Hospitality & Service Management Expert Group | ZHAW Institute of Facility Management IFM

Team

all team members

Our topics

Our Expert Group researches and works on topics in the context of hospitality and service management. The focus is on stakeholder-centric management of services, for example in healthcare organisations, gastronomic businesses and hotels. In collaboration with our research partners, we examine research questions and develop systematic approaches. With our business partners, we analyze problems, develop practicable solutions and support their implementation. Our customers and partners are businesses and institutions of any size.

Research and development

The group's applied research and development activities focus on the development or enhancement of processes and methods, and on FM-related strategic issues in a whole-business context, taking into account demographic, economic and regulatory developments, and their impact on companies and the services they provide.

Consultancy and services

The group offers its clients a comprehensive range of services; it not only evaluates operational processes within companies in the capacity of an independent expert, but also provides strategic consultancy services and works together with its clients to develop proposals for improvements and implementation-ready solutions. We collaborate closely with the IFM's other Expert Groups as well as the remaining ZHAW Institutes and other universities.

Teaching

The group's teaching approach combines theory with applied practice on the basis of scientifically proven knowledge. Its courses cover theoretical and management-related findings as well as the technical and mathematical skills which the hospitality and service managers of the future will need. The following courses are offered to BSc and MSc students: Food Service Processes and Management, Value Creation (strategy development, event management, accommodation and business plans), Textile and Cleaning Management and Procurement Management. The group also passes on strategic findings from its research projects in the field of healthcare and consumer FM.

Focal points

Digital Transformation for FM in HC

The digital transformation of non-medical services in healthcare organisations will play a crucial role in the years to come. The Hospitality & Service Management Expert Group researches this topic with a holistic and interdisciplinary approach all the way to specific impacts and measures for Facility Management. In a first step, the strategic need for action for digitalisation in healthcare organisations was examined. The resulting Innosuisse project Digital Competence for Healthcare (DC4HC), had the goal to develop a digital maturity model for the assessment of non-medical support processes.

Service Robotics & Technology

Service robots and technologies are currently being developed at a rapid pace. With its focus on hospitality and service provision, the competence group is involved in national and international further development together with researchers from a wide range of disciplines (see e.g.): RobotCare - user experience in the development of service robots for geriatric care, implementation of service robots in Swiss hospitals and hotels, technologization in retirement and nursing homes, flexibilization of catering services in APHs with the help of technology.

Food Services in Healthcare Organisations / Food for Care

The provision of food and beverages plays a major role in healthcare organisations and care homes. Our team addresses the topic in a number of ways, e. g. concerning challenges and solutions for catering in care and nursing homes, in the context of the use of technology to make catering services in care homes more flexible, with new concepts for patient hospitality and staff culinary on the strategic and tactical level, the digitalisation of catering (project DIGINUT), in researching approaches to data-driven decision support in hospital gastronomy.

Benchmarking in the healthcare sector: Hotel business and technical facility management

Benchmarking in the healthcare sector is carried out in the hotel business with catering and cleaning as well as technical facility management the surveys and evaluations are carried out annually and cover around 50 healthcare institutions from the acute hospital, rehabilitation clinic, psychiatry and care home sectors.

Professional Project Management in Healthcare Organisations

We are engaged in the development of project management and project-oriented procedures in healthcare organisations, e. g. in the context of the spm project management association's specialist group PM in Healthcare Organisations.

Reference Model for Non-medical Support Services in Hospitals

In order to illustrate complex interconnections of FM in HC in a clear manner, the Reference Model for Non-medical Support Services in Hospitals [RemoS] was developed in collaboration with four hospitals and three partners in industry. The model shows the connections between the result-oriented services in the Service Catalogue for Non-Medical Support Services in Hospitals [LekaS], the underlying processes [PromoS], the related key performance indicators (parameters) [KenkaS] and the corresponding software applications [ApplikaS]. The Reference Model is the basis for the Guideline to use SAP for Facility Management in Healthcare [LesapS] and the IT-supported Assessment, Simulation and Benchmarking Tool for Facility Management in Healthcare [ASBT-FM].

Our projects

As part of the reorganization of the research database, the previous lists of research projects are no longer available. Die Zukunft geht in Richtung Volltextsuche und Filterung, um bestmögliche Suchergebnisse für unsere Besucher:innen zur Verfügung zu stellen.
In the meantime, you can easily find the projects via text search using the following link: «To the new search in the project database»

Our publications

Wang, Xuan Lorna; Han, Dai-In Danny; Merkle, Thorsten; Ossola, Paola; Swanger, Nancy; Xu, Tracy,

2024.

Silver Economy and Hospitality 4 Good.

In:

41st Annual European Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (EuroCHRIE) Conference, Doha, Qatar, 4-7 November 2024.
Merkle, Thorsten,

2024.

Stellenwert Hotellerie.

In:

4. Schweizer Hotellerie-Symposium im Gesundheitswesen, Suhr, Schweiz, 22. Oktober 2024.
Merkle, Thorsten; Han, Dai-In; Ossola, Paola; Swanger, Nancy; Wang, Lorna,

2024.

Creating an ICHRIE Special Interest Group (SIG) for the field of “Hospitality Management in Senior Living and Care”.

In:

International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (ICHRIE) Global Conference, Montreal, Canada, 24-26 July 2024.
Merkle, Thorsten; Pfenninger, Mirjam,

2024.

Using AI in business model development at Masters’ level – findings from a preliminary study in Switzerland [poster].

In:

International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (ICHRIE) Global Conference, Montreal, Canada, 24-26 July 2024.

ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften.

Available from: https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-31181
Sandamirskaya, Yulia; Gerber, Nicole,

2024.

Robotik für Heime – was ist möglich, was nötig?.

In:

9. Fachkonferenz – Das Pflegeheim der Zukunft, Blezinger Healthcare, Interlaken, Schweiz, 20.-21. Juni 2024.