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This paper aims to describe the development and testing of an employer’s information requirements (EIR) template and guidance document designed to meet client and facility management (FM) needs in the building information modelling (BIM) process.

A qualitative design approach was used and triangulation of methods which included a focus group with the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), semi-structured interviews with the case study Glasgow Life Burrell Renaissance Project who trialled the EIR and peer-reviews and interviews with BIM/CAFM experts from the BIM Academy and FM180.

Specific guidance to help clients and facility managers prepare key BIM documents like the EIR are needed. They are aware of industry BIM standards and guidance but often not in detail. The Glasgow Life case study illustrated the EIR as a useful collaboration-tool to bring together stakeholders in early planning stages to understand client information needs.

Assets and buildings account for most of the energy and material use in society. A well-structured EIR will help ensure the right information is available to enable optimisation of running costs and utility-use over their whole life, thus contributing to long-term sustainability.

This paper provides a new EIR template and guidance document ideal for practitioners in industry as a practical starting point to plan the client information requirements for BIM projects. It can be downloaded at www.bifm.org.uk/bifm/knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical strategic issues for the integration of facilities management (FM) into the development process (DP). It explains the factors that limit the integration and recognises the best practices applied in the property development industry in the UK.

The study employs a qualitative research approach through semi-structured interviews from the FM and property development industry in the UK.

The study discovered that the recognition of FM in the property development industry is encouraging. However, FM has been given a low priority in the property development industry, resulting in facilities managers being inadequately integrated into the DP.

The paper suggests that it is imperative to understand these strategic issues to promote best practice in the industry that improve the position of FM in the property development industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the complexities of how external service provider employees culturally fit within client workplaces.

It uses the facilities management industry to apply this research concept and is conducted using a qualitative multi-method design. A combination of semi-structured interviews and focus groups are the qualitative methods used to collect the data.

The major findings of this study are that organisational socialisation can be successful in socialising external service provider staff into the client workplace despite a current lack of awareness of its use. This study has developed a framework that can be used to achieve this integration if client organisations and service providers work together to socialise external service provider staff.

The findings of this study will appeal to anyone working within the service industry who manages the interface between external service provider staff and the client work space.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the maintenance prioritising for facilities services in high-rise residential buildings in Peninsular Malaysia. Maintenance prioritisation is becoming more prominent in the building maintenance industry due to budget constraints, poor maintenance management and to yield better maintenance performance.

Two main categories with eleven facilities services that require maintenance were identified through extensive literature review. A total of 321 returned questionnaires were analysed to distinguish the relationship between the maintenance priority and cost variance. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted to validate the findings.

The findings revealed that five essential facilities services were significantly correlated to cost variance and a regression model which examines the probability of over-budget was developed. Meanwhile, the interviews recognised that maintenance prioritisation has impact towards maintenance cost.

This research focusses on the maintenance priorities of facilities services and their effects to maintenance cost. However, it is undeniable that the maintenance cost can be affected by other factors, contributing to a lower percentage of the total variance in the regression model. Thus, it creates research opportunity to study the factors (i.e. manpower, materials, wear and tear, etc.) affecting the variance of maintenance cost.

This study is useful to property managers in efforts to enhance the cost performance via appropriate maintenance prioritisation. The essential facilities services should be highly prioritised compared to the value-added facilities services.

The paper signifies the importance of maintenance prioritisation. It serves as a guide to plan and execute maintenance planning in a more logical way within budget and time constraints.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the critical success factors of an effective repairs service by initially identifying what the important considerations are.

Using quantitative research methods the study then examines how important each of the factors is considered from the perspective of those responsible for such services in the Northwest of England, the level of implementation throughout the region is also examined.

Respondents felt that all 11 factors are perceived as “very” important but only nine are “always” implemented within their place of work. Sustainability and innovation are identified as the two factors that are least critical. It can also be said that although important and well implemented, the in-house skills factor does not appear to be considered as critical in comparison to the other factors.

The UK housing sector is under an enormous amount of pressure to meet the needs of a growing population in extremely uncertain financial conditions. Social housing is a potential solution but providers are currently contending with reduced budgets and cuts to staffing levels together with an expectation that service levels will be maintained and value for money maximised. Repairs and maintenance of their stock is at the forefront of their challenge to meet these expectations and it is therefore vital that the service they provide is effective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of a customer performance measurement system (CPMS) to demonstrate how facilities management (FM) organisations can enhance their existing processes for measuring the customer satisfaction of their service provision.

Customer performance measurement in FM is the process of capturing, measuring, and improving the satisfaction of FM customers. A generic CPMS was developed that FM organisations can adopt to improve their existing service provision. The CPMS was developed using a mixed methods approach was adopted. An instrumental case study was used to test the CPMS. The case study represented what was deemed as a typical FM organisation in the UK. The effectiveness of the CPMS application was first validated internally by the instrumental case study. A series of collective case studies were then used to validate the CPMS externally, by testing a series of other FM companies in the UK to provide further understanding of the potential application of the CPMS.

The findings suggest that by adopting a strategic model that incorporates a balance of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain customer satisfaction of FM service provision, can enhance an FM organisation's existing processes of gaining customer satisfaction.

Although there are many studies researching performance measurement in FM, there is a lack of knowledge on the application of customer performance measurement. This paper contends that there is a need to develop a mixed methods system that is not limited to gaining quantitative findings of customer satisfaction, but also gains wider qualitative findings that investigate customer expectations and perceptions of FM service provision. Generic customer satisfaction benchmarks in the UK FM industry were also established, and formed a crucial component of the CPMS.