Facilities Manager's Desk Reference

Citation

Warren, C.M.J. (2011), "Facilities Manager's Desk Reference", Property Management, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 400-400. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.2011.29.4.400.1

This book is, as the title suggests, a reference manual for facilities management practitioners. It provides a very comprehensive evaluation of most of the major issues that any facilities manager is likely to face in the day‐to‐day management of property. The single author, Jane Wiggins has over 20 years experience in facilities management including working with British Airways and the BBC. She has also worked in the tertiary education sector and is a past chairperson of the British Institute of Facilities Management, Education Sector Forum.

As readers will have gathered from the authors biography this is a British based book and, as such, much of the content is UK focused. This is a particular issue when discussing matters related to landlord and tenant law or health and safety legislation as these have limited relevance to non‐UK readers. To those in the UK this is obviously highly relevant material and to others there are still benefits in understanding an international perspective.

As would be expected from a reference manual the content is very wide ranging and commences with a brief history of the development of the facilities management profession dating back to the 1960s with its origins in the US. The following three chapters put the importance of facilities management in context, analysing the key drivers prominent in the contemporary workplace and the facilities management functions that are required to address these drivers. This then leads into a section that pulls together the all important strategic facilities plan and provides the foundation for good practice standards.

The next major section of the book deals with procurement of services and discusses the pros and cons of outsourcing as a procurement strategy together with contract management, financial management and project management as tools to the successful delivery of property management. These sections are very comprehensive and well written providing the reader with a good understanding of these essential management practices.

The remaining sections of the text deal with a range of subjects from practical maintenance issues through the health and safety aspects of facilities management and the areas of growing focus such as energy management. Other sections deal with space planning, new building and customer relations.

Overall this is a very useful text for any practitioner in the property or facilities management field providing a ready reference to a wide range of property management practices. It is also a very useful reference for students studying facilities management and wanting a very comprehensive introduction to the field.