Edmund Sum, product manager FCS Engineering at FCS Systems looks at how engineering automation can improve the guest experience
Increasingly, we are seeing hospitality technology solutions improve efficiency in hotel front-of-house operations such as concierge services and back-of-house operations such as housekeeping.
However, in hotel engineering and maintenance management, we are also seeing some great results – with engineering technology solutions providing preventative maintenance systems, tracking requests and producing measurable performance reports.
Engineering hospitality technology solutions work because all guest requests and property maintenance requirements are funneled to a single source that creates work orders that factor in priority, location, staff skill-set and staff availability.
Engineering jobs and maintenance support can be dispatched immediately upon completion of the call from the guest – with no need for the agent to phone anyone, and instead simply enter the request of the guest, and hitting ‘send’.
Jobs are automatically forwarded to the right person, which can then be collected via use of a mobile application. Stock levels, or reallocation of tasks, can also be managed within the system.
And, because all jobs are tracked, the high standards that hotel brands aspire to achieve are measurable, and all employees are jointly accountable. A good example of this is that technology allows for any member of staff on the property to take photos of defects to send to engineering teams for fixing and follow-up.
With hospitality technology solutions such as FCS Engineering, there is a significant level of information produced that can be extracted from the intelligent management system.
Hoteliers can look for and readily find operational inefficiencies that enable them to make informed choices, and further enhance the quality of the guest experience. Additionally, being able to view reporting data, allows management full visibility on how effective their team is at meeting targets and standards – thereby supporting a more prudent focus on areas where greater effort is required.
Job completion and response data, for example, provide up-to-date information to understand and respond to situations to ensure highest standards are consistently achieved. Automated systems can also provide a checklist for each type of issue that arises, with a list of actions, to ensure that steps are not missed, and the correct reporting is accomplished. The system also supports multi-language and multi-property needs.
Though the automation of processes relating to sensitive commercial and operational information, such as engineering reports and guest complaints, hotels are better equipped to appropriately respond and act, in accordance with complex and ever-changing legislation. Therefore, transparency and integrity of reporting improves compliance and governance.
With engineering technology solutions, facility managers can schedule and remotely receive tasks for actual and preventative maintenance checks. Features such as iOS and Android compatibility, as well as the ability to schedule work orders management and push-to-talk messenger integration, means that staff are always contactable.
Easy-to-use dashboards offer real time insights on all maintenance activities, and guaranteed superior control over assignments to ensure that tasks were completed in a timely manner.
Having visibility of all engineering and maintenance issues allows management to quantify the cost of specific types of requests, and determine an appropriate course of action that helps mitigate reoccurrence.
Ultimately, this level of sophisticated automation improves guest satisfaction due to response time to resolve issues and ensure quality hospitality experiences.
