-
- LEED-EB in Facilities Management
-
- Patrick Okamura
CFM, CSS, CIAQM, LEEDTMAP
- General Dynamics
C4 Systems
- Facilities
Operations
- Scottsdale, AZ
-
-
Jacob Kovel, Ph.D
- Central
Connecticut State University
- Hartford, CT
-
- Kenneth
Sullivan, Ph.D and Marie Kashiwagi and Dean Kashiwagi, Ph.D, P.E.
- Performance Based
Studies Research Group (PBSRG)
- Del E Webb School
of Construction
- Arizona State
University
-
Tempe, AZ
-
-
An ongoing research effort in a
partnership between Arizona State University and General Dynamics (GD) is
focusing on the “information worker” Facility Manager (FM) concept. The
requirement of the FM information worker is to identify the value and
sustainability of the FM. The concept involves continuously measuring the
value of the FM, increasing efficiency, aggressively using the cost savings to
identify and minimize future risks, ensuring that if the facility owner moves
their operations that it is not because of facility efficiency and value. The
FM must look ahead to ensure the FM sustainability. The new frontier of
manufacturing facility management has exposed the the concern for the natural
environment, health, and working conditions as one of the biggest political
threats to manufacturing. One of the tools that seems to be a requirement of
the future FM is the Lead in
Environmental and Energy Design
for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) program. The research hypothesis of this
paper is to identify if LEED-EB is congruent with the FM information worker
concept, if it can be justified, implemented, and measured. This paper will
use a case study at General Dynamics C-4 Systems to get a preliminary
assessment of the hypothesis.
-
-
Keywords: LEED, FM efficiency, FM
performance, Management, and Political value
-
-
- Introduction
-
- Facility Management (FM) has changed over
the last ten years. FM responsibilities in the 1990s were to keep the
facility running and respond to operational and management needs within a
prescribed budget. It was a traditional management role, to maintain an
existing system. Severe cost cutting resulting form the worldwide competitive
marketplace has forced FM to relook at its role. It is no longer satisfactory
to maintain the status quo. Funding and resources are being cut while
requirements are being increased (spending has only increased by 0.5 percent
in the past year according to the American School & University's
seventh annual College Maintenance and Operations Cost Study.) Manufacturing
owners are continually looking for efficiency and value. It has resulted in a
new breed of FM, the information worker FM of the future. The characteristics
include measurements, value, efficiency, change, and the ability to identify
and minimize future risk.
-
- The most critical function of the FM is to
communicate the value of the facility to the facility owner, in terms of
improved efficiency and minimized risk in operational terms of cost, time, and
minimized political risk. To implement the information worker approach, the
FM must be very efficient in the amount of information being collected and
passed. In an information environment, the FM must minimize the amount of
information passed. The information passed must be in non-technical terms, be
relative, prioritized and related, and be logical and simple. It should
minimize decision making by the facility owners. All programs used by the FM
must be congruent to this philosophy. For FM function to be sustainable, the
FM must be strategic, information based, and concerned more about political
risk than performance risk (in a performance based environment the risk is
always political (due to a lack of information.) (Kashiwagi, 2004) FMs must
continually redefine their job. Failure to do so will result in the FM
function being perceived as a commodity, and because it is not the core
expertise of the facility owner, results in the outsourcing of the of the FM
function. (Okamura, 2004)
-
- FM performance can be divided into the
following categories: the management based who continues to operate under
reduced budgets, the information worker who is able to increase efficiency and
value within their budget, the high perceived performer who depends on having
a relationship with the facility owner, and the low performing or outsourced
FM function where the bottom line is cost. The information worker FM is the
most sustainable. Its characteristics are visionary (looking into the
future), proactive, measurement based, and depend on continuingly increased
efficiency and value rather than depending on relationships and trust.
-
- The information worker FM is therefore
looking at programs which:
-