ROOM DIVISION EQUIPMENT

ROOM DIVISION EQUIPMENT

 Definition of Room Division

The rooms division comprises departments and personnel essential to providing the services guests expect during a hotel stay. In most hotels, the rooms division generates more revenue than other divisions. Departments under rooms division: a. Front Office Department b. Housekeeping Department. 

Front Office Equipment 

• Any different of hotel requires some kind of equipment to run that particular department efficiently 
• Front Office Equipments are mainly classified in 3 segments :-

1. Fully automatic equipments 
2. Semiautomatic equipments 
3. Manual & General equipments

Fully Automatic Equipment

• Fax machine
• Computer
• Credit card vadilator
• Call accounting system

Semiautomatic Equipment

• Posting machine
• Cash register
• Wake up calls
• Credit card imprinter

Manual & General Equipment

• Room rack
• Information rack
• Folio bucket
• Key rack

Function Of Equipment

Fully Automated Equipment

• Credit card validator:-

          It is automated used by Front Office Cashier to check the validity of a card credit

• Call acounting system:-

          It is called APBX ( Automated Private Branch In Change). It is used in telephone exchange section of Front Office Department.

• Fax machine:-

          Full foam of fax is Facsimile Automatic Xerox Machine. It is important electronic equipment in  Front Desk for purpose of communication and used to received or send official documents.

• Computer:-

          It is very essential equipment where we can feed various data and information.

Semiautomated Equipment

• Posting machine:-

          It is used to calculate the total's of the guest accounts.

• Cash register:-

          It is semi-automated equipment used by front desk such as stamps, newspaper, candy etc.

• Credit card imprinter:-

          Mostly used by front office cashier at the time of arrival when the guest presents the credit card to the cashier as the mode of payment of the hotel bills.

• Wake up-calls:-

          In this all wake-up request from guests are feed into the times monitoring, do to time, room number, name of guest and the telephone of the paticular room automatically rings at the mentioned time thus waking up the guest.

Manual and General Equipment

• Room rack:-

          It contains large number of room rack slips for suring the reservations and housekeeping status of each guest rooms of a hotel.

• Information rack:-

          It is an important device present at the front desk which contains all the required information of inhouse guests in an alphabetical order.

• Folio bucket:-

          This equipment contains a large number of slots where the folio are arranged sequentially according to the room number.

• Key rack:-

          It contains many slots used for keeping the keys of the guest room in sequential order for the guest rooms.

Housekeeping Equipment

Advantages of Housekeeping Equipment

• Equally effective for general as well as tougher cleaning tasks.
• High cleaning capability.
• Reduce work fatigue and increase productivity.
• Save the time of hotel housekeeping staff.
• High maneuver ability. They can reach sny comer or height of the room, which is otherwise difficult to reach.
• Eco-friendly, widely availabe, and easy to operate.
• They give protection from injuries occuring while cleaning when they are handled by using proper instructions.

Classification of Cleaning Equipment

• Manual cleaning equipment
• Electric cleaning equipment
• Cleaning agents or chemicals

Manual Cleaning Equipment

1. Chambermaid's Trolley/ Housekeeping Trolley/ Cart

• This trolley is large enough to keep all the guest room and guest bathroom supplies in an organized manner.
• It makes the housekeeping staff to move it around and carry large number of items in one go while keeping and cleaning the guest rooms.

      2. Janitor's trolley

• It is trolley that stores cleaning supplies such as detergents, spray bottles, dustbin, mop and dusting clothes, all in a compact manner.
• It can be moved around easily. It fullfills the challenge of modern day housekeeping in hotels.

      3. Abrasive Pad

• They are the sharpening stones or gift papers used to polish metal or wooden surfaces.
• There are various abrasives depending upon the size of gift and adhension of grit particles on the paper.

      4. Brushes

• They are handheld that brushes with bristles to dust the plain surfaces as well as the corners.
• They come with non- slip handles and stiff-free bristles. They help removing stubborn dust.

      5. Broom and dustpans

• It is cleaning tool consisting of usually stiff fibers ( often made of materials such as plastic, hair or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to , a cylindrical handle, the broomstick.
• It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan.
•  They are used to collect dust and garbage from the floor and putting it into the dustbin.

      6. Mops

• There are various types of mops such as string mops, flat mops, dust mops, and synthetic mops.
• Mops are generally made of flat cotton strings on heavy-duty sponges fixed on the metal frames.
• The cotton mops have high absorbing ability but need more care unlike the synthetic mops that offer almost zero absorbing ability and very less maintenance.

      7. Mop wringer trolley

• A mop bucket cart is a wheeled bucket that allows its user to wring out a wet mop without getting hands dirty.
• The mops are squeezed between two surfaces to remove dirty water from it.

      8. Cloths

• They are cloths used for wiping the surface dust.

      9. Dustbins

• They are used to collect daily garbage produced in the hotel.

    10. Spray bottles

• They are used to spray water or chemical solutions on the surface that needs cleaning.
• They are also used to spray water on the delicate flowers or leaves of flower arrangement.

Electric Cleaning Equipment

      1. Box sweeper

• It is electric sweeper that consists of a friction brush.
• The brush often is fit to revolve vertically or horizontally, when the equipment moves on the surface.
• It can clean floors as well as carpets.
• The wider the better is the box sweeper brush.

     2. Vacuum cleaner

• It is again in a majority used equipment in hotel housekeeping.
• It comes with a suction motor fit in a case, a hose, and various attachment for delicate as well as tough cleaning requirements.

     3. Polishing machine

•  They are used to add a shine to the floors of most frequented areas of the hotel.

     4. Scrubber

• It is a floor case accesory that comes with handheld electrically operated scrubber.
• It is used where only mopping doesn't suffice.
• It can scrub stubborn and sticky stains on the floors of cafeterias, restaurants, lobbies, and fitness areas where people can take food and beverages.

     5. Vapor cleaning machine

• They are used where the chemical odors are not desired.
• They are equipped for continuous operation.
• They heat up quickly and work with low amount of moisture.
• They kill the bag bugs and their eggs, the yeilding a completely clean environment.

Cleaning Agents or Chemicals

      1. Water

• It is the most commonly used medium for cleaning and rinsing.
• The housekeeping staff needs to use only soft water because hard water cannot dilute detergents properly.
• Non- oily and non-greasy stains such as ink stains can be removed using water.

      2. Vinegar

• It is used in removing light stains in the bath.

      3. Bathroom cleaners

• They come in liquid form for easy cleaning.
• They clean, descale, and disinfect the bathroom walls, bathtubs, bathroom flooring, sinks, and showers.

      4. Clean air sprays

• They are best for frehening the hotel corridors, washrooms, bathrooms, and reception areas.
• These sprays remove the pungent smell of tobacco, smoke, and organic wastes.

      5. Degreaser

• This is mainly used in bars to remove the marks of grease and lipstick that cannot be removed by tradisional washing of glasses and cups.
• Degreaser restores the surface shine and transpacery of the glasses and bowls.

      6. Floor cleaners and sealers

• One of the important tasks of hotel housekeeping is cleaning the cleaning the floor periodically and keeping it sealed with the help of sealer of the right consistency for optimum maintenance.
• Some areas in the hotel are busy and bear heavy traffic such as lobby, corridors, parking areas, restaurants, and dining halls.

      7. Laundry cleaners

• They are liquid concentrates with variable amount of peroxide that removes tough stains, bleaches the linen, and enhances its whiteness.

      8. Surface sanitizers

• They often come in the form of liquid concentrate.
• They are water-based and sanitize the surfaces without damaging their appearance.
• The sanitizers reduce the presence of bacteria to a great extent.

     9. Toilet blocks

• They deodorize the toilets and leave them with a fresh smell.
• They come with two variants: continuous action and instant action.
• They contain oxidizing agents such as ozone, hydrogen peroxide, or chlorine that removes unpleasant organic odor from the surface of a material.

    10. Toilet cleaners

• They are available in liquid form containing strong  hydrochloric acid.
• They remove stains and plumbing scales easily, and restore the shine of their surface.

    11. Carpet cleaning agents

• Cleaning and maintaining the carpets are important tasks of hotel housekeeping.
• Carpet cleaning chemicals are often low-moisture, fast-drying cleaners that take care of the issues effectively.

     12. Swimming pool cleaners

• They are used for cleaning the swimming pool water.
• Some of them are TCCA-90 granules or tablets, SDIC, hydrochloric acid (HCL), liquid chlorine, and alum.
• The pool cleaning chemicals kill the bacterial and algae growth in the water.