A strategy to articulate the facility management knowledge categories within the built environment

Abstract

Security is applied in the built environment and this requires a close relationship with facility managers. Therefore, this study puts forward an approach to establish the facility management knowledge categories within the built environment. In part, the significance of the study stemmed from research undertaken into the compliance to Australian fire door maintenance within nursing homes, which demonstrated 87 percent noncompliance. This high level of non-compliance appeared to identify a lack of facility management knowledge, among other issues (Doleman & Brooks, 2011). The article uses a method to test the supposition of facility management knowledge construct in a three-phase Grounded Theory analysis. Phase-one examines international tertiary Facility Management courses, where course content is critiqued through linguistic analysis to extract the knowledge categories. Phase-two of the study further analyses these findings through the use of multidimensional scaling to present underlying conceptual knowledge interrelationships. The final third-phase uses experts in order to validate the findings of the previous two phases. A pilot study identified 18 common knowledge concepts, for example project management, space planning, budgeting and principles of facility management. The study outcomes will improve the understanding of building knowledge requirements within the built environment, resulting in a framework of facility management knowledge categories. Such an outcome will support the consensual development of a facility management body of knowledge. The specific outcomes put forward for this research includes establishing the primary knowledge categories found within the Facility Management Industry. In addition, the outcomes will support the consensual development of a facility management body of knowledge, support policy, education and the relationship with security.