Long waits and crowded lines could be reduced at the Atrium Food Court and Woodworth Dining if a new Web-order pickup system is successful.
The system, which will be fully implemented in Fall Semester, will let students and faculty use their meal points to order food on the Ball State University Dining Web site and schedule a pickup time. The service will be available at Block & Barrel and McKinley Grille in the Atrium and Deli World, De La Casa, Comfort Zone and Woody's Grill in Woodworth Dining.
Atrium General Manager Rod Brooks said the system will make Dining employees' jobs easier.
"It will allow us to serve more people, and students won't have to wait as long," he said.
Dining will test market the system for faculty and staff at the end of June to "work out the bugs" before students gain access to Web pickup dining in the fall, Amy Wagner, coordinator for the system, said.
"We've been planning this for about three years," she said. "We're very excited for this system to be up and running."
The Web pickup system has made dining more efficient on other college campuses, she said.
Sophomore Luke Haas said he would probably use the service but is afraid he would get caught up in other things and not pick up his order.
In order to avoid problems such as this, Dining will charge orders not picked up to student's accounts, Wagner said. Students who place an order without picking it up will be banned from the system.
Students will also be able to place their order on a computer kiosk device, which will send their order to a screen viewable by Dining employees. Dining plans to have stations such as McKinley Grille operating exclusively through a Web pickup and kiosk system, Wagner said.
McKinley Grille employees will use the kiosk-ordering system during Summer Semester in order to learn how it works before students can use the Web-ordering system in the fall, she said.
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