Editorial

Citation

Finch, E. (2008), "Editorial", Facilities, Vol. 26 No. 11/12. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2008.06926kaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Facilities, Volume 26, Issue 11/12

Research and development is not a term that is often put alongside facilities management (FM). For the private sector, the driving concern in FM is that best practice is applied within an organisation. This ensures that the organisation conforms to health and safety, sustainability, procurement or data handling legislation among others. Another approach when moving beyond the minimum legislative constraints is to use benchmarking.

However, a growing number of organisations are beginning to realise that FM can provide a strategic advantage that sets their organisation apart from the competition. In the paper written by Thomke (2003) in the Harvard Business Review he argues that service companies have long suffered from a haphazard approach to innovation. This accusation could also be applied to facilities management as a service discipline. However, Thomke (2003) also points out that the absence of R&D is to some extent a result of the intangible nature of “services”. It is not possible to isolate FM in a laboratory. Invariably, the FM offering is tailored to individual users (consumers) and exists only in the moment of its delivery. This is certainly true of “soft FM” and is a feature which distinguishes it from “hard FM” which has a tangible asset (the building) associated with it.

So the reality is, to be useful, FM in soft services needs to be conducted live – with real customers or building users. Taking this path, one immediately loses all possibilities of experimental control. However, just such an approach was used by Bank of America in 1999 when the CEO demanded a fresh approach to service development and delivery. Through their Innovation and Development (I&D) team they designed 20 different branches in Atlanta using three different configurations (traditional, express and financial centres). When conducting the experiments they followed a strict stepwise innovation process. This process of learning through experiment has reaped significant benefits for the Bank of America with an unprecedented surge of creative thinking about branch banking, as demonstrated by the numerous innovative proposals for service experiments as well as the establishment of three robust solutions for models of physical branches.

Publications in FM that attempt to apply experimental principles are rare. The contents of this issue illustrate some of the advantages to be gained from careful experimental design. The challenge remains for facilities management practitioners to recognise the possibilities of true R&D, going beyond simple benchmarking towards true innovation in “soft FM”.

Edward Finch