Hospitality Facilities Management

Maintenance need and its implementation

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When attempting to establish a system for maintenance Management, you need some

understanding of the basic types of maintenance that may be required, the methods

best suited to handing these needs, the budgeting and control of maintenance

expenditures, the role of the maintenance department in capital projects and

renovations, and the types of personnel management decisions that can affect the

productivity of the maintenance function.

Types of Maintenance

Routine Maintenance

It pertains to the general upkeep of the property, recurs on a regular basis, and

requires relatively minimal skill or training to perform, such grass cutting, snow

shoveling and housekeeping activities as carpet and floor cleaning.

Preventive Maintenance

It concerns common ingredients like inspections, lubrication, minor repairs of

adjustments, and work order initiation. Preventive maintenance on equipment is

generally performed using manufacturers’ information concerning maintenance needs

as a guideline, together with a healthy mix of good mechanical knowledge and

common sense.

Scheduled Maintenance

It requires a rather significant amount of time to perform, specialized tools and

equipment, and high levels of coordination between departments. Scheduled

maintenance includes preparing equipment for changes in the seasons (such as

draining cooling preparing equipment for changes in the season such as draining

cooling towers or winterizing pools, and other activities that are periodically required

to keep equipment operating at an efficient level such as descaling boilers and water

heaters.

Scheduled maintenance may require that major pieces of equipment be removed from

service for several hours or longer. In addition, the needed repair may be rather costly

and may be performed by contract service personnel. If the item to be replaced

happens to a large scale of work, the time and scheduling issues may be critically

important.

Emergency and Breaking Maintenance

The emergency or breakdown forms of maintenance are those which either have an

immediate revenue effect (the room is out of service and cannot be rented until the

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problem is solved) or are likely to have a revenue effect if allowed to continued(the

poorly operating food service refrigeration system will not properly chill food).

These forms of maintenance are particularly costly for the operation because:

� They are usually solved only with the application of premium pay(overnight

labour cost).

� They often bypass the traditional parts or supplies purchasing system, leading to

premium parts cost.

� They often have other costs associated with their solution(e.g. a leaking pipe may

also damage walls and ceilings).

Contract Maintenance

The maintenance effort is a mix of inhouse and contract activities such as elevator

maintenance, window cleaning, kitchen duct cleaning, yard work herbcicide and

pesticide application, water treatment, and HVAC control calibration.

Contract Maintenance activities are undertaken for a variety of reasons as follows:

� A desire to minimize the commitment of staff on the payroll to handle these

needs.

� A recognition that special tools or licenses are required to perform the required

work effectively.

� A need to deal with emergencies

� A recognition that the complexity of the task is beyond the skills of the existing

maintenance staff.

Maintenance Management Systems

The goals of maintenance management systems are:

� To handle the maintenance needs of the property effectively.

� To record essential information concerning the equipment and systems at the

property

� To establish standards for the performance of the maintenance workers.

� To provide the feedback necessary for management to assess the performance of

the maintenance department and the status of work in this department.

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Essential documents for maintenance management

� Work or repair order – the most commonly used maintenance management form

which is used to initiate requests for maintenance services. It is initiated by the

operative departments such as Rooms, F&B, Fitness Club, to provide basic

information for the needed repair, the name of the staff assigned to the task, and

the response from the repair staff when the task is completed. This response

sometimes includes an estimate of time spent, material used and other

information that might be used for recordkeeping.

� Equipment data cards – It is used for all major pieces of equipment to record

facts and information of importance for maintenance purposes. When a piece of

equipment is purchased, information from the equipment specifications,

nameplates and other sources are completed, to provide the maintenance staff

with a summary of key facts that will assist them in making repairs and in

determining correct operation of the equipment.

� Inventory Record – The choice of what to put into maintenance inventory and

how much of the item to stock affects the responsiveness of maintenance. The

storage space needed for the maintenance supplies, and the overall investment in

the inventory. Failure to do that resulted for difficulty in locating inventory, loss

or excess inventory.

� Preventive Maintenance schedule – elements of the building that are critical to

guest satisfaction, overall property image and marketing, safety and security, and

the performance of other departments’ duties are often included in PM program,

see attached PM schedule for reference.

P.S - In order to the information necessary to perform equipment repairs, it is useful to

maintain files of equipment specifications and manuals supplied by the

manufacturer – it contains PM recommendations as well as troubleshooting lists

to help diagnose the problem Another useful item is a control schematic, which

shows the relays, timers, fuses, switches, and basic wiring of controls within

equipment).

Plans and Specification for the Building

When maintenance staff must deal with renovations, the building itself, and

equipment installed as part of the building, the plan and specification for the building

are key. Structural plans allow the maintenance staff to determine locations of key

building structural elements, a most important piece of information for certain

proposed modifications. Mechanical plans identify flow patterns for air and water,

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control schemes, equipment and system interconnections, and basic operating

parameters. Electrical plans provide information about circuit capacities, wire sizes,

circuit connections and routing, and emergency power circuits. Plans for specialty

services such as laundry, telephone, lighting and sound systems assist the maintenance

staff or outside contractors in repairing or updating these systems.

Preparation for maintenance emergencies

Though a good maintenance management system help greatly reduce the need for

emergency and breakdown maintenance, however it is impossible to eliminate this

need entirely. The following could help make a difference during maintenance

emergencies:

� Keep a current listing of all phone numbers for maintenance staff

� Train the appropriate night staff concerning procedures to be followed in the

events of the more common emergencies such as knowing the location of keys

water valves and the electrical shutoffs.

� Maintain some ongoing relationship with contract maintenance and cleaning

firms, get to know their phone numbers for day and night. Adequate manpower

and equipment during a maintenance emergency reduce the extent of damage

that might follow.

� Appropriate backup systems – this could include using multiple pieces of

equipment for key system components(e.g. two pumps on the building’s chilled

or hot water circulation systems)

Budgeting for Property Operation and Maintenance and Energy

See attached the POM and Energy Schedules.

Personnel Management in Maintenance

Key concerns in the management of maintenance department personnel include job

qualifications, on-the-job supervision, and employee productivity.

Management personnel need to have some level of mechanical and electrical skill, the

smaller the property, the more the engineering manager will have a “hands-on” role.

Line staff needs very broad skills at the small property level, where they perform a

varied list of tasks. They need education in those areas and years of experience in

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these fields.

Individuals need to be reliable and capable of working on their own, as they work all

over the property with minimal direct supervision.

For PM activities, work order processing, the number of work orders completed per

day or week will serve as a measure for productivity. Measurement of maintenance

productivity on the basis of number of employee per certain number of rooms should

be misleading. The different facilities available, the area of the property, and the

complexity of the building all contribute variable demands for maintenance.

Productivity is further enhanced by providing the staff with proper tools and

equipment. These will reduces the possibility of injuries, minimize the chance that

equipment will be damaged when worked with improper tools. An adequate parts

inventory will reduce equipment downtime and enable employees to fix equipment

more quickly.

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