Guest editorial

Citation

Shiem-Shin Then, D. and Hinks, J. (2003), "Guest editorial", Facilities, Vol. 21 No. 10. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2003.06921jaa.001

Guest editorial

Following a successful run of symposia in Singapore (1998) and Brisbane (2000), the CIB Working Commission for Facilities Management and Asset Maintenance (CIB W070) held its 2002 symposium in Glasgow on 18-20 September 2002. The symposium's theme was "Exploring the global knowledge base on facilities management, workplaces, and asset maintenance management". The selected papers, most of which appear in this issue, represent the best of the excellent international commentary on the state of art and priority themes in these fields, and the breadth of perspectives that the symposium covered. All the papers in this issue were short-listed for the 2002 Facilities best paper award.

One of the key issues for the evolution of the FM profession is the development of its research base. And a pivotal issue for this is the requirement for robust evidence to support the case for the impact of FM on business. Price et al. present their findings from some research on the impact of facilities on student choice of university. Considering the critical impacts of facilities on the university, and discussing the relationship between aspects such as reputational pull and facilities pull, they note a range of facilities factors that affect the "pull" of universities for prospective students – for example (and as they note, rather unsurprisingly) accommodation, also learning and teaching facilities. They discuss a number of sub-factors and other differentiating issues that affect the impact of facilities in different university contexts.

Continuing with the issue of making an impact on the business, the topic of strategic client briefing is at the heart of the call for facilities managers to be involved in the whole life cycle of facilities. Smith et al. report on the development of a strategic needs analysis approach for use in the briefing phase of projects. The authors have developed workshop tools to allow high level strategic issues such as management commitment, stakeholder participation, and group dynamics. They conclude that such approaches are only tenable in an overall strategic culture and climate that reviews its score and related activities continually, thereby posing the challenge for continual involvement of FM in the core strategic process.

A second university-focused context appears in Gerard Cesar Gabriel's paper, where he considers the issue of decentralising asset management by using Web-enabled technology. Considering the scope of decentralised asset management as a means of empowering local ownership and accountability for built assets, he notes this enhances the scope to correlate asset management with the local context of the business aims of the organisation. However, as the author observes, such localisation serves to emphasise the criticality of data capture and management, and best practice management.

Staying with the context of focussing management on the business context, Paul Dettwiler and Jan Bröchner (whose chosen paper has already appeared in Vol. 21 No. 3/4 of Facilities) report on a study they have been undertaking on how growth companies actually manage their space needs – an area where the facilities dimensions have received little focus to date. Working from a study on six growth companies in western Sweden, they note that as growth companies expand from the entrepreneurial to managerial phase, usually involving relocation, the move tends to involve multi-site operations, and that there is a reluctance to deal with spatial needs through remote work – which they postulate may be driven by concerns over control and/or security.

Igal Shohet (whose chosen paper appeared previously in Vol. 21 No. 1/2 of Facilities) has tackled the relatively complex issue of identifying key performance indicators for the maintenance of hospital buildings, and in his paper reports on research to quantify the effects of users, building characteristics and systems on the performance and maintenance of hospital buildings. The key factors that emerged are integrated in a model for the analysis of performance and maintenance state of hospital buildings. The author notes that it is important to now refine the modelling of the effect of occupancy rate on the rate of deterioration, and also of building surroundings on maintenance.

In their paper, Fong et al. look at the issue of energy management. They discuss the development of an evolutionary algorithm and its integration with a simulation programme to allow the energy aspects of mechanical ventilation and air conditioning to be optimised. This extends the use of simulation beyond its conventional application to design into the use phase, and offers scope for feedback analysis of data and optimisation philosophies for in-use versus the assumptions made at design stage. Clearly there is also scope for re-optimisation if needs profiles change.

The papers presented at the symposium represent a bubbling of increasingly integrative issues, and the convergence between asset maintenance management, workplace and facilities management themes. A suite of priority issues and hot topics for the future agenda for cooperative research within the CIB W070 membership emerged. Coming from the symposium as a whole was a clear call for cooperative research activity, to garner synergies from existing research and expertise, consolidate the knowledge base and coordinate the international research faculty. As a result special interest groups have been established for:

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  building conservation (contact David Lawrence at: lawre122@msu.edu);

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  health care facilities management (contact Igal Shohet at: ishohet@techunix.technion.ac.il);

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  facilities/asset performance – measurements and management (contact John Hinks at: J.Hinks@caber.org.uk or Danny Then at: bessthen@polyu.edu.hk);

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  asset management and maintenance systems (contact Danny Then at: bessthen@polyu.edu.hk or Keith Jones at: K.G.Jones@greenwich.ac.uk);

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  building techniques in renewal and refurbishment (contact Russell Kenley at: rkenley@unitec.ac.nz or Elzbieta Trocka-Leszczynska at: etl@arch.wroc.pl);

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  workplace design and implementation issues (contact Bob Grimshaw at: Robert.Grimshaw@uwe.ac.uk or Marie Cecile Puybaraud at: Marie.Puybaraud@uwe.ac.uk); and

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  mapping knowledge about building defects and solutions (contact Kenji Motohashi at: ken-moto@kenken.go.jp or John Hinks at: J.Hinks@caber.org.uk)

Please contact us for complete sets of the proceedings for CIB W70 2002 or 2000. The next W070 symposium is due to take place 10-12 May 2004, in Michigan. For further details contact Dr David Lawrence on: lawre122@msu.edu

Danny Shiem-Shin ThenJohn HinksJoint Coordinator of CIB W70