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Practicing Muslims pray five times a day during specified periods. Hence, public buildings in many Muslim-majority countries tend to have prayer facilities. These facilities are typically gender-segregated. Unfortunately, for a long time, the main focus for the design of these facilities has been on the male facilities. As a result, many female users suffer from using facilities that are not safe, hygienic or comfortable. Part of the reason is the lack of guidelines that help designers provide a facility that satisfies the needs of female users. This paper aims to address this problem with a focus on prayer facilities that are in public buildings and not in mosques.

The paper offers design guidelines that are based on interviews with female users, analysis of well-designed female prayer facilities, observations of users’ behavior, feedback from users on previously developed guidelines that are shared with male prayer facilities, and relevant religious rulings.

The guidelines address the location of the facility, the zoning and circulation and the design considerations for the prayer space, as well as the reception area and the ablution space. It also recommends a design for an ablution unit that better fits female users. Finally, the paper analyzes an existing design for a female prayer facility in a shopping mall and shows how a change in the design based on this paper’s recommended guidelines can achieve better safety, hygiene and comfort for female users.

The paper focus is new and should trigger the discussion on this aspect of facilities design where needed.

Drawing on recent research related to hospital facilities, this paper aims to discuss the role of evidence‐based design in facility planning and design as a key element in helping the field of facility planning and management continue to strengthen professional practice.

The discussion draws on relevant literature and recent research.

Evidence‐based design is having a major impact on planning and design of hospital facilities, and can play a similar role for other facility types.

Calls for evidence‐based design for healthcare facilities abound. This paper discusses important issues surrounding the implementation of an evidence‐based design approach that need to be considered for this approach to be successful in all types of facilities.

The efficiency and effectiveness of hospital emergency rooms depend on the effectiveness of the information and communication system as well as on the physical facility itself. Describes the role of information technology in the design of contemporary ER systems. A computerized information board is one system that can enhance the operation of an ER facility. Describes the structure of this system, as well as its integration with other computerized systems. Also describes design features that may help to reduce ER delays/frustration. Because many types of professionals are involved in the daily operations of an ER facility, their input to the design is essential. For this reason, also describes a group decision‐making process.

Integrating the aspects of sustainability into facilities design has become a designers’ challenge, and the early design phase is seen as the most important in implementing sustainability into facilities design. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the factors that influence sustainability assessment of preliminary design of facilities and predicts sustainability assessment depending on those factors.

Data were collected by survey questionnaire distributed to project managers using a six-point Likert scale. Obtained data were modeled with general regression neural network (GRNN) using DTREG software. In total, 27 factors were chosen for determining the most accurate predictive model, and their importance was computed.

The six most important factors for sustainability assessment of facilities design are: work experience, work on several outline design proposals, resolving issues between stakeholders, prioritization of participants in the design phase, procurement management and defining projects’ program and goals. The predictive model that was used for prediction of the sustainability assessment was shown to be highly accurate, with MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) amounting to 2.58 per cent.

Using the same approach, assessment of every other factor for the preliminary design can be predicted and the factors that are most influential to its sustainability can be obtained.

The paper supports the sustainability improvement of the preliminary design of future facilities’ projects, as well as support during the decision-making process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current practices of the early facilities management (FM) involvement during the design development and review stages (DDRS), and recommend activities aimed at achieving better integration.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to ascertain the challenges faced by the integrated design team (IDT) in the absence of the facilities managers’ review of design solutions, and underscore the significance of the early involvement of facilities managers during the DDRS. A questionnaire survey was then developed for collecting data on eight aspects of the current practices of early FM involvement during the DDRS. The questionnaire survey was administered to the FM departments of 13 long established, public universities in Saudi Arabia. Ten responses were obtained and analyzed.

The findings suggest that the early involvement of the FM department enhances the operation and maintenance of facilities. This has been measured through reductions in the number of architectural, structural, electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilating and air conditioning defects.

Recommendations were provided to facilitate the process of integrating the practices of two influential stakeholders of building projects. These recommendations encompass the need for maintainability considerations at the early schematic stage, the necessity of direct contact between the two parties and the necessity of facility managers’ increased familiarity of the design stage activities, among other recommendations. In this way, the study promotes the awareness of the significance of integrating FM with the IDT at the DDRS.

This study contributes to the literature and practice by presenting a detailed analysis of the integration process between the FM department and the IDT. Furthermore, the outcomes of the integration between the parties were measured to assess the effectiveness of the collaboration and highlight the possible areas of improvement.

This article addresses the lack of formal design guidance that supports flexibility within the architectural and engineered systems of manufacturing facilities through the development of a taxonomy and associated terminology.

This research performed a comparative analysis of 15 manufacturing facilities located both within the United States (73 percent of cases) and internationally (27 percent of cases). These case studies provided details on how and where flexibility was incorporated into the design of a manufacturing facility. Specific consideration was given to the primary design features that enabled a decoupling of the facility from the manufacturing process. These design features were then clustered to identify main design strategies that enable flexibility.

By grouping the design features together and creating a common vocabulary, three coherent design approaches for flexible facilities were identified, each having a different potential for responding to short-term and long-term changes. These include general purpose, scalable, and dedicated facilities.

By delineating three high-level strategies for early flexible facility design, this research synthesizes a conceptual understanding of flexibility with practical and implementable designs. This synthesis provides an incremental advance to a complex challenge for researchers. It also provides decision support to design teams by aiding in project definition, when flexibility is desirable. This research is primarily limited by the number of cases reviewed. With more cases, additional facility design strategies may be identified.

The findings in this research allow for a basic understanding of how a flexible facility can be designed with only limited or vague information about the product and manufacturing processes contained within. The development of terminology associated with each facility design strategy provides standardization for the discussion and implementation of flexibility early in the design process. In doing so, flexible designs become easier to create and more efficient to implement.

This research provides the first synthesized approach for considering flexible facility design strategies within the manufacturing sector.

The purpose of this paper is to assist facility design practitioners, industrial managers, and expert systems (ES) developers identify important issues to consider and actions to follow in the selection of material handling (MH) equipment, overcome limitations of existing equipment selection approaches, and design complete MH systems.

A framework that specifies the steps that have to be taken in the selection of MH equipment is suggested. It identifies categories of equipment based on all handling‐related functions performed in a facility, which allows consideration of various categories of equipment, and selects equipment classes and types from among candidates based on user requirements and objectives.

The suggested framework is capable of producing a wide range of equipment that performs various functions in a facility, and satisfies requirements and objectives without the need for using large data bases. Applying it requires cooperation of facility managers and designers.

Some of the steps of the suggested framework require further investigation and research.

Facility design practitioners, industrial managers, and developers of ES can make better selection among a large number of MH equipment and design complete systems by relying on functions performed in a facility, requirements, and objectives.

A framework for selection of MH equipment is lacking in the literature. This paper fills a gap by presenting design issues and organized steps that practitioners, managers, and expert system developers working on selection of MH equipment have to address and follow in order to design complete MH systems.

This study aims to analyze the facilities managers’ involvement over the project life cycle phases (PLP), based on theoretical knowledge, consensus from empirical assessment of facilities managers and consultants’ practices.

A literature review was undertaken to determine the different tasks that facilities managers typically handle, identify project phases and their underlying activities in which facilities managers would be involved. This was followed by targeting a group of consultants to build a consensus, upon the identified involvement of facilities managers, over the PLP, while measuring the level of involvement from a representative group of facilities managers in Saudi Arabia. A matching between the perceptions and practice has been performed to serve as recommendations for future research on improving the practice in Saudi Arabia.

The involvement of facilities managers in the PLP is relatively low, according to the consultants’ perceptions. Consultants perceive that facilities managers should be involved in more professional activities, which would ultimately improve projects’ delivery to clients.

The involvement of facilities managers over the PLP ensures effective delivery of projects and reduces the multiplicity of challenges at the operation and maintenance phase. The viewing of facility managers’ involvement adds to the effectiveness of their role within the building industry.

This paper investigates the consultants’ perception of the involvement venues for facility managers to perform activities which are evaluated to be “mandatory,” “advantageous” or “not necessary.” The study reflects the state of facilities management practice, and the consensus of consultants toward the role of the facility managers through the PLP.

The purpose of this study is to create a knowledge base for decision-making in healthcare design by seeking, analyzing and discussing the preferences of facility managers of healthcare facilities regarding floor finishes and their selection criteria. The goal is to enable a simplified and holistic selection of floor finishes based on multiple criteria. The authors studied floor finish selection in three healthcare units: emergency, surgery and in-patient units.

The authors completed a literature review to identify types of floor finishes currently used in healthcare facilities and the criteria applied for their selection. Using the literature survey results, a questionnaire was designed and administered to healthcare facility managers. The descriptive statistical analysis and the Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests were used for reporting and analyzing the survey data.

The top five floor finishes used in the healthcare sector were identified as vinyl flooring, vinyl composite tile (VCT), rubber, linoleum and ceramic flooring. The top five selection criteria for floor finishes were durability, infection control, ease of maintenance, maintenance cost and user safety. The non-parametric test results show that the floor finish rankings and selection criteria were similar in the three healthcare units under study.

The most significant contribution of this research is to the design decision-making process of healthcare facilities. These results offer an understanding of what floor finishes are preferred by healthcare facility managers and why. This knowledge is crucial for designers and facility managers to make informed choices and floor finish manufacturers to keep their product line relevant to the industry.

Computer‐based models for the automatic generation of facility layouts have been shown to provide significant benefits to the industrial community for the planning and development of facilities. In a manufacturing environment, layouts are often needed for the manufacture, storage and shipment of specific product types within specific time periods. This is especially true in metal fabrication plants, as the dynamic nature of product storage and manufacture dictates the need for effective layout generation to achieve cost reductions. The system described in this paper integrates raw material storage, inventory management, scheduling and rack system design with facility layout development for the most satisfactory dynamic response. The research addressed in this paper has resulted in the development of a computer‐based model that focuses on the concept of integrating the domains of plant layout, material handling and warehousing in terms of raising overall effectiveness.