Facility Management By Naresh

Introduction: Facility management is the management of assets like building, estates which encompasses both physical product and services. The services can be divided into two hard and soft services. Hard services include thing like take care of air conditioning. Soft services include such as security, custodial, janitorial, landscaping, catering, mailroom, reception, photocopying pest control and monitoring the performance of service providers. Facility management is also known as property management, but mostly applied only to commercial properties where the management and operation is more complex. Some or all of these aspects are maintained by computer system. Definition provided by the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) is "A profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment by integrating people, place, processes and technology." Another definition provided by IFMA is: "The practice or coordinating the physical workplace with the people and work of the organization; integrates the principles of business administration, architecture, and the behavioral and engineering sciences." (Ifma, 2008) The British Institute of Facilities Management defined the facility management as Integration of processes within an organization to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities.(BIFM, 2008) Methodology: In this project aspects of facilities management with examples in circumstance of Indian hospitality industry from different books and websites were referred which had applicable data of Facilities Management and the Indian Hospitality Industry. And personal observation of training courses was also referred.

Role of facility management: The role of facilities management is vast and is measured as quite important application and management process in today’s fastest growing hospitality, it make sure that everything is available and working properly for building residents to do their work. It may range from the small scale to the large scale operation or even to international scale. it is not only restricted to just

asset care and

maintaining, managing the design of the hotels also counted good facilities provided to the employees that ultimately be giving good service to guest that will return in term profit. Now organizations provide the under contract facility management services like for a specific period, including repairing, inventories etc, main concern behind this is good service without any loss maintaining your asset for a longer time. Employees are also essential part of facility management department, employees only aware the management what problem guest face and what all required to solve them and maintain service quality. (Ransly et. Al, 2000 p 185) How facility management works in hotels: In hotels facility management have many sub department like asset management, horticulture department, maintenance, information technology etc. The operational aspects of design in asset management left to the judgment of architect or plan team. In principle this should present no problems to a capable team, but practically it is very difficult to understand the gloominess of an organisation and details of its operational schemes. The design and construction of a building typically require specialities and inputs. This is even in rather limited developments, like versions of an existing building to hotel or restaurant. (Ranslay, J 2000 pg 185) and hotel is a combined as food and room department, rooms earn most of profit for the hotels and properly facilitate rooms would serve as a long-term source of profits and attraction to the guest and facility provided to guest’s rooms comes under House keeping department and also amenities placement and periodic maintenance are taken care by this department with the help of appropriate planning of facilities management. And all these service

provided to rooms after every guest leaves and proper all the amenities. Hotel industry’s major concerns are rooms and keeping them in good condition which helps to reduce losses and earn profit. Strategies planned for rooms with the housekeeping personals help to maintain hotels assets as these were before. Risks involved in room’s maintenance are also intended by the facilities department of hotel risk like, fire, power cut etc. (management-hub, 2008) Facilities management is much varied field which is concern with all the facilities that decorate and over all make up of the hotel. And gives a complete experience to the guest staying at the hotel and employees working in it. but the main problem faced by the facilities management department is the assets and the location because locality plays a important role in the attraction of guest which target to get certain facilities, asset management is one of the parts of facilities management where the locality plays a major role which involves maintains and environmental concerns of the hotel. Maintenance department takes care of the ware and tears of the hotel property and assets of hotel which is also called as asset management. But asset management differ from facility management it is only a sub section of facility management and takes care of assets only like the building, furniture etc, but it is very important part of facilities management, as far cost cutting initiative concern because facilities management also head the department

like,

waste

management,

recycling,

energy

conservation,

maintenance etc. The operational aspects of design are frequently left to the discretion of architect or design team. In principle this should present no problems to a competent team, but in practice it is very difficult to understand the nuances of an organisation and details of its operational strategies. The design and construction of a building usually require input from may different specialists. This is so even in quite limited developments, such as the adaptations of an existing building to house a small hotel or restaurant . (Ranslay, J 2001 pg 185)

How facilities management is helping the hospitality industry: First important component need as a facility to any hospitality organization is accessibility, it is not possible for every hotel to situate near to airport or railway station so there is needed to provide pick up and drop to guest if location is far from public transportation. And front office department are also fulfill with the facility like Fidelio and opera system, which helps managing the hotels rooms by keeping a count of the occupied, vacant, out of order or VIP’s in house and also automatically managing the guests account and profile. In food and beverage department also facilitated like micros to manage the bills automatically and calculate also. which helps the cashier in the restaurant to manage every guests bills according to their room numbers, it shows the VIP’s in house and the amount of sales of food and beverages in all other outlets of the hotel. Some other facility also include like mini bar in the room, spa facility, transport, and also facility provided to the employees also indirectly delivered to guest only by enhancing the performance of employees. But most important aspect in facility management is assets of the hotels, and here in India many a time this creates the problem for the management, because hotels in India are transferred from palace to hotel so implementing the facility programmer is quite hard, and because of this most of hotels do not provide accommodation to its staff, which is a threat to employee facilities. And few facilities like elevator system are not proper in India as compare to abroad, and many hotel not even provide service elevator, so some time it late the service for guest also.

Conclusion: Facilities management helps an organization’s business and profits. It take care of asset of property their maintenance and minimizing the risks and also reduce the loss upon physical product. The organization should provide facility to there employee because indirectly they serve to guest only and help increasing revenue. It helps employees to work efficiently by providing work friendly environment and reducing wastage and hence increasing its profitability of an organization. Facilities management has few problem in India but slowly they are coming up threw implementing proper facility management system in the organization.

Reference: BIFM (2008). Facilities Management Introduction. Retrieved October 20th 2008 from http://www.bifm.org.uk/bifm/about/facilities ifma(2008). Facility management practice. Retrieved on October 12th 2008 from http://www.ifma.org/tools/index.cfm

Management-hub(2008). Facility management. Retrieved on October 13th 2008 from www.management-hub.com/facility-management.html

Ransley. J, Ingram . H ,2000, developing hospitality properties and facilities, replica press pvt ltd.