Operational Productivity Analysis Internship
From June to August 2020, I worked as an intern in the landscaping division of a hospital organization called Medxcel. I was stationed in the Birmingham, AL division and tasked with developing a productivity tracking system for various landscaping operations at 5 different hospital locations. The purpose of this project was to develop a system through which landscaping managers could monitor the efficiency of operations and the finances gained or lost due to those operations. Since such a system had not yet been implemented at this branch, it would offer valuable and insightful information to upper leadership about how well their teams functioned in the field, as well as how variables associated with commercial landscaping (weather, geography, team members, etc.) affect productivity altogether. Managers could then implement the necessary changes to further fine-tune their team’s efficiency in the field and save money for the organization.
The data for this project was gathered at 5 of the 6 hospital facilities in Birmingham, AL over the course of roughly 8 weeks. I created a Microsoft Excel sheet that monitored mowing, blowing, weed-eating, and edging operation times as they were what could be most consistently monitored during peak operation season. The first step of the process involved getting the base measurements. My internship mentor and I measured the square and linear footage for each property using physical tools (measuring wheels, tape, and lots of walking around) and virtual software (Google Maps, MeasureMap Pro, etc). The process was not for the faint of heart: between the 5 properties, we measured nearly 100,000 linear feet and over 2 million square feet of space! The next step required productivity numbers to which we could compare ours. To obtain these, I contacted members from other branches to acquire productivity measurements from their locations. These numbers would serve as our baseline comparisons to the operation measurements that I and my mentor were recording for each hospital location. Once I obtained all of the needed information, I inputted it into the Microsoft Excel sheet and created graphs to visually represent the data. Now, we were finally able to analyze and interpret trends in labor hours and efficiency for the monitored landscaping operations over the 8 week period. During my internship, I also had the opportunity to work with the landscaping crew, operate heavy equipment (skid steer, zero-turn mowers, walk-behind mowers, etc), and properly apply fertilizers. At the end of the internship period, I presented my findings to a panel of Medxcel upper leadership, including multiple branch managers from across the country and even the CEO of the company!
This internship is a vital benefit to my career as a landscape architect because it encompasses the maintenance side of design. A good design is one that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also one that is accessible and realistic to maintain for the crews that will be responsible for overseeing them. Over the course of my internship, I encountered many property features that left me scratching my head as to why they were designed and implemented into the landscape: oftentimes such features made maintenance a headache or even a downright nightmare. This translates to reduced productivity and ultimately higher costs for the companies tasked with keeping up these properties. It will be a part of my job as a landscape architect to consider the dynamics of the space and plant materials before and after installation for the sake of those who will be maintaining the design in the future.
