Managing facilities manager’s knowledge through knowledge capture, knowledge store and knowledge reuse

Abstract

The profession of facilities management (FM) is becoming knowledge driven. In this regard, managing facilities managers’ knowledge helps for a better output through the creation of supportive and cost effective physical environment that strongly supports the primary objectives of office buildings sector. This study attempts to bring in knowledge management insights into facilities management and explores strategies of managing facilities manger’s knowledge. Case studies of three in-house FM teams occupied in three leading office buildings in Sri Lanka were used to approach the research problem. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with three individuals from each case. As the study reveals knowledge capture, store and reuse process could be effectively used to manage facilities manager’s knowledge, hence the effort of the study was to introduce standardized way to manage facilities manager’s knowledge and it has been achieved through the literature and empirical findings. Performing complex facilities management tasks requires facilities management experts, unfortunately, there is usually a shortage of such people and their knowledge is almost always locked away in their heads. So, the challenge is to capture and automate their knowledge to make it available to others. As per case study reveals it is critical for organizations to store the knowledge, and provide access for achieving sustainable competitiveness and to move forward and deliver a better service day by day. It is critical to have a knowledge base for the further development of the FM profession. Reusing knowledge is crucial for the organization in achieving FM duties. As per the FM professionals facilities managers should use the stored knowledge in order to come up with new ideas and expertise in order to face new and challenging situations. This research is of exploratory nature which explored an emerging FM profession in Sri Lanka. Further research is required to fully understand how knowledge management concepts could be incorporated within FM professions world-wide.