Lean apartment management system

Abstract

The objective of this study is to eliminate wastes in serviced apartment management process. The serviced apartment chosen as a case study is located in metropolis area of Bangkok. The apartment is run as a family business providing daily and monthly rental. After running apartment for years, the management process is more complicated than expectation. The Lean Principle is adopted to eliminate wastes, simplify process, increase management performance and customer satisfaction. Firstly, literature, research, and relevant study are review. Next, to identify wastes in front office and housekeeping, observation and investigation are applied in 3 fields of the apartment process; resource allocation, working activities, and information flow. Then, a 4-star hotel and a 4-star resort are benchmarking. Next, the Lean Apartment Management System is designed and implemented in the apartment by adopting the Production Operations Transition-To-Lean Roadmap introduced by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Furthermore, lean tools and techniques are implemented in the study. As a result, the organization has eliminated 195 wastes in process from 196 waste; reduced leadtime from 207 minutes to 47 minutes with 24 minutes takt time; saved workforce budget 232,200 baht per year; empowered customer skills; guaranteed service quality assurance; created lean culture; and dramatically increased internal and external customer satisfaction. The customer satisfaction increases in overall front office service 27.1%; and 39.9% in housekeeping service.