Promoting the facilities management profession in the project development phase of high-rise buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Purpose – The Facilities Management (FM) profession is now established in most developed countries and infew developing countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong. However, with rapid mushrooming of high rise buildings, which are known to be complex, the role of a facilities manager may require to be extended even up to the project briefing stage. This paper aims to highlight the importance of consulting a facilities manager during the project development phase of high rise buildings in Sri Lanka. design/methodology/approach – The methods of data collection used in this study were site observations and interviews. The data from site observations were collected from 67 high rise residential and commercial buildings. While doing the site observations or some on occasions after the site observations, the facilities managers or building managers and maintenance managers of these buildings were interviewed to gather further detailed information. Findings – This paper highlights 15 critical maintainability problems, which originated during the development phase. It was found 26 significant factors which would have been emphasized during the development phase by a facilities manager to reduce the occurrence of such problems during the phase of occupancy. Research limitations/implications – There were few qualified facilities managers involved during the data collection process due to lack of qualified facilities managers in Sri Lanka. Originality/value – The paper provides useful information to the facilities managers and clients/users on maintainability problems related to high rise buildings. It also emphasize the importance of the involvement of facilities managers at the development phase of high rise buildings in order to minimize their maintainability problems faced during the phase of occupancy.