Public Sector Facilities Management Professionals – NOW IS THE TIME FOR CHANGE.
The historically high levels of economic and environment waste associated with public sectors buildings and other forms of physical infrastructure are simply not sustainable.
Now is the time for public sector facilities management professional to reassert themselves as strategic partners with senior leadership and enablers of change management.
Solutions are now readily available to assure the efficient delivery of quality repair, renovation, and new builds. These solutions require mastering change and associated leadership skills.
Public Sector Facilities Management Professionals need to focus upon change management to successfully address critical environmental and economic issues.
The evolving role of public sector facilities management professionals
While the role of public sector facilities management professionals is ever evolving, the rate of change must rapidly accelerate to avoid the looming economic and environmental cliff that we all know is in front of each and everyone of us.
While many inexplicably continue to see technology as a savior, it can not to address the basic cause of waste….sector-wide failure to adopt robust lean processes and the associated lack of core information to enable better decision-making. Simply throwing billions of dollars at construction or technology is equally foolhardy.
All the tools and support services are readily available to show people and organizations how to address facilities and physical infrastructure stewardship efficiently. Senior leadership must support requisite change, and garnering that support and commitment is the role of public sector facilities professionals.
Public sector FMers must adapt robust LEAN process and tools to their organizations. The typical crisis management and reactive nature of facilities management must be shifted toward long-term goals and responsibilities, and true strategic leadership.
The first steps
The first step, after determining what is required to align physical structures with the organizational mission, is the integration of planning, procurement, and project delivery activities.
This aspect is accomplished by the appropriate implementation of integrated project delivery (IPD) for large projects and LEAN job order contracting (for example the 4BT OpenJOC(TM) Framework), for repair, renovation, maintenance, sustainability, and minor new construction.
Again, senior leadership must take advantage of the previously missed opportunities to leverage the expertise of public sector facilities professions and private sector solutions providers. Similarly, public sector FMers must engage in long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with their vendors/service providers.
In recent years, responsibilities and accountability of public sector facilities management professionals have come to the forefront and include:
- Financial visibility and transparency (only possible with the use of locally researched detailed construction cost data and LEAN processes)
- Compliance with federal, state, county, and local statutes
- Improving the efficiency of dollars spent . More dollars spent on actual construction versus rework/change order, or administrative fees.
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