Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Dubai’s Iranian Hospital, has adopted a new dedicated kitchen mobile application from Dubai-based pioneering and technology-driven home maintenance specialist Hitches & Glitches (H&G), part of the Farnek Group, which is specifically designed to improve the uptime and lifespan of its 36 kitchen appliances.

H&G’s new mobile application, which was developed in-house by Farnek’s smart FM solutions company HITEK, supports maintenance teams so that they can create a maintenance record for each individual kitchen appliance or asset. Over time this identifies the extent and frequency of asset failure so that a predictive, preventative and corrective maintenance schedule can be set up.

With H&G’s support, which also includes quarterly planned preventative maintenance (PPM) services and reactive call outs, the hospital’s maintenance team 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 hospital management to reduce capital expenditure, as assets will have a longer life expectancy with regular maintenance and save money on urgent call outs.

Built in 1970, the Iranian Hospital was opened to public on 14th April 1972 and was the first health care provider in Jumeirah. The hospital cares for over 1,200 outpatients daily from more than 182 countries and in total, the hospital has 184 premium beds, 10 VIP suites, 11 ICU and 10 CCU beds as well as 24 beds for pediatric care.

The hospital offers room service which is available 24 hours per day for inpatients. Specialized menus for specific diets are prepared and screened individually by experienced dieticians. Guest trays are also available upon request.

“Given the 24/7 demand for catering, it is essential that any downtime is kept to an absolute minimum and predictive maintenance is clearly essential. Using advanced technology such as our kitchen app, supports the hospital’s technicians, to maintain their kitchen equipment in an efficient and cost-effective way,” said Zohaib Azhar, Director of Operations at Hitches & Glitches.

“Moreover, management can work out the actual cost of a particular asset over its working life. So, comparisons can be made between cheaper and more expensive equipment, including additional maintenance costs to ascertain the most cost-effective and efficient procurement policy,” added Azhar.

H&G decided to develop its kitchen application because generally the market 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.

In general, H&G technicians 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.

One striking USP of the H&G kitchen app, is that it uses a series of problem codes for all critical equipment. These codes then correspond to a particular call out priority level to attend, contain and rectify an asset failure. Customers can even track the time stamp on the work order, which can be attached to before and after images, to provide a comparative record and benchmark efficiency.

Currently H&G has multiple Annual Maintenance Contracts (AMC) valued at over AED 600,000, covering kitchens in hospitals, universities, independent restaurants, hotels and specialist retail confectionary outlets.

For more information, please visit www.hitchesglitches.com.