The principles of facilities management and case studies

This paper presents a set of six principles of facilities management (FM) with supporting discussion through selected case studies to justify these principles, which were put forward through a rigorous quantitative analysis through a TRIZ process underpinned by extensive literature review into industry standards, professional guidance and best practice relating to FM. The six principles covers three essential technical domains including Clients and Professionals, Service Products, and Service Processes to reflect six important aspects that forms the entire contemporary FM practice. For the domain on Clients and Professionals, this paper highlights technical focuses on providing competitive advantage for clients and developing professional competence through lean practice. For the domain on Service Products, this paper emphasises key issues on the dependability driven quality services and sustainability oriented resources efficiency. For the domain on Service Processes, this paper enhances technical needs for effective services procurement and provision and lifecycle oriented rapid dynamic responses. The nine-square approach as a TRIZ process was adopted to conduct a holistic review into literatures and practice relating to FM, and this also provides a novel practical approach to inform further research into construction management. In order to further justify the relevance and value of the six FM principles, this paper also provides a series of case studies which address how these principle can be applied to advance FM practice with regard to improving professional leadership and technical capability in the provision of FM services across industry sectors towards dependable and sustainable built environment.