Food Service Planning

Overview

The University would benefit from a formal institutional process or guidelines for planning or placing food service facilities on its Ann Arbor campus. Food service planning and placement typically occurs as part of planning larger capital projects at the unit level, with limited consideration of how a new food service facility might fit with the overall campus needs, mission, or master plan. This sometimes results in redundant food service facilities being placed too close to each other, potentially impacting an existing food service facility’s traffic flow, market share, and financial health.

The Food Service Planning project is a collaboration between the Office of the Provost, Division of Student Affairs, and Business and Finance and is directly related to the Shared Spaces project of the Space Utilization Initiative. Its purpose is to design, develop, recommend, and implement a more structured institutional process, guidelines, and assessment tools to better ensure that food service facilities and operations meet the needs of the University, are financially viable, are complementary to other facilities, and are strategically planned and placed in locations that correspond to overall campus master plans.

Scope

This project affects the Ann Arbor North and Central campuses only.

Goals

The goals of the Food Service Planning project are to:

Project Sponsors

Project Team

This project is a collaboration between the Office of the Provost, Division of Student Affairs, and Business and Finance. It includes the following individuals:

* project manager

Advisory Groups/Individuals

Space Utilization Initiative Steering Committee

Estimated Timeline

Project initiation: September 2007

Inventory existing food service operations 9/07 - 12/07
Prepare and submit RFP/RFQ for food service consultant 10/07–12/07
Complete RFP/RFQ process to select food service consultant 1/08–4/08
Develop guiding principles, proposal process, and tools 4/08–12/08
Pilot process, tools, etc. 1/09-2/09
Communicate process, tools, etc. to campus 3/09
Implementation 3/09

Current Status

3/09:  The new Food Service Planning website was launched and the guidelines become effective March 9, 2009.  Please refer to the new site for any future updates.

2/09:  Shared the draft process, tools, analysis with the Academic Program Group (APG) and Vice Provosts and Associate Deans Group (VPADG).

1/09: Shared the draft process, tools, analysis with Executive Vice President and CFO Timothy Slottow and will vet the documents further with additional campus groups in the coming weeks. The new process and tools are also being piloted with two units on campus.

12/09: Shared the draft process, assessment tools, and analysis of the current campus food environment with Provost and Executive Vice President Terry Sullivan and Vice President Royster Harper.

11/08: Drafted a guidelines document that provides an overview of the food service planning process, roles and responsibilities, guiding principles, and feasibility considerations. Rob White (Envision Strategies) determined campus planning zones and potential markets for food operations. These materials will be vetted or shared with various groups in the coming weeks.

9/08: Started drafting detailed process diagrams of each phase of the end-to-end service planning process. Shared tools for proposing and assessing food service operations (guiding principles, unit proposal, and financial pro forma) with academic budget administrators.

8/08: Drafted tools for proposing and assessing food service operations: guiding principles, food location proposal, and financial pro forma. The tools were designed with input from various individuals from around campus. Completed an inventory of on-campus and external food service operations.

7/08: Phil Hanlon and Envision Strategies met with several Executive Officers and deans to get input on the draft guiding principles.

6/08: A list of contacts for those responsible for food service operations was developed in coordination with Occupational Safety and Environmental Health (OSEH) and the Division of Student Affairs. An email introducing the Food Service Planning Project was sent to these contacts at the end of May. The draft inventory of current food service locations was also sent to each contact for verification and to collect additional information.

5/08:  Envision Strategies was selected as the food service consulting firm to assist with the Food Service Planning Project.  The consultant began working with the project team in mid-May.  Project team has begun drafting guiding principles and is determining additional data that will need to be collected.

4/08:  Interviews with external consulting firms were conducted. The Food Service Planning project team will select the firm this month.

2/08:  A Request for Proposal (RFP) was distributed to external consulting firms, seeking services to help the Food Service Planning team address its project goals.  Vendor bids are expected to be received this month. 

12/07: The initial project team has been formed and is in an information gathering phase. The team is developing an inventory of existing food services and met with the Space Utilization Initiative Steering Committee to seek input on the institutional mission and guiding principles for food service facilities. A Request for Proposal/Quotation for an external consultant is currently in development.

For More Information

For more information on the Space Utilization Initiative, contact space.utilization@umich.edu.

Last updated: 4/08/09