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.