Challenge and opportunity. Facility management in China

Citation

Gilleard, J.D. (1999), "Challenge and opportunity. Facility management in China", Facilities, Vol. 17 No. 3/4. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.1999.06917caa.001

Challenge and opportunity. Facility management in China

The Guest Editor

Dr John D. Gilleard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Building Services Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where he leads Asia's first graduate programme in facility management (FM). The facility management programme reflects the strength of the department with subjects such as energy management, building environmental performance complementing the more traditional FM subjects of facility planning and project management and property management and finance. Students on the programme represent a wide cross section of professionals who work for many of Hong Kong's major companies and organizations. John also supervises a number of Doctoral and MPhil students undertaking formative research into facility management in Hong Kong.

Prior to joining the university John taught for a number of years at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA where he lectured and researched in value engineering and computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided cost engineering. CAD has always held a fascination for Dr Gilleard, evidenced by his early work at the Liverpool University Computer-aided Design (LUCAD) Centre in the 1970s. Here he completed a MEng thesis on the application of "Graph theory on space planning". This work was extended for his Doctoral degree "Computer-aided architectural space planning" at the University of Salford. The thesis enumerated and mapped alternative architectural layout plans based on limited design information. Subsequently John has written a number of papers dealing with architectural and engineering design at the conceptual design phase, notably in the application of hypermedia.

John is also an active member of the International Facility Management Association, (IFMA) where he has been a member of the local Hong Kong Chapter for the last five years. Previously the Program and Education Director, he is currently the Honorary Secretary. John was nominated as the Asian representative of IFMA's Recognized Program's Committee in 1995. More recently, he was presented with IFMA's 1998 Distinguished Educator Award at the recent World Workplace 98 conference.

Dr Gilleard's current research interests are Appropriate Workplace Strategies, the influence of culture on the acceptance of FM practice and the development and growth of FM in China.

Challenge and opportunity: facility management in China

This special edition of Facilities seeks to examine the growth and development of facility management in China.

In April 1993 the Hong Kong Polytechnic hosted Hong Kong's first facilities management conference. Frank Duffey of DEGW gave the morning's keynote address to an audience of almost 200. Duffey's presentation talked about the worldwide spread of facilities management, the emergence of professional FM groups and the likely global impact that facilities management would have on future business practices. It was a fascinating talk. Many in the audience were simply curious to know about this new profession. Others were skeptical, questioning the need for facilities management when Hong Kong had such a strong and vocal property management sector. Property is a significant feature of Hong Kong's economy ­ it dominates many locally listed companies ­ and retaining property values was considered to be the sole criteria for gauging success. Few in the audience sensed the change that a more customer focussed world demanded.

Another important milestone in the development of facilities management in Hong Kong was the formation of a Chapter of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). Established in November 1992, the Chapter grew quickly and now has over 150 members. Among these are clients, both private and public, FM service providers, members of the design community and academics. The Chapter is an active one, encouraging a healthy debate on facilities and property management issues at its monthly meetings, seminars and workshops. The Chapter has also helped IFMA with the Asian Facility Management conference. This annual event has been held in Hong Kong for the last five years. In addition, the IFMA (HK) Chapter is also highly supportive of Asia's first facility management graduate programme. Started in 1996, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University programme now has 70 part-time MSc/PgD students currently enrolled. It is anticipated that approximately 20 will graduate in the summer of 1999.

This special edition of Facilities is another milestone in the development of the profession. It brings together academics and practitioners who review many of the changes that have taken place during the last five years. Viewed from a global perspective many of the issues raised are not unique to Hong Kong. Their concerns and desires are shared among many of those working in facilities management. Greater efficiency, lower costs, more of a customer focus and cultural change seem to be their mantra. For example, in their practice paper "Cultural change: its effect on the University of Hong Kong" Wilson and Wilson review and examine the problem of management change in a long established organization. They argue that these changes inevitably cause stress. However, by adopting a teamwork response uncertainty can be minimized. They also raise the issue of "face" arguing that culturally sensitivity is essential when working in China. These concerns are echoed in Yeung's paper "Managing change: facilities management at the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital". Yeung argues that change can be beneficial for all concerned providing it is managed in a proactive and dynamic manner. The facilities managers within the hospital aim to please their customers, to go beyond a reactive response to maintenance and repair issues. They have achieved this through the active participation of frontline, administrative staff and the medical community. Walters in her paper "Performance measurement systems ­ a case of customer satisfaction" continues with the theme of exploring customer services. In the paper the author notes that appropriateness of performance standards are paramount, suggesting that traditional property measures are inadequate arguing that investment measures are critical.

Gilleard and Pan in their paper "Challenge and opportunity: facility management in Shanghai" identify education and training as the key to the growth of facilities management in China. In the papers the authors review the confusion that currently exists in China between the terms property and facilities management. However, they conclude that property owners in Shanghai are beginning to recognize that greater customer focus can add value to an organization's property portfolio. Werner, in his paper "Coping with Asian telecommunication liberalization in commercial buildings" also argues the case for added value. By exploring the liberalization of Hong Kong's telecommunications market the author suggests that those companies willing to invest added services for their clients can gain competitive advantage. However, effective space management of these extra telecommunications services is problematical in existing buildings. This theme of systems upgrade is also discussed in Chow et al.'s paper on "Problems of the retrofit installation of sprinkler systems in old high-rise buildings". Hong Kong has approximately 400 high rise commercial buildings built prior to 1972 without active fire protection. Recent fire tragedies have suggested that retrofitting sprinkler systems might reduce the potential for future fire disasters. Chow argues that such action may be counterproductive since their performance level is questionable. He cites a case study where the retrofit design was inappropriate; lending a false sense of security to those who used the building. Finally, in their paper "Eco-labelling scheme for buildings in Hong Kong" Chau et al. suggest that by adopting energy and eco-labelling Hong Kong real estate sector is better able to demonstrate to their clients and the wider community their responsiveness and concern for the environment. They conclude by examining the controversial issue of linking eco-labelling and property valuation, stating that insufficient evidence currently exists to draw any final conclusions on this issue.

John D. GilleardGuest Editor