The concept of outsourcing engineering functions within a hotel is growing exponentially, leading to better maintenance practices, says Arvind Sinha.
Hotels encompass a myriad of facilities and services, one of them being the rarely feted engineering division, which performs an invaluable role in ensuring a guest’s comfortable stay.
With the evolution of hotel building design and the ever growing range of features and facilities being incorporated, the scope of outsourcing the engineering function in hotels is expanding exponentially.
In India today, body shopping is quite common, where hotel managements sub-contract the manpower requirements for resources like housekeeping boys and technicians, who are hired through third party vendors.
In such a model, the accountability and risk of delivering services doesn’t get transferred to the sub-contractor but remains with the hotel management.
The responsibilities of an outsourcing service provider would be to maintain the hotel building and its diverse range of assets – this would typically include walls, ceiling, floor fixtures therein, electrical distribution to the hotel, sewage and water systems, fire-alarm systems and safety methods, air-conditioning, heating and ventilation, elevators, and kitchen and laundry equipment.
To manage the equipment and systems listed above for building operations like hotels, a Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) approach is well suited, which logically incorporates preventive, predictive, and corrective practices into one comprehensive maintenance and operations programme.
The RCM process is focused on reducing levels of disruption, and improving reliability and energy efficiency of critical hotel systems and equipment.
The process is supported by computerised maintenance management systems, optimising preventive maintenance schedules in order to reducing reactive maintenance requirements, thereby extending the operating life of all equipment systems.
The appropriate tasks and frequencies must be evaluated using a value and risk-oriented approach that considers the type and age of the equipment; the manufacturers designed application; the cost of replacement and availability of replacement equipment or spare parts; and the critical nature of the functions that the equipment supports.
Traditionally, preventive maintenance regimes have assumed that equipment failures are based largely on age or use, and parts should be replaced based on associated probabilities.
By adopting predictive maintenance strategies, we have been able to demonstrate that only a few of the many potential failure characteristics are age or use related, and that with effective maintenance procedures, building systems and equipment can often perform well beyond their rated useful lives. The strategy has helped to reduce the reliance on higher-cost preventive maintenance regimes.
Predictive maintenance regimes help to anticipate failures through data point monitoring such as infared thermography to detect adverse temperature variances in order to identify abnormal operation; electrical condition monitoring to identify adverse power consumption analysis; lubrication analysis to monitor condition and performance of oils and lubricants in order to identify adverse wear and maintenance; and vibration analysis to determine the structural stability of a system, the condition of rotating equipment, and the source of any sounds suggesting potential issues and inefficient operation.
Other tests included in our typical predictive maintenance routines include electrical coordination studies, circuit breaker testing and maintenance, testing of interlocks and safety circuits, switchgear testing and maintenance, motor control centre inspection and cleaning, hotel grounding systems testing and maintenance, electric motor diagnostics, and high potential testing.
Predictive maintenance is most effective when combined with a strong preventive maintenance programme incorporating a comprehensive schedule of recurring inspections and maintenance tasks.
Our process initially relies on manufacturers’ recommendations, but, after a thorough analysis by our engineering and operations group, we tailor individual preventative maintenance tasks based on hotels’ actual equipment operating conditions and failure history.
A computerised system not only ensures that the proper tasks are performed at the right time, but also allows the team to track unscheduled repairs in terms of engineering labour hours, backlog, critical equipment data, and callbacks.
Overall, RCM achieves many benefits beyond the reliable operation of hotel building systems and equipment. Energy costs are reduced because well-maintained equipment operates more efficiently. Also, better maintenance practices are usually accompanied by increased workplace safety.
To sum up, engineering solutions for a hotel generally depend on the size and class of the hotel, as also the type of equipments that have been installed, based on which we offer the range of customised solutions for our hotel clients.
Service solutions
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The concept of outsourcing engineering functions within a hotel is growing exponentially, leading to better maintenance practices, says Arvind Sinha.
Hotels encompass a myriad of facilities and services, one of them being the rarely feted engineering division, which performs an invaluable role in ensuring a guest’s comfortable stay.
With the evolution of hotel building design and the ever growing range of features and facilities being incorporated, the scope of outsourcing the engineering function in hotels is expanding exponentially.
In India today, body shopping is quite common, where hotel managements sub-contract the manpower requirements for resources like housekeeping boys and technicians, who are hired through third party vendors.
In such a model, the accountability and risk of delivering services doesn’t get transferred to the sub-contractor but remains with the hotel management.
The responsibilities of an outsourcing service provider would be to maintain the hotel building and its diverse range of assets – this would typically include walls, ceiling, floor fixtures therein, electrical distribution to the hotel, sewage and water systems, fire-alarm systems and safety methods, air-conditioning, heating and ventilation, elevators, and kitchen and laundry equipment.
To manage the equipment and systems listed above for building operations like hotels, a Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) approach is well suited, which logically incorporates preventive, predictive, and corrective practices into one comprehensive maintenance and operations programme.
The RCM process is focused on reducing levels of disruption, and improving reliability and energy efficiency of critical hotel systems and equipment.
The process is supported by computerised maintenance management systems, optimising preventive maintenance schedules in order to reducing reactive maintenance requirements, thereby extending the operating life of all equipment systems.
The appropriate tasks and frequencies must be evaluated using a value and risk-oriented approach that considers the type and age of the equipment; the manufacturers designed application; the cost of replacement and availability of replacement equipment or spare parts; and the critical nature of the functions that the equipment supports.
Traditionally, preventive maintenance regimes have assumed that equipment failures are based largely on age or use, and parts should be replaced based on associated probabilities.
By adopting predictive maintenance strategies, we have been able to demonstrate that only a few of the many potential failure characteristics are age or use related, and that with effective maintenance procedures, building systems and equipment can often perform well beyond their rated useful lives. The strategy has helped to reduce the reliance on higher-cost preventive maintenance regimes.
Predictive maintenance regimes help to anticipate failures through data point monitoring such as infared thermography to detect adverse temperature variances in order to identify abnormal operation; electrical condition monitoring to identify adverse power consumption analysis; lubrication analysis to monitor condition and performance of oils and lubricants in order to identify adverse wear and maintenance; and vibration analysis to determine the structural stability of a system, the condition of rotating equipment, and the source of any sounds suggesting potential issues and inefficient operation.
Other tests included in our typical predictive maintenance routines include electrical coordination studies, circuit breaker testing and maintenance, testing of interlocks and safety circuits, switchgear testing and maintenance, motor control centre inspection and cleaning, hotel grounding systems testing and maintenance, electric motor diagnostics, and high potential testing.
Predictive maintenance is most effective when combined with a strong preventive maintenance programme incorporating a comprehensive schedule of recurring inspections and maintenance tasks.
Our process initially relies on manufacturers’ recommendations, but, after a thorough analysis by our engineering and operations group, we tailor individual preventative maintenance tasks based on hotels’ actual equipment operating conditions and failure history.
A computerised system not only ensures that the proper tasks are performed at the right time, but also allows the team to track unscheduled repairs in terms of engineering labour hours, backlog, critical equipment data, and callbacks.
Overall, RCM achieves many benefits beyond the reliable operation of hotel building systems and equipment. Energy costs are reduced because well-maintained equipment operates more efficiently. Also, better maintenance practices are usually accompanied by increased workplace safety.
To sum up, engineering solutions for a hotel generally depend on the size and class of the hotel, as also the type of equipments that have been installed, based on which we offer the range of customised solutions for our hotel clients.
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