Facility Management at Curtin University - Term Paper Example

Name of the student) (Course Tittle) (Name of the professor) (Name of University) (Date) Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 Part Two 4 2.3 Scope of Facility Management 5 2.5 Corporate Social Responsibility 7 2.6 Methodology, analysis and findings 9 3.0 Summary and Conclusion 11 Bibliography 13 Executive Summary As one of the physical work environments on organization performance and productivity has been evident in many studies, so has the field become more and more involved in a business setting? In over forty different studies concerning productivity improvement, productivity and changes in performance have been analyzed, from the point of the reduction in glare to total facility redesign. The association of facility management (IFMA) defined facility management as a profession that comprises several disciplines mostly in ensuring functionality of the built environment through integrating individuals, places technology and processes into one object. Therefore, Curtin University would like to know how it could incorporate sustainability into the facility management process and in line with the University strategic plan. The word facility covers a comprehensive range of buildings and other complex physical entities. The one common thread among these entities is the fact that they are all places. The facility can be an office or suite of office or just a space; a floor or a group of floors within a given structure, a single house or an assemblage of building structures. In conclusion, the marketing and public relation should develop environmental impact assessment where the university will be able to maintain its surrounding. Corporate Social Responsibility is another way of ensuring sustainable development and growth of the university. The Corporate Social Responsibility will ensure the incorporation of the society and all stakeholders’ hence sustainable growth of the University facility growth. 1.0 Introduction Although facility management has been long practiced by government institution, military organization and schools, it is an equitable new business and management subject. As one of the physical work environments on organization performance and productivity has been evident in many studies, so has the field become more and more involved in a business setting. In over forty different studies concerning productivity improvement, productivity and changes in performance have been analyzed, from the point of the reduction in glare to total facility redesign (Rondeau, Brown, & Lapides 2006). The association of facility management (IFMA) defined facility management as a profession that comprises several disciplines mostly in ensuring functionality of the built environment through integrating individuals, places technology and processes into one object. However, many scholars have not agreed on the universal definition of facility management; the definition by the international facility management association is widely accepted by scholars, but they assert that one should define facility management in line with the area of management (Lewis 2009). This paper discusses facility management at Curtin University. The paper seeks to identify the needs how incorporate sustainability into facility management at Curtin University by classifying the wants of international scholars residing at the University accommodation facilities. The paper will advise the University controlling on how to integrate sustainability in its facility management practices in line with its strategic plan as this will help in minimizing life cycle costs of assets, within the institution. The paper will be divided into four major sections where the first part will give the objectives of the study including giving goals and benefits of the study. The part that follows is the Literature review, third will be a methodology and lastly findings and recommendation. 2.0 Part Two 2.1 Objective of the paper: Facility management development at Curtin University has no sustainable component associated with it. However, the profession of facility management has reached a point in which sustainable is replaceable. Therefore, Curtin University would like to know how it could incorporate sustainability into the facility management process and in line with the University strategic plan. This investigation will be very important to the management of the University since it will help in gaining insights, identifying and understanding the potential barriers and gaps, which inhibits the inclusion of sustainability in the current facility management at the Curtin University. As well as to offer initial information on how supportable facility management can be designed for individuals from different backgrounds since the University have international students and lectures as well. 2.2 The main questions to be investigated in this study are: 1. What are the inhibitors of incorporating sustainability into the facility management process at the Curtin University 2. What are the needs of international students who reside at the accommodation facilities provided by the University? And lastly, 3. What are the sustainable practices that can be incorporated into the current facility management practices at Curtin University? 2.3 Scope of Facility Management Management of the facility consists of several disciplines to ensure that performance of the erected environment by incorporating people, technology, places and process. Cotts (2009) states that the Facility managements seeks to meet both the requirements of business operations like catering activities, communications facilities, equipment’s and office furniture to fulfill the basic requirements of maintaining the building itself such as cleaning, heating and lighting. It also includes maintenance, of the building fabric in terms of its revamp and repairs both internally and externally. The facility manager’s job is to build an environment that encourages productivity, safe, pleasing to the clients, good building regulation and more efficient (Cotts 2009). The word facility covers a comprehensive range of buildings and other complex physical entities. The one common thread among these entities is the fact that they are all places. The facility may be an either an office, suite of office or even space; a floor or a group of floors within a given building, a solitary construction or a group of building structures. Therefore, sports complexes, buildings and factories may be included as facilities. Others include jails, hospitals, retail establishments, hotels, and schools. It is of great important that facility manager identify the activity held in the facility then makes management decisions to promote the activity In facility management, Magee (2008) states that the new European FM customary articulates that the field of FM can be gathered around client demands, which can be summarized fewer than two major sub-headings. First, being cosmos and infrastructure and the second being people and organization. Lewis (2009) states that organizations need to view property whether be it land or building in three major ways, first as a resource, as a liability and lastly as an asset. He further states that facilities management covers the overall spectrum of estate management and property management. Teicholz (2001)believes that the skills of the manager in charge of the facility can be broken down into two major sections, first as a hard skills where task performed through physical or technological means and secondly the soft skills where task are performed through mental intuitiveness. The hard skills aspect consists of electrical wiring and power distribution, plumbing, carpentry, operations and maintenance of heating ventilation and air conditioning systems. It also consists of spatial planning, civil and structural engineering principles. The soft skills consist of customer relations, contract coordination and support services. They also include team building services, technical judgment, time management, continuity of business and financial awareness. However, this paper concentrates mostly on the space infrastructure of spatial planning and design of workplace, construction and project management. The report also elaborates on the building performance and occupancy evaluation and maintenance. The report talks on the people and the organization, which includes records management, human resource management and the customer relation. 2.4 Sustainability: Development that is sustainable seeks to meet the needs of the current users without comprising the ability to meet the future generation to meet their needs. Teicholz (2001) defines sustainable development as requiring incorporation of environmental, social, and economic considerations to make a balanced judgment for long term. Several definitions have been given to sustainable development. Lewis (2009) in his content analysis defines sustainable development as a progression of attaining human advancement in a comprehensive connected, just, prudent and safe manner. The problem always comes when the organizations have to develop a process and implement strategies to meet the corporate challenges of sustainable development. Alexander (2008) states that maintain corporate sustainability is a commissioned course and each association should choose its approach and ambitions regarding corporate sustainability. This should meet organization aims and objectives in line with its intention and aligned with the organization with the organization strategy, as a suitable response to the conditions in which the organization functions. 2.5 Corporate Social Responsibility CSR is a very broad concepts that encapsulate the notion that companies have obligations that extend beyond shareholders. Corporate social responsibility requires organizations to consider the interest of all stakeholders including investors, suppliers, consumers and employees and the community in going about the normal organization business. It can be dubbed as a way of meeting, with reason the expectations of all societal stakeholders to maximize the company’s affirmative influence on its social and physical environment while offering a competitive profit to its financial stakeholders. Either it can be viewed as a slightest standard to be met or an ideal for unceasing strive. Progressive actions by some organizations often set CSR benchmarks for others. The practices may then be legislated or demanded by the consumers to be incorporated as the organization standard and practices (Brill, Margulis & Konar 2004). Organizations and companies engage in social corporate responsibilities due to several reasons. They include being able to operate now and in the future by acknowledging areas that affect their wellbeing (Brill, Margulis & Konar 2004). Through CSR, both internal and external company activities, organizations benefits through improved research and development, market position and employee development. Government relation and risk management are very important for organization growth and development (Magee 2008). Several theories and models justify the CSR by the companies. Common understanding of CSR evolved from simple discrete concerns about specific functions to one, which is holistic business strategy. The neoclassical/Corporate Productivity model represents an approach to CSR as one of the competent of an overall profit motive. The approach is closely affiliated with the economist. They argue that the goal of any business is to bring profit to its shareholders and nothing else. The nebulous issues of social responsibility and corporate citizenship distract the primary goal of the business. Therefore, they should be avoided, and should only be brought to the business when they increase company profitability (Brill, Margulis & Konar 2004). The ethical, social model argues that as a citizenship approach that respects the interwoven relationship between the company and its community(Brill, Margulis & Konar 2004). Companies’ bay is formed, motivated or sustained by the philanthropic outlook. In addition, in the real sense very few companies may accept this model for all their CSR activities, however, many direct efforts such as corporately giving in this direction. Another model is a political model that involves the use of proactive CSR policies to offset government involvement and allows the companies to protect and manage their interest in the public policy sphere. This model is the most obviously represents the modern approach of minimizing taxation, legislation and regulation by state. 2.6 Methodology, analysis and findings In line with the study objective and the study question. Interviews will be done to international students concerning their needs and requirements on facilities and services they get at Curtin University. The central focus of the interview will be to identify suitable sustainable practices that are lacking within the University. The study will identify the practices in the facilities maintenance including fixtures and fittings, operations and planning, safety management, inventorying recording and maintenance. The various landscaping and environmental management will be looked at. Looking at the outcomes, there is a need to identifies issues to do with stakeholders as they will form part of the findings and recommendation. Facilities, if well maintained, have the potentiality of increasing productivity within the university. The quality of service delivery can increase through maintaining commitments amongst the stakeholders of the University. According the findings, The University of Curtains is committed to developing diverse culture in terms of innovation. They are planning to do this through recruiting and training quality staff both nationally and internationally. This will be attained through recruiting quality structure including offices for the staff where they can attend o a student and do research and innovation. Students will be accommodated within the school where both international students and national students will be accommodated in line with international standards. Each student’s rooms will be well-fitted with DStv and self-contained rooms, which will allow students to feel comfortable, and at home. The university will improve leadership and accountability through giving room for student leadership in which school rules and regulation will be formed in collaboration with all stakeholders. Optimizing performance will be done through staff development and recognition through awards and clear communication channels (Magee 2008). Another finding is that the University focuses on high-quality courses in the areas of their strength. The Curtin University specializes on the courses that meet the current market demand and in line with student’s interest. They promote co-curriculum activities like sports, which they have improved for the past few years. The University will advance the superiority of learning the practice through addressing scholars experience on courses, and this will help in achieving consistent service delivery over a period. The standard quality management team will deal with designing and development with standard syllabus guide in line with industry requirements. This will enables current and future students to learn similar things, which encourages sustainability. The University inspires research competence of its staff by generating a pool of possessions that will enable the research consortium to come up with sustainability in the student development and be useful for the society as a whole (Magee 2008). The University will employ facility manager who will manage the research equipment that is capable of attracting quality researchers in the country and across the world in general. This will be facilitated by leveraging international partnership through resource leverage and other requirements. The University has built research culture and performance expectation by further developing activity in an already established facilities and areas of research strength. The University will align research incentives with international indicators. The University is struggling to develop and drive international excellence by creating a good reputation among the neighboring countries with high-quality facilities in the world. The optimization of the international outcome has played an important role in developing good reputation of the University. The University is committed to capacity and financial sustainability through developing secure and proper financial flow. The accounting and financial management facility needed to be modern and updated as this will help in improving efficiency and productivity of the University as a whole 3.0 Summary and Conclusion The study main objective is to establish Facility management development at Curtin University has a sustainable component associated with it. The paper uses the following research questions to achieve its objective. i. What are the inhibitors of incorporating sustainability into the facility management process at the Curtin University? ii. What are the needs of international students who reside at the accommodation facilities provided by the University? And lastly, iii. What are the sustainable practices that can be incorporated into the current facility management practices at Curtin University? In line with the findings, research and development are the main means through which inhibitors can incorporate sustainable facility management within Curtain University. The sustainability of school facility will be managed through continues repair of learning and accommodation facilities where students resides. Some of the needs of international students include standard rooms like hotels that are self-contained, fitted with DSTV and quality food that are provided. The University has improved the quality of learning the experience through addressing students experience on courses, and this will help in achieving consistent service delivery over a period. The standard quality management team will deal with designing and development with standard syllabus guide in line with industry requirements. For financial sustainability, the university should have accounting and financial management facility that mode is modern and updated as this will help in improving efficiency and productivity of the University as a whole for long term. The marketing and public relation should develop environmental impact assessment where the university will be able to maintain its surrounding. Corporate Social Responsibility is another way of ensuring sustainable development and growth of the university. The Corporate Social Responsibility will ensure the incorporation of the society and all stakeholders’ hence sustainable growth of the University facility growth. Bibliography Alexander, K 2008, Facilities Management, E & FN Spon, London. Atkins, B & Brooks, A 2005, Total Facilities Management, 2nd ed, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford. Brill, M, Margulis, S & Konar, E, 2004, Using Office Design to Increase Productivity, vol. 1& 2, Workplace Design and Productivity, New York. Cotts, D 2009, The Facility Management Handbooks, 2nd ed, American Management Association, New York. Lewis, B 2009, Facility Manager’s Operation and Maintenance Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York. Magee, G 2008, Facilities Maintenance Management, Construction Publishers and Consultants, Massachusetts. Piper, J 2004, Handbook of Facility Management, The Fairmont Press, Georgia. Rondeau, E, Brown, R & Lapides, P 2006, Facility Management, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey. Teicholz, E 2001, Facility Design and Management Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York Read More