.

In 2020, Houston implemented a proof of concept for the TRAX CleanConnect upgrade, which provides facility wide mapping and integrations into their work order management system, Infor. Custodial teams are able to open work orders through the TRAX mobile app which also opens in Infor. Houston plans to expand this upgrade late 2020.

Staffing

Houston’s existing staff break schedules and work schedules were previously created without taking data and demand into consideration. The front line felt understaffed because they could not meet the stakeholders scheduling demands.

Once TRAX Smart Restroom was installed, they reviewed the throughput trends and realized that they were sending team members to restrooms that had not been heavily trafficked and they were able to reallocate resources to areas of high demand, ensuring that they could meet cleaning expectations without having to hire additional resources. They also realized they were allowing employee breaks to take place during peak hours and were able to stagger breaks more effective after the technology was installed.

Inventory Quality

Houston actively tracked cleaning work orders and feedback with the TRAX Smart Restroom platform. They started receiving influxes of negative survey results, after cleanings, that stated the “Floors were dirty.” They realized that the quality of the paper was poor resulting in tabbing that fell to the floor once a guest dried their hands. Houston was able to take this data back to request a higher quality of product to support the improvement of their guest feedback scores.

Results

Houston actively tracked cleaning work orders and feedback with the TRAX Smart Restroom platform. They started receiving influxes of negative survey results, after cleanings, that stated the “Stalls dirty” and “Poor air quality.” They evaluated the space and found that the automatic flushometers needed to be adjusted and the air ventilation system was malfunctioning. They were able to make the adjustments and saw improvements to their guest feedback scores.