(AG Real Estate) New Siemens Hotel Solution

Hotel business is putting forth a series of specific demands in respect of technology as well as in business aspect. Siemens vertical hotel marketing coordinates the requirements of the hoteliers and provides optimal solutions in the domain of recommendations of the greatest hotel chains.

This text describes the integrated solution of hotel rooms automatization, New Siemens Hotel Solution, developed for four and more star hotels.

At the meeting of Siemens Vertical Marketing held in January this year in Amsterdam, engineering and investment managers from the Hilton and Inter Continental Hotel Groups highlighted as the currently most significant trends in the scope of further development of the hospitality industry the following aspects:

· Loyal guests enhancement – represents hotel operators desire that the guest satisfied with the hotel hospitality is once more the guest of the same hotel and/or the same hotel chain;

· Costs reduction and control –energy costs reduction, more effective service staff work and decrease of installed equipment maintenance costs;

· Safety – total control of entrance into a room, group of rooms and common premises.

All these naturally puts forth complex requirements for multiple professions and installations within the hotel. For instance, guest satisfaction depends in great extent on the interior solutions, hotel location and alike. Hereinafter we shall limit our discussion to functionality which room automation has to satisfy. After functionality description we will show a concrete solution of a room automation system.

Guest loyalty enhancement

Temperature in a hotel room effects in great extent the guest satisfaction. Precise maintenance of the set temperature is demanded which is achieved by work control of the fan coil unit on water and air side. Naturally, it is necessary to enable the guest to have a simple temperature setting, diminish a possibility for mistake when setting the desired temperature and enable automatic and manual choice of fan coil unit speed.

Besides temperature, light control is a very important component. It is necessary to enable switching on of the welcome light before opening the entrance door as well as enable switching on and off of the lights from several spots in the room.

It is very important to enable the guest to communicate with the hotel service staff in a simple and efficient manner. The maid call, „do not disturb“ sign, and/or aid in case of need is very important to carry out so that a guest accomplishes the desired function by simply pressing the corresponding push button. Details such as switching off the door bell when „do not disturb“ option is activated are implied. Room display is shown on picture 1.

Reduction and control of costs

Reduction and control of costs may be grouped from the aspect of room automation functionality into demands related to energy consumption, demands related to more efficient staff work and demands related to installed equipment maintenance costs.

Reduction of energy consumption is a significant saving potential. Naturally, any taken measures aiming at energy saving must not curtail guest comfort. Heating and cooling energy is saved by implementation of temperature comfort work modes (guest in the room), pre-comfort work (guest not in the room, but the room is let), not booked room and room not in the function of the set work modes. The system administrator assigns the set heating and cooling temperatures for each work mode.

In the comfort work mode the guest may change the set temperature, while in other modes the guest has no influence on the set temperatures. Switching from one into another mode is performed automatically, thanks to connection with the room access control system and with the room reservation service system. The operator himself from the front office terminal may manually press any of the work modes, for example the „room not booked“ mode when the entire group of guests has left for a whole day excursion.

It is important to mention that the temeprature mode is also effected by who is in the room. It is customary that when the maid and/or technical staff are in the room, the room is switched into the pre-comfort and not into the comfort temperature work mode.

Savings achieved in this way depend on multiple factors. They are primarily energy prices for heating and cooling, average room occupancy, average time of guest checking in and out, average time of the guest’s stay in the room, and alike. Siemens has developed the programme which enables simulation of the heating and cooling energy saving by entering the above mentioned factors. Electric energy saving is achieved by switching off of the lights and a part of room equipment when the guest is not in the room and/or by their switching on at the moment when the guest unlocks the door with his transpoder, and prior to opening the room door.

The more effective service staff work is achieved by simple communication of the guest with the reception terminal. When the guest, by pressing the adequate button, asks for a room service, such a request is immediately registered and recorded in the front office computer terminal. The reception operator, by checking the service staff positions (according to the service staff transpoders in the transpoder holders), invites the nearest service staff person and instructs him/her to go to the service demanding room. In front of the the service demanding room is lit a corresponding room service light indicator which additionally helps to locate the room wherefrom the service was demanded.

Work analyses considerably effect the service staff work. The service staff work analyses is enabled by the records on the time spent in certain rooms when cleaning them, as well as the records relating to average time of reaction to the request sent from the very room.

Installed equipment maintenance costs are reduced by the very equipment technology as well as by the quality of the equipment. In regard of installed equipment maintenance costs it should be mentioned that the indirect cost when the room is not in function due to the equipment defect is multiple higher than the very repair cost and/or replacement of the faulty equipment.

Safety

Safety is becoming the factor which is more and more frequently contemplated in the Serbian hotels, too. Room automation enables complete access control in a room, group of rooms and common premises by the access control transpoder system in combination with the system of transpoder readers and transpoder holders.

The procedure itself is as follows: when a guest checks in, a randomly generated number is entered. That number is entered into the controllers of the room and all doors through which the guest has a permit of access. The same rule applies to the hotel service staff transpoders. In that manner it is possible to devide the hotel into arbitrary zones, both in regard of guests movement and in regard of the very hotel service staff movement.

Any entrance into a room is registered in the computer. Attempts of illegal entrance into the rooms for which the transpoder was not predicted are also registered and may be generated into a corresponding alarm.

On the ocassion of the guest checking out, and/or in case of the transpoder loss, the number entered into the controllers is simply erased, so that the entrance into the room is disabled in case of a possible transpoder duplicate.

New Siemens Hotel Solution

Siemens New Hotel Solution is a scalable system of hotel rooms management, developed in accordance with specific requirements of the hotel business. The system is intended to the four and more star hotels. The same components are used regardless of the number of rooms and the hotel size. The system includes the following components.

· Software for hotel rooms management HRMS (Hotel Room Management Software);

· Software package of system installation HSC (Hotel Software Comissioning);

· Software for connection with FOS (Front Office System) software package;

· Software for connection with BMS (Building Management System);

· Hotel room controllers HRC;

· Room units TCU (Temperature Control Unit), HTR (Hotel Transpoder Reader) and HTH (Hotel Transpoder Holder);

· Transpoder encoding units; and

· Communication infrastructure.

Room units have been designed in such a manner as to be installed in the standard frameworks of electrical fancy goods manufacturers.

The system topology depends on the size and configuration of the hotel, room number and specific demands of each hotel. The system comprises one or more computers at the front office computer terminal with transpoder encoders, server computer with the data base and communication towards the rooms and other systems, rooms with room controllers and room units.

As far as the reference is concerned, the most famous hotel is certainly the Burj al Arab Tower Hotel in Dubai, where the entire hotel was solved with Siemens technology. In our region, the most significant reference is the Splendid Hotel in Bečići with approximately 400 rooms.

Andrej Škorc, M.Sc.E.E.

BAU/HVP Technical Department Manager

Siemens d.o.o. Beograd

[email protected]