Equipment and devices like laptops and cameras have been made available by the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht since 2017 in an extraordinary way. Whereas a member of staff on the service desk used to issue about 60 items a day, students and staff now take what they need from the smart lockers themselves.
They can reserve an item online and open the locker with the unique QR code that they receive. The introduction of this smart locker – now at six HU locations – saves the HU 10,000 human transactions per year. “Transactions that have no added value whatsoever from the perspective of hospitality”, according to Allard Schelhaas, Head of Hospitality.
The new way of issuing equipment has been extremely well received by students and staff alike.
The new way of issuing equipment issued by the HU – in this case cameras, laptops, projectors, etc. – has, after a six-month pilot, been extremely well received by students and staff alike. The most important advantages are: the convenience of 24/7 booking, self-service, no queueing, no wasted journeys for something that isn’t there and longer opening hours.
On the one hand, the service desk staff can now spend more time on people who really need help and on the other, students can now borrow what they need outside of office hours. It’s this last point that students particularly appreciate, because they often have to work in the evening. They can now make better use of the opening hours of the HU itself.
If you would like to find out more about the applications for this intelligent locker, we will be happy to tell you about them.
When configuring the smart lockers, what was issued in the previous academic year was taken into account. This has consequences for the size of the CombiLocker and the number of large and small individual lockers in it, depending on the location. They have room on average for about 60 items.
Encouraged by the positive experience of the pilot, the HU has also had smart lockers installed at five other locations. Schelhaas: “The combination of more service and less cost means that we want to roll this solution out at our other locations. The savings lie in the fact that we have made our temporary workforce superfluous. We’re not cutting permanent staff; robotisation means that they’re now freed up to offer people more personal attention”.
If you are curious about our electronic lockers and key cabinets, read the cases below from all sorts of sectors, like universities, hotels, security, cash-in-transit, healthcare, transport and government institutions.
