Abstract
The bodywise health spa has developed a floor plan in which it wants to use for setting up a spa. In a bid to assess the problematic areas, this report delves into assessing the floor plan by first evaluating the proximity of departments with regard to their relationship, and then analysing the plan with regard to accommodating clients with diverse health disparities.
Thus, I was able to identify the problematic areas, namely, limited space within the corridors and lack of proximity between related departments. However, I managed to come up with recommendations for improvement. The first recommendation involved making sure that the health spa floor plan is in accord with the legal requirements of spas.
The second recommendation involved identifying ways in which the floor plan integrates all departments to a point where the dynamic process of work is recognized. The third recommendation involved coming up with a reliable communication system with the community to ensure that the needs of clients with diverse health disparities are met. This information sheds light on how to come up with an effective and efficient floor plan for the bodywise health spa.
Introduction
The word “spa” is a term used to describe health and wellness, as it takes into account factors that contribute to health on a wide point of view. Spa has a relationship with health and wellness in the sense that it encompasses healing of not only the physical health but also the psychological health (Johnson 2008: 31). With the high increase of spas globally, one key question remains: what strategic operations do spas employ for client satisfaction and profit maximization?
However, a number of aspects contribute to the success of spas. These include committed staff, sufficient and efficient therapy equipments, and good managerial practice, among others. People tend to overlook the floor plan, but it is evident that the size and the design of a floor plan play a crucial role on provision of quality therapy in a spa (Bodeker & Cohen 2008: 56). This paper will provide a report on operations management of a health spa known as bodywise health spa, which is owned by a multi-millionaire Swiss architect. I will analyse the floor plan, identifyand definethe problematic areas of itsplan, and then provide recommendation for improvement.
Report
Traffic Flow and Surface Allocation
The ultimate goal of the bodywise health spa is to offer its clients with an overall experience of reducing health disparities amongst the members of Swiss community while maintaining a more productive staff in the spa. The health spa aims at providing a more realistic, achievable, and unique experience to its clients.
In turn, this would ensure that it remains competitive at any particular time of the year. According to D’angelo (2010:64), for a health spa to attract customers, it is obligated to use the best products, and it should havea luxurious and elegant environment that has appropriate ventilation and lighting. However, this can only be achieved by coming up with a carefully thought floor plan that would ensure a smooth traffic flow within the spa.
Thus, managers who are sensitive to the needs of the clients characterize the bodywise health spa. In this case, the health spa plans to employ a number of employees who will help to escort the guests to various rooms of the spa. Given that the spa will be constructed in a city with flourishing businesses, the rate of client turnover is expected to be high.
For this reason, the traffic flow of the spa will be controlled by the fact that the incoming clients will not mix with the outgoing clients.More over, the paths used by guests, according to the plan,are distinguished from the paths used by workers in a bid to create a smooth traffic flow.
However, the bodywise health spa has allocated more space for treatment rooms, leaving the clients with inadequate waiting rooms. The waiting room, the changing room, thecorridors, and the linen store have a very small floor allocation, with each department being allocated 8m2, while the Jacuzzi and sauna have a very big floor allocation, with each area being allocated 24m2.
Owing to the fact that this spa is small, the floor allocation for non-income generating departments should supersede the floor allocation for the treatment areas (Sanderfoot 2003:214). However, the surface allocation for the income generating areas has been based on the amount of time each client takes in the treatment area, the number of workers in the treatment area, and the number of equipments and facilities within the treatment area.
Identification of Problematic areas at the Bodywise Health Spa
Recent statistics from Coyle Hospital Group (2011) indicate that a significant increase in spas visits, as at the month of June this year, stems from improved technological features of the spas. However, despite the improvements, health spas are faced with a number of issues, which they have to contend with in order to prosper.
The problematic areas within the bodywise health spa include developing a plan that takes due diligence on effective and efficient relationship between the various departments and developing a plan that can help to exercise vigilance while handling clients with diverse health disparities.
Even though the bodywise health spa accommodates modernistic features, adequate space for attaining a smooth traffic flowis not available. For instance, the floor plan has located the dirty linen store away from the laundry and the changing room away from the Jacuzzi instead of locating them close to each other.
Additionally, handling of diverse health disparities within the Swiss community is a problem within the floor plan,because the health spa will face a challenge while delivering services to clients with disabilities due to lack of spacious corridors and waiting rooms (Lovelock et al. 2009:67).
Recommendations for Improvements
Health spas offer a wide range of services and contain many functional units; hence, their building structures are more complex as compared to ordinary buildings (Sanderfoot & Bartlett 2003:133). In this case, the bodywise health spa contains a number of structures, including product dispensary, cuisine rooms, clean linen store, and soiled linen store, among others.
Even though the bodywise health spa has enough treatment facilities, I would recommend the health spa policies to be congruent with the FGI guidelines for design and construction of a spa. These guidelines stipulate that the healthcare providers, including the health spas, should employ qualified design professionals in the design and construction of the facilities and floor plan (Wisnom & Capozio 2012: 197).
The FGI guidelines recommend that the spa should be characterized by enough space for treatment functions, as well as enough facilities for support. Owing to the fact that the FGI guidelines call for enough space at any given time, the bodywise health spa should not only take space consideration on the floor plan for now but also for the future, as this would guarantee sustainability of the spa over the coming years. Space consideration, though, can be improved significantly through plan attributes.
The plan attributes for a spa should promote clients’ efficiency. This can be achieved through minimizing the distance traveled between the frequently used equipments. A research conducted in a local spa shows that the distance between equipments in spas should be small to ensure quick attention of clients (Beck & Beck 2006:214).
More so, the spa should build a therapists station in a manner that facilitates visual supervision of their clients. In this case, the therapist can see the patient from his/her station and take corrective measure, especially while handling patients with disability.
While reviewing the floor plan for the bodywise health spa, it came to my attention that the plan does not have enough space to accommodate the disabled people; thus, it posses a challenge for the disabled clients while awaiting treatment. This emanates from the fact that the corridors, the waiting rooms, and the sidewalks are not wide enough to accommodate diversity of clients.
In this regard, the corridors, waiting rooms, and the sidewalks should be in a position of accommodating all patients and should be wide enough to accommodate slow people who are in need of therapy because, in doing so, the health spa will create an overall reputable image that would facilitate repeat business.
The bodywise should also improve on the connectivity between the treatment rooms and corridors, as they facilitate income generation. Thus, the circulation of people and products should be controlled to a point where the paths and corridors used by the customers and workers are distinguished, and the departments that are closely related should be adjacent to each other, as shown in figure A below.
However, the workers of the bodywise health spa should use the paths meant for clients in a bid to check whether there is a possibility for an accident such as presence of slippery floor. Such assessment should form the basis for taking further corrective measures towards improving the development of floor plan of the spa with regard to safety measures.
Figure A
Developing a Plan of Action and Execution to Experience
A number of guidelines characterize effective building of structures of a spa. However, the guidelines adopted should make sure that all the facilities incorporated in the spa are efficient and cost effective. The building structures should ensure that it offers the administrative roles, therapeutic roles, as well as take into account the financial status of the spa. The building consultant should keep the efficiency and cost effectiveness guideline in mind when designing the floor plan of the spa.
In this case, it is imperative to note that the income generating departments have a negative relationship with the non-income generating departments with regard to space requirement. This means that anincome-generating department, such as sauna, necessitates bigger allocation than a non-income generating departments, such as waiting rooms, in cases where the treatment areas are not large enough (Sanderfoot 2003:214).
In order for a spa to fulfill its functions, its configuration should be determined by the relationship between departments and the culture of the targeted clients (Bodeker & Cohen 2008: 267). The spa management should be able to assess how the non income generating departments, which includecorridors, dirty linen store, laundry, products and clean linen store, bathroom room, and the changing room, impact on the income generating departments, which include the hospitality department, Jacuzzi, and sauna.
With this in mind, the floor plan of the bodywise health spa should not be based on isolating the income generating departments from the non-income generating departments; instead, proximity should be based on the relationship between the income-generating department and the non income-generating department, because this facilitates an efficient workflow(Leibrock 2001:176).
The other plan of action includes ensuring that the floor plan of the bodywise health spa accommodates clients from all lifestyles appropriately, including the physically disabled clients. This can be achieved by facilitating information exchange to the Swiss community through the company’s website.
Information exchange is crucial while designing a floor plan for a spa because it facilitates interaction between the bodywise health spa and the community concerning details of their special requirements (Williams & Buswell 2003: 103). In turn, this ensures a long lasting market since it helps the clients to receive enough space with regard to their health disparities and to receive unique products and services that are of high quality standards.
Conclusion/Summary
An effective floor plan for a spa should ensure that it is able to accommodate facilities with modernistic features. However, the space allocation for these facilities should provide a smooth workflow environment with regard to clients as well as the workers. The allocation of departments should be based on the relationship between diverse departments, the size of the treatment areas, and the expected rate of clients’ turnover, and more so, the floor plan should incorporate the needs of clients from all lifestyles in Swiss.
When efficient and effective guidelines are incorporated with spa’s floor plan, it becomes easy to provide a peaceful therapeutic environment to the clients. This does not only provide a smooth traffic flow but also provides an avenue for maintaining cleanliness and security within the spa. Therefore, it is right to conclude that an efficient and effective floor plan ensures that the spa promotes health through provision of quality therapy on short-term and long-term basis.
List of References
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Coyle Hospital Group. 2011. Guest Service Measurement and Analysis [online]. Retrieved from https://www.coylehospitality.com/2011-global-spa-report/
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