Workshop on Designing and Managing the Strategic Facilities Management (FM) Supply Chain: the Malaysian Context

Background of Workshop

This 2^nd series of Workshop on Designing and Managing the Strategic Facilities Management (FM) Supply Chain: the Malaysian Context was successfully held on 2^nd March 2011 at Cyberview Lodge and Spa Resort, Cyberjaya. The workshop was facilitated by FM expert Professor Dr Michael Pitt from University of College London UK and was assisted by Ms Samantha Price, research assistant at University of College London UK. It was attended more than 30 participants from FM practitioners, consultants, government agencies, academia and professional association. 

Introduction to Workshop

The process of procurement within Facilities Management (FM) is primarily one of buying in services through supply chain assembly and management. This role has matured as FM has moved from a simple operational engineering discipline to a strategic management discipline over the last ten years. Today FM is a strategic tool employed to deliver added value to organisations. FM has at its heart the need for an organisation and organisational motives to serve and it is mainly this that differentiates it from the discipline of property and/or estate management.

This workshop will examine the process of supply chain assembly looking at motivational and practical issues involved therein. Throughout the day we will develop a set of strategic supply chain development key areas and will re-examine these in the context of value added through the chain.

Objectives of Workshop

The Construction Research Institute of Malaysia (CREAM) in collaboration with the Faculty of the Built Environment, Universiti Malaya has organised this workshop with the following objectives:-

• To understand the form of the current typical FM supply chain in Malaysia
• To identify issues and challenges in relation to supply chain assembly
• To determine the key characteristics of FM procurement strategies in Malaysia
• To understand how perspectives and value impact upon FM services within the FM supply chain
• To begin to understand how sustainable practices can be incorporated into the supply chain 

Workshop on Performance Measurement in FM

A one-day workshop on Performance Measurement in Malaysian Facilities Management (FM) was successfully held on 26^th January, 2011 at the Concorde Hotel in Shah Alam, Selangor.

Objectives of Workshop

This workshop was facilitated by the invited speaker, Professor Dr. Low Sui Pheng, a well known Professor from the Department of Building, National University of Singapore (NUS). The workshop started with a presentation made by Professor Dr. Low Sui Pheng entitled: “Performance Measurement in Facilities Management: Singapore’s Experience”. The workshop being an exercise in performance measurement, Professor Dr. Low Sui Pheng presented a best practice model based on the Toyota Production System (TPS) which underpins the Lean Production Principles (LPP) which many forward-looking manufacturing organizations have strategically adopted to stay competitive. The LPP have been extended into the building industry and implemented as Lean Construction. The TPS, with four key underpinnings that straddle: (1) Philosophy, (2) Processes, (3) People and Partners, and (4) Problem solving (or the 4 P’s), was adopted as a best practice model in this workshop to benchmark performance measurement in Malaysian Facilities Management

Guided by the 4 P’s, the objectives of the workshop are;

·         To identify current practice in performance measurement in Malaysia,

·         To identify issues and challenges in performance measurement practice in Malaysia,

·         To determine characteristics of performance measurement for all buildings and services,

·         To chart a framework on performance measurement, and

·         To define the process involved in the development of performance measurement.