While the nation scrambled Sunday morning to turn back their clocks one hour for the end of daylight-saving time, the University’s Facility Services maintenance team relaxed. They had the luxury of watching all of the University’s public clocks adjust themselves.
Days of battery replacement and hours of clock swapping now takes no time since the University purchased satellite-run smart clocks in 2003 that change times automatically, but the newest upgrade is just the latest in a series of systems employed to keep accurate time at the University.
As it turns out, clocks are a serious matter.
In 1999, the University faced the decision to either upgrade its system of centrally controlled wired clocks or to replace them with battery-powered units. A system upgrade would have cost around $150,000, so the University opted to switch to battery-powered clocks – a decision that brought its own set of problems.
The new system required the University to have two sets of clocks that would be switched out twice a year by hand.
“We used to have all the clocks set up in a row and one person would take two to three days changing all of the batteries,” said Ken Stephens, the night maintenance lead worker for Facility Services. “Then we had about 20 people assigned to different places on campus that switched out the clocks.
Although the change initially saved the University money, the task of replacing the 1,104 clock batteries and switching 552 old clocks for new ones twice a year proved to be inefficient and expensive.
“It took about four to six hours just to switch the clocks. It was not very cost effective,” Stephens said.
While labor was a big issue, clock malfunctions also became a problem for the Facility Services maintenance team. For weeks after each switch, Facility Services was flooded with calls about clock problems – so many, in fact, that the department created a position for an employee whose sole responsibility was to fix the problematic clocks, Stephens said.
In 2003, after years of complaints and problems, the University changed again from battery-powered clocks to remotely controlled clocks that receive satellite information and switch themselves at the beginning and end of daylight-saving time. Although the clock changeover cost an initial $50,000, since then the annual clock budget has been around $5,000.
“We used to have an enormous clock budget,” Stephens said. “But the system paid for itself within the first few years just by not having to use labor.”
Now in their fourth year of use, the satellite-run clocks are considered a success, Stephens said. There have been fewer complaints, malfunctions and costs, making the most recent changeover a more effective method of dealing with daylight-saving time, Stephens said.
“This system is much more effective,” Stephens said. “Now it’s much easier in terms of labor, and it’s definitely more reliable.”
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