How to Receive Hotel FF&E Shipments
Your team’s ability to receive FF&E products during your hotel’s renovation or new construction is critical to your project’s success. You need the delivered items to complete your project, so you must take the steps necessary to ensure the product is received on time, in sequence, and intact. In this post, you’ll learn what hotel owners and developers can do during the receiving phase of FF&E to prevent costly project bottlenecks.
Why is Receiving Important?
Receiving products efficiently and sequentially is the backbone of the installation process. After all, you can’t install items that haven’t yet arrived or been unloaded, and it can be difficult or impossible to receive new FF&E if you’re behind on installation! All the received products must be installed on a schedule, whether for the contractor, sub-contractor, operations team, or FF&E department. And if the schedule runs off course, this can interrupt or delay installations and the receiving of new shipments, which pushes back your project’s completion date. It’s a vicious cycle once it starts!
When it comes to receiving, timing is critical.
How to Ensure Receiving Success
There are four keys to successful receiving:
1.) Know what you’re receiving.
It’s important to know what you’re receiving and which phase of the project you’re in. For example, are you still receiving products for the contractors or sub-contractors? Are you still in the installation stage for flooring, vinyl, tile, or plumbing?
2.) Know when you’re receiving it.
Be aware of scheduled deliveries so you can plan ahead and notify the appropriate people. That way, they can execute the proper unloading and storage procedures. When you receive a product, it has to make sense sequentially in the scope of the overall project. Otherwise, you may be stuck with a delivery truck that you can’t unload, product with no space to store it, or no scheduled team to install it.
3.) Know who is responsible for receiving it.
With so many moving pieces, communication is key. A specific person needs to “own” receiving a delivery, whether it’s a contractor, manager, or FF&E person. Ensure that you have a point person who is accountable for anything regarding that delivery before, during, and after. This is to avoid being unprepared and getting hit with pricey detention fees, but also to respect the time of your team and their schedules.
4.) Know how it’s being received.
Often, people will know what they’re receiving in a general sense, but not how they’re receiving it when it comes to specifics. This becomes especially problematic when the items are large and/or heavy. For example, it’s helpful to know that you’re receiving ten pallets that are 4 feet by 4 feet stacked to determine the equipment needed to unload, lift, and move the products into an adequate storage space. If a product is heavy and floor-loaded, different equipment will be necessary. By the way, certain FF&E items don’t arrive on pallets.
Logistics and planning are required to ensure the proper equipment is present on specific receiving days. If the equipment isn’t on-site, the product won’t be able to be unloaded. Talk about frustrating!
Your FF&E Team
Innvision can manage all these things so you don’t have to. Part of our preparation is opening up communication channels with everyone on your team involved in receiving and installing products, so the “who,” “what,” “when,” and “how” of your project’s receiving is planned out and executed as flawlessly as possible.
Teamwork is essential; we’re experienced and can anticipate the needs and issues of your team. We ask the right questions and keep in touch, so all parties are well-prepared to receive their products before the trucks arrive.
You can incur unexpected costs quickly during a hotel construction or renovation, and delays are already a concern in the industry due to shortages in materials and labor. Innvision helps you avoid unnecessary costs and delays with rigorous planning and stellar communication. With Innvision as a partner, you can complete your project quickly while maintaining the quality you expect. To learn more about how Innvision can make your next hotel design project a success, reach out today!
