Mr. Broadhag

Spas, Health & Fitness

Maintenance and Your Hotel Fitness Center

By Kurt A. Broadhag, President, K Allan Consulting

In the traditional health club business model gyms either succeed or fail based upon membership numbers. Smart gym owners realize the importance of providing a service that satisfies their customers and view the facility maintenance as an integral component in customer satisfaction. This train of thought is right in line with many current surveys. Studies show that prospective clients rank maintenance and upkeep of a fitness center second in terms of their decision-making process, just below facility location and convenience. Studies also show that current members place even more of an importance on facility cleanliness, ranking it #1 in customer satisfaction. Since the hospitality industry places such great emphasis on providing guests with the best possible customer service it is easy to see the connection of facility maintenance within the hotels fitness center.

Facility maintenance, in the broadest sense, involves a set of defined tasks that, when performed regularly and properly managed, allow for normal day-to-day operation of the facility. The goals of facility maintenance can be divided up into four basic components. First, it involves maintaining the quality of the facility through cleaning and preventative maintenance to prolong the life of the facility. Secondly, it is developed around promoting safety to both staff and guests by making sure everything is in top working condition. Thirdly, it defines cleaning protocol creating a clean, healthy, disease-free environment. Last of all, it involves making sure all amenities within the facility are stocked and available to guests.

The hospitality industry deals with facility maintenance on a daily basis. There are already departments in place, more specifically the maintenance staff and housekeeping that perform daily cleaning and repair to maintain the physical plant and create a clean environment for the guests. Although these components play an integral role in fitness center maintenance there are some key considerations specific to the gym environment that transcend these normal tasks. The first component to consider is the investment allocated to the gym. It seems only logical that, when spending thousands of dollars for each piece of exercise equipment, care is taken to extend the life of equipment to protect your investment. Secondly, given the inherit liability risk associated with exercising, the common thought would be to decrease risk of litigation from injuries on faulty equipment by creating the infrastructure to maintain the equipment and spot potential equipment malfunctions before injuries occur. Although general facility maintenance is a broad topic as described above I would like to focus the emphasis of this article on the important aspect of preventative maintenance within the hotel fitness center which combines cleaning, lubricating, and maintain the fitness equipment.

So what is preventative maintenance with regard to the fitness center? In short, it is a series of tasks established by equipment manufacturers to prolong the life of the equipment. It is important for a number of reasons, both in terms of equipment investment and safety of the clients. The goal of a preventive maintenance program is to maintain the operation of the equipment, extend the length of service time and life of the equipment, identify broken or worn out parts, and to promote safety by preventing injuries caused by the use of faulty equipment.

The cornerstone of any preventative maintenance program is organization of scheduled tasks based on equipment manufacturer's recommendations found in the equipment manuals. Each equipment manual includes important information regarding preventative maintenance, warranty information, troubleshooting of equipment malfunctions, and schematics of each piece and should therefore be collected and placed together in a folder. The log book, specific to each facility, is created based on these manual recommendations and includes equipment information, manufacturer's information, service technicians, scheduled maintenance tasks, usage of each piece, parts tracking, and maintenance incidents. In addition to the scheduled maintenance tasks as per the manufacturer's recommendations, there should be an additional section which includes equipment model, serial number, task performed, date, time, completed by and additional remarks for reach piece of equipment. The importance of the log book cannot be understated as mentioned in my previous article concerning liability issues within the fitness center. If there is an equipment malfunction and someone gets hurt the log book will help to show the fitness center was not negligent in the upkeep of their equipment.

Basic scheduled tasks within the log book fall into three basic categories - cleaning, lubricating, and spot checking for repairing/replacing of worn parts. Cleaning involves wiping the equipment down regularly to remove sweat which is highly corrosive due to its sodium content and can drastically shorten the lifespan of exercise equipment. In addition, dust and grime build-up in other area's such as strength equipment guide rods, cardiovascular motors, and treadmill deck/belt system, reduce the equipment life and lead to early replacement. Lubricating involves making sure all moving parts, both with the cardiovascular equipment and strength equipment, move freely and do not have any premature wear patterns which can affect the performance of the equipment. Finally, and one of the most important tasks involves spot checking all equipment to make sure all crucial parts, such as the frames, cables, weight pins, etc., do not have signs of stress that can result in catastrophic failure The biggest liability risk associated with strength equipment involves the cables/belts. Serious injury can occur from sudden failure. Equipment showing signs of failure should be placed out of commission and repaired immediately.

The next crucial decision involves deciding who should perform your scheduled maintenance. Although using in-house maintenance personnel has a number of benefits, there are many occasions in which an outside service company should be contacted. More times than not facilities use their maintenance and cleaning staff for the daily and weekly cleaning scheduled tasks and outsource to a third party vendor specializing in fitness equipment maintenance. Regardless, there are certain circumstances, such as warranty issues and major repair problems, which should be handled entirely by trained manufacturer technicians.

Make sure to do your due diligence when searching for an outside service contract. Pricing of service contracts, normally based on type and amount of exercise equipment, varies among vendors based upon a number of factors. Key points to look for in the service contract include the following:

Preventive maintenance schedule the vendor will follow, response time of vendor if a problem arises, costs of emergency visits, any hidden costs, whether or not they stock manufacturer's service parts, their parts pricing policy, documentation provided for service calls, and out clause in the service contract. Since they serve a crucial role in maintaining equipment function and decreasing liability risks, it is important to research each provider before signing a service contract. Make sure the provider has been in business a number of years and can submit a list of references. The company should be familiar with every piece of equipment within your facility, and should be factory-trained to work on your entire line. Finally, they should carry a minimum of $1 million in workers compensation insurance.

Your obligations do not end once the service contract is signed. It is the facility's responsibility to monitor service providers to make sure they are providing the services mentioned in the contract. Each visit by the provider should include a sign-in upon entering the facility, inspection of the work both during and after, and a sign-out, including paperwork of the service provided on that visit. Diligence in the way of monitoring the service contract will serve both as a second tier in liability reduction, and a year-end review of the service provider's performance.

Even the best preventative maintenance can't guard against equipment malfunctions however, with the proper system in place, down time of equipment can be drastically decreased. When a piece of equipment breaks down there is a specific order of events that should follow to ensure that the repair is managed in an efficient and timely manor. This is especially important if the fitness facility is small and there are limited pieces of equipment for your members use. In general, the equipment should immediately be placed out of service, information gathered to relay onto service provider/manufacturer, and simple troubleshooting performed to access whether the problem can be easily fixed. If not, then the outside service vendor should be contacted to schedule an appointment ASAP. One of the biggest complaints facing fitness facilities involves down-time of out-of-order fitness equipment. To help limit down-time of equipment, it is important to stock common wear items associated with the different pieces of equipment so that repairs can be performed without having to wait for parts. Parts should be from the specific manufacturers of the equipment.

With so many integral components it is easy to see that these tasks involve the integration of work tasks among different departments as well as outside vendors. In the hospitality industry these include the maintenance staff, housekeeping, and third party vendors. With proper integration among the different components and departments the maintenance program will maintain an environment that is safe, clean and cost-effective in terms of equipment upkeep.

Kurt Broadhag has over 16 years of experience in personal training and gym design. He is president of K Allan Consulting, a firm specializing in health club design and management. K Allan Consulting works in unison with property owners, architects, and interior designers to address fitness solutions and develop functional workout environments. The company specializes in two-dimensional and three-dimensional fitness facility renderings, consulting from conceptual design to final installation. Kurt obtained his LEED AP certification and has authored articles on green fitness center design. Mr. Broadhag can be contacted at 310-601-7768 or kbroadhag@kallanconsulting.com Extended Bio...

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