POE and Facilities Management

From the facilities management perspective, POE expertise and data gathering methods can be applied to various situations which would benefit facility performance in the continuous quest for quality improvement. Thus, POE techniques become an important asset in the “toolkit” facilities managers can use for total quality management (Preiser, 2002). Following are the tools which can be used for total quality management.

• Trouble shooting

It is advisable that facility managers get involved in or provide input into the early planning and pre – design phases of a project. They should be consulted in the review of proposed design concepts and solutions, as well as in the selection of hardware specifications, surface materials, operating systems, etc. Not only can they supply valuable advice on building performance aspects of specified systems and materials, but they can also shed light on their cost in operating and maintaining facilities (Preiser, 2002)

• Fine-tuning

After a facility is occupied and taken into use, the inevitable “fine- tuning” process takes place in which the occupants adapt to the facility, and they in turn adapt the facility to suit their needs. In very large facilities housing hundreds or even thousands of occupants, it is necessary to get feedback from the occupants efficiently are rapidly in order to carry out the fine-tuning process. For very large organizations, this requires that surveys be conducted and multiple observation or measurements be made in a systematic manner (Preiser, 2002)

• Problem Identification

One of the most common applications of POE is the identification of performance problems in occupied facilities, resulting in objective documentation, which, in turn, is the basis for recommendations for actions to solve those problems. Equally important is the fact that the POE helps justify budget requests to implement solutions to identify problems (Preiser, 2002)

• Intra – agency feed forward of design and guidance criteria

In order to improve facility performance in future facilities, systematic intra – agency feedback on the performance of existing facilities is essential. Facilities managers can be instrumental in providing this type of feedback by administering POEs and facility audits, and by documenting excellent facility performance aspects which are deemed worth replicating in the future new and remodeled facilities,. Thus, given the recent developments in software systems for facility management, POE may be added as a module to FM software systems (Preiser, 2002)

• Litigation

Malfunctions or performance breakdowns do occur in facilities and the facilities manager is the first to know it. Since design problems, safety or warranty issues may be at stake, POE methods can be used to document data for litigation carefully (Preiser, 2002)

POE tool can be used as a FM instrument and its relationship shown in Figure