Question

A leading facilities management company wants to relocate an entire hospital building having 500 beds and 120 staff members to a newly growing city in Oman. Treating the hospital as a facility, suggest the suitable ideas for the following situations:

a. Suggest the most suitable space management concept to be used for this project, provide a minimum of four reasons for your choice and explain its details.

b. Construct a suitable navigation map showing a minimum of ten major amenities involved in the building.

c. Explain any four consequences for this building due to its high energy demand.

d. This building will have high power consumption. Explain the step by step procedure the facilities manager will carry out to lower its energy consumption.

e. Explain four reasons about why energy management procedures need to be adopted

in the hospital building.

   f. Suggest any six space ideas to improve the effectiveness of space management for this building

Answer 1

Ans(a) : Here as it is a hospital containing 500 beds which is a huge amount so grid space concept should be used here. Grid is mostly used at places where more elements are to be layed with proper alignment.

Benefits of grid layout here:

• Grid formation will make it easier for people to visit the patients and navigate through the information provided to them.
• There would be consistency in the design and no unwanted gathering or cloud will be there.
• Grid is one of the most efficient way as it would also allow us to add new content and design. Staff members can reach to their patients with more efficiency and speed.
• It is the most economical way to lay such a large number of beds and in these kind of structures economy is also considered parallel to the benefits.

Ans(b) : below is the navigation map of a hospital building containg 8 types of rooms and a waiting Hall and reception which sum up to 10 amenities. Navigation map helps to give direction.

Ans(c) : There will be some consequences in this building due to high energy demand and we should always work towards energy consumption to face less problems. The consequences are discussed below:

• More energy consumption can lead to electricity failure if there is sudden load some day. And failure of electricity may lead to various disasters in hospitals.
• The cost would be high for high energy consumption and due to that compromises in others fields have to be done regarding costs which may alter the safety and quality of the hospital.
• More energy consumption means more heat evaluation by the hospital which would not lead to the sustainable development and will not be regarded as facility of good terms.
• More energy consumption will require more staff to operate it and again it will tend towards high cost and reducing the staff where as this staff can be operated in other fields to help the patients rather than focusing on energy consumption and their repairing.

Ans(d) : Below are the steps that may be used by the facility management team to lower the energy consumption

• Computer systems should be shutdown when not in use as computers are one of the major source consuming energy.
• Red light bulbs should be used as they work more efficiently as compared to other bulbs in field of energy consumption.
• Equipments of good quality should be used and more electronic items should be preffered rather than electric items as the later ones consume more power.
• Any piece of equipment that produces heat can use a heat exchanger to help offset the heating need from HVAC equipment and by this less power will be consumed and transfer of energy will take place which will be more economical
• LED lights should be used following the trend in present as they consume only 10% of power as compared to the neon bulbs and cfl bulbs which were used in pasts.

Ans(e) : Energy management is to be used in hospitals as this may be of great use and would give many benefits to the management system. The benefits are to be discussed below :

• Energy consumption will lead to be economical running of the hospital and that money would be used in betterment of different things and other areas would be improved.
• Sustainable development will take place and nature would not be harmed and in return we people would only be benefitted and stay healthy if nature is maintained healthy.
• Comfort would be provided as the atmosphere would be good around and the patients, doctors as well as working staff would feel peacefull which may lead to better recovery of the patients.
• It would be an act of social activity as we are saving energy and due to that our nation and many other things are benefitted.

Ans(f) : Space ideas to improve effectiveness of this building

• Data of the building should be monitored so that a idea is obtained about which kind of person would require how much space and then would deal with space management.
• Creating a work environment that consists of modern thinking and due to that management skills will come out of cubicle and would help to maintain spaces in modern ways.
• A neighborhood should be build so that people closer to each other would know how to utilize the space and would combine to utilize and help in creating efficient planning.
• Vacancy rate and occupancy rate should be considered so that vacant spaces are being used and no space is ideal. By this work all the place in the building would be effective place and no ideal vacancy would be there.
• Different cabins should be made for different types of patients due to which there would be less gathering and staff would work with good efficiency and faster speed.
• Entrance and exit should be on opposite side due to which there is no crowd and it will help in maintaining the decorum of the building.