The app is specifically designed to improve operational efficiency and lifespan of commercial kitchen equipment – 90% of kitchen assets have no dedicated maintenance record
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dubai-based innovative and technology-driven home maintenance specialist Hitches & Glitches (H&G), part of the Farnek Group, has launched a dedicated mobile application, that is specifically designed to improve the uptime and lifespan of commercial kitchen equipment.
Busy restaurants cannot afford any downtime in their kitchens, especially during high demand periods. If a particular appliance does fail, it is critical for the restaurant manager and the chef, to have it back in service as soon as possible.
So, H&G decided to develop a kitchen application because generally the market currently uses many Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM), applications which were originally designed for Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) asset management. However, there was no specific application for individual kitchen appliances and other assets.
“We found that 90% of assets in commercial kitchens did not have an individual maintenance record, making it extremely difficult to ascertain how long a particular appliance has been in service and virtually impossible to predict how efficiently it would perform in the future.”
“With this new mobile application, maintenance teams can create a maintenance record for each individual appliance or asset. Over time this will identify the number and frequency of asset failure so that predictive, preventative and corrective maintenance schedules can be set up. Similar assets can also be benchmarked,” said Zohaib Azhar, Head of Operations at Hitches & Glitches.
H&G maintenance teams will now be able to assess the life expectancy of kitchen assets and identify any under maintenance as well as over maintenance scheduling. That will help restaurant owners and managers to reduce capital expenditure, as assets will have a longer life expectancy with regular maintenance and save money on urgent call outs.
Furthermore, restaurant managers can work out the actual cost of a particular asset over its working life. So, a cheaper brand can be compared with say a more expensive brand, then add in the maintenance costs to see which model was more cost-efficient.
Currently H&G has multiple Annual Maintenance Contracts (AMC) covering kitchens in hospitals, universities, independent restaurants, hotels and specialist retail confectionary outlets.
“What really sets this app apart from anything else on the market is that we have created specific kitchen equipment problem codes for all critical assets, every issue has a call out priority level to attend, contain and rectify an asset failure. Customers can track the time stamp on the work order, which can be attached to before and after images,” added Azhar.
