Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Facilities, Volume 33, Issue 7/8

This issue of Facilities covers a wide variety of aspects of facility management: risk analysis of public – private partnership (PPP) projects, analysis of noises generated in office spaces, occupants’ experiences in public housing, assessment of elements of information integration development and an analysis of the Royal Institute Chartered Surveyors (RICS)’ 2014 Code of Practice.

Due to budget constraints, the public sector tends to work with private infrastructure companies for achieving optimum investments, typically referred to as PPP. A paper by Ameyaw and Chan aims to identify and analyze risk factors that affect the implementation of water supply projects. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted following case study analysis and expert reviews. For the assessment of probability and risk factors, a seven-point rating system was established, for which data were collected from a number of countries. A risk factor list has been derived and the different factors were ranked, which may help governments and investors develop strategies to avoid the risks and possible failures when getting involved in such projects.

A paper by Rasila and Jylha aims to analyze worker perceptions on office building noises in a multidimensional and holistic manner, using a case study analysis of a telecommunication company in Finland. Company employees in three different locations were interviewed to learn about the different dimensions of noises generated in their office spaces. The results presented in this paper refer to how the employees understand noises in their offices to have negative, neutral or positive aspects on their performance and productivity. Even though the findings are specific to a particular kind of work environment and cannot be generalized, additional study can be extended to other types of office spaces.

The primary objective of a paper by Ibem and Alagbe is to illustrate the perceptions of end-users toward the factors that constitute adequate housing. In total, 33 factors generated from a comprehensive review of the literature were put in question. The study, which was conducted in Nigeria, analyzes the data that were collected from post occupancy evaluations (POE). The findings of this study shed light on the critical aspects that seem to have a significant contribution on improving the living experience of occupants of public housing and may be used by construction professionals and governments to provide satisfactory public housing to their residents.

A paper by Sillanpää addresses the issue of information integration development by assessing elements of the integration and the sequence of development with regards to real-estate and user services. A case study method was selected for this research to enable the author the possibility to explain complex social events. Through this approach, data were collected in three stages: a workshop and two sets of interviews. The paper develops a conceptual model framework that identifies the meaning of six elements of integration and which needs to be further developed to increase information integration.

A paper by Holt inspects whether the revised 2014 version of the RICS Code of Practice and its correlated accounting guidance note deliver a “best practice” framework for service charge accounting and audit. It appraises the accounting and auditing requirements of the 2011 RICS Code of Practice, Service Charges in Commercial Property. This is, then, applied to empirical data acquired from a sample of commercial office properties in the UK to assess whether current methods used for the preparation and review of service charge reconciliation certificates actually represent the best practice.

Sarel Lavy - Co-Editor