Editorial

Citation

Lavy PhD, S. (2013), "Editorial", Facilities, Vol. 31 No. 5/6. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2013.06931eaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Facilities, Volume 31, Issue 5/6

This issue of Facilities presents six papers that focus on the value that facility management offers to owners, tenants, construction professionals, consumers, building users, and other constituents of the built environment.

MacDonald, Walker, and Moussa discuss the premise that lowest cost does not necessarily correspond with best value for money. The paper raises an interesting question: “how could an optimum framework model be configured that would assist all project alliance participants to ensure and demonstrate the achievement of Best Value?”. Their research included the analysis of case studies, multiple face-to-face interviews, the Delphi approach web-based survey, and a participative action learning approach. The findings confirmed the value of a collaborative procurement approach and the long-term benefits it offers throughout the entire process. It also stresses that early contractor involvement with the design consultants and with the project owner or his representatives may result in achieving high quality, cost-, and time-effective projects.

Mohd Tobi, Amaratunga, and Mohd Noor examine a debate that has gone on since the 1970s spanning four FM generations. They build a theoretical argument for social enterprise applications in an urban facility management setting through the examination of the values of urban FM. An extensive literature review of the relationship between urban FM and social enterprise principles was conducted. The study found that urban FM is an emerging concept which can be used to develop a sustainable design for managing community facilities operations through the development of a new service delivery model that meets the needs of social enterprise.

A paper by Adeyeye, Piroozfar, Rosenkind, Winstanley, and Pegg deals with post-occupancy evaluation of the impact that design decisions have on the operation, routine maintenance and management of school buildings. The research included data that was obtained from a 13-member steering group (stakeholder forum) comprising of a sample of primary and secondary school representatives, local authority representatives and building professionals. The factors identified by this steering group promote the understanding of the impact of design decisions on post-occupancy processes. As a result, the authors reported on the development of a post-occupancy process model to capture the complexity of design decision-making in school buildings. This paper presents the first steps of establishing the process model, which should be further expanded in the next phases of the study.

Yu and Shen present the concept of Requirements Management (RsM) and discuss the need for implementation of a RsM structured framework in the construction industry. The research method was based on data collected from case-studies and semi-structured interviews with professionals from four construction projects in Hong Kong. The study discovered that the main source of issues with Requirements Management has been lack of communication between the client and the construction manager. Misunderstanding and misinterpretation of clients’ demands is crucial; otherwise, the project’s goals are not met. One of the major conclusions from this paper is the need to get the “end-user” involved in the design process. By doing so, it maximizes communication effectiveness between clients, designers, and the construction company. Taking their input and implementing that into the design, ultimately, makes a happier client.

A paper by Khare aims to gain perspective on the way hedonic and utilitarian shopping values impact how Indian consumers define customer service value. Opinions from customers of small retail stores in four Northern cities in India were collected. The study suggests that consumers prefer the ability to shop at a local store where they know and trust the owner and can socialize with their friends. There is limited research on what Indian customers perceive about retail service quality, as well as little research on examining their ideas towards retailers’ quality attributes. These days, when large corporations are gaining traction in the Indian retail market, it is important for them to understand the experience values of Indian consumers.

Service quality and customer satisfaction are two factors that have a significant effect on businesses. A paper by Hui, Zhang, and Zheng discusses and critics the current methods of facility management around a “cost” value approach. In addition, it brings to the surface the customer aspect of FM in shopping malls. The performance of FM service has been studied in a longitudinal, five-year survey of all tenants of five large shopping malls with similar characteristics in Hong Kong. One major lesson from this paper is that businesses hiring customer-driven facility management groups receive higher customer satisfaction rates. In a consumer market, like shopping malls, this needs to be a primary focus for an owner.

Sarel Lavy PhDCo-Editor