Do more with less

In the business world, there have been several trends that have emerged and change companies, especially, the managerial styles of companies. Personally, I have never been in a company which has a facility management department. However, after writing the PMA, it is clear to me that many successful companies have opted to develop and incorporate this department in its strategy as a business. One of the common characteristics of the new strategies in cases of study was “DO MORE WITH LESS” and there are no places where is more evidence this philosophy than facility management department. The increased number of staff and the increased size of the midsized companies have expanded the responsibilities for facility managers. Sometimes, it can be seen that the work is not well done and for that reason, many companies have decided to outsource the management of the faculties, in the world it can be seen that large multinationals and national facility management organisations have the market and their strategy and policies of how to manage the assets is similar, due to this, there is not new strategies and innovative way of how to maximise the benefits of the assets of companies

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 15 Jun 2012 19:03 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Outsourcing FM

Outsourcing is one of the word that facility manager do not like that much, this is because it can represent a threat to the job and for other, it can represent the opportunity to save some money. Regardless of which side the facility managers stand, the reality is the business world is that it s becoming more popular, from the maintenance of the building to HVAC repair. The advantage of outsourcing facility management  is the fact that the company can get the knowhow from companies who have been trained to do manage facilities, rather than have someone who is not necessarily trained to handle these delicate functions, a professional who has years of experience can make these tasks a priority. However, there is need to find a balance in the company and the key for facility management is to find the balances that relay it to management. It means taking honest assestmenent of what is necessary and efficiency. In fact, a facility manager who does not want to come into work one day and find that part of his or her department has been outsourced should participate in the discussion that takes places between management, vendors, and facility managers..

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 13 Jun 2012 20:05 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Facility management roles

When I ask people about facility management, people just reply something related with rental properties or something very familiar to the housing sector, but, Facility management serves in a variety of capacities and this department is vital to today’s business. Nowadays, it is called as a profession and you can find different titles and courses to develop it. Technology has become a key part of companies in developing countries and now it is almost necessary to success. However, keeping a seamless and invisible integration between the infrastructure of the business and new devices is a must. For that reason, this profession is not underappreciated anymore, and it is becoming quite profitable. In my personal opinion, I think that the role of a facility manager varies by the size of the company and the market segment, ever single business has their own facility manager needs. However, my opinion is that a facility manager should have a strong background in construction, local regulations , project management and probably accounting experience.

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 12 Jun 2012 21:55 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Facility management in the University of Warwick

The university Warwick is not one of the oldest universities in England, and actually, it is quite new, in 2015 out university is going to be 50 years old. If you think about it, our university has achieved to be recognise as one of the top 5 university in the UK and is on the top 50 in the world. After reading different journals about facility management, I concluded that one of the factors of success of the university might be its facilities and how these are managed (there are many other factors). It can be seen the soft part of facility management such as catering, vending machines, security, reception and essential component for a university, furthermore, it can be seen technical services such as building access control, building management systems, CCTV monitoring , IT communications. All these factors at the university are creating an environment where students and the staff feel motivated.

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 29 May 2012 14:28 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Daylight

One of the new environmental interests of companies around the world is daylight, the problem is that as a new technology, the advantages and disadvantages of daylight are not fully explore yet, and it is really difficult to get information to know how to implement it properly. However, it is clear that a company can get benefits, especially in reducing energy cost, even if it is well used and manipulated, it can reduce cost of HVAC because it generates heat. it can also have an impact on the productivity and satisfaction of employees, students and even clients and retail customers. It has been proven that people feel better in place where it is more illuminated.

On the other hand, places where daylight can affect their productivity are offices, direct sunlight penetration in the office produces an unpleasant glare for worksurfaces, making very difficult to view a computer screen, also light and heat are challenges that are very difficult to deal with.

Dealing with assets in companies is really difficult because they are double edge sword

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 26 May 2012 16:07 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Experience

I would like to share an experience that one of my friends lived when he was living in the United States, when I was writing the PMA I was quite confused because of the wideness of the topic so I ask him what did he know about facility management, he said that he never had not any idea about the topic but he remembered when he worked in a high school in San Francisco, i told that one day, one of the students was shouting of one of the facility manager team and he said “ anyways, you are only the caretaker”. At the same time, one of the head teachers heard and asks the student, who is the most important person in this school? And he answered “you sir” and the teacher said, i am not the most important person here, the “caretaker” is the most important person because he is up at 5 o clock every morning, open the gates of the school and prepare the rooms.

this is basically another example of the importance of facility management that i would like to share

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 22 May 2012 16:22 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

the implementation of facility manager in Google

The big success of Google demonstrates what really happens when a company wants its employees to be as satisfied as its costumers, or as the book that Paul recommends us: employee’s first, costumers second, as the video that was shown in the organisation, people performance module about Google and what I saw from outside the Google office in London, it can be seen that they use facility manager in order to provide a environment where people feel extreme comfortable. They provide tennis tables, free food, table football, studio, yoga, exercise classes, even a free bicycle to encourage to cycle to work. I don’t really know if the performance and success of Google is because the proper implementation of facility management or because it is a perfect engine machine or both. The only thing I know is that Google provides a ambient where people feel that the company takes care of them and it makes people give 100% of their performance. For that reason, I think that facility management has a huge impact on company’s performance; moreover, its proper implantation has an effect on people motivation, because when I feel really comfortable in the place i can be more proactive and think faster.

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 21 May 2012 21:20 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Classes without lectures

one of the main thing that I learn from kBAM module is, the importance of the self learning enviroment, I totally agree with Paul, I think that the creation of a self learning environment is essential for our academic life, and especially in our professional life. It is true that in a professional job we ask for a lecture of a task of jab, we have to do. If we learn by ourselves, we can have our understanding and interpretation of the concept. And if we learn from a tutor we normally have the understanding of other people. MBE basically was designed in order to prepare people to the real life. In the real life we have to be our tutor. And learn not only from the internet, books and manuals. We have to learn from experiences, and especially, mistakes. Even thought, I agree with Paul about this topic, i also recognise the need for some classes or workshops in order to have a better understanding.

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 05 May 2012 17:46 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

conscious mind is safer than the unconscious mind

The conscious mind is basically everything that we are aware of, this is what we use in order to think and talk rationally. On the other hand, the unconscious mind is everything relates to feelings, thoughts, urges, memories and conscious awareness. The majority of the unpleased feelings are in the unconscious mind. However, why it has been said that the unconscious mind is safer than the conscious mid. From the two definitions, we can say that it is because the conscious awareness is in the unconscious mind. There several actions that we do every day of our lives that we are not aware of. The simplest example is breathing or walking. However, if we want we can use our conscious mind in order to control activities or actions that our unconscious mind controls. However, as it was said before, the unconscious mind is where the information is stored, for that reason, your mind knows or try to predict something is going to happen. The unconscious mind is faster and powerful than the conscious mind.

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 04 May 2012 17:38 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

JIT

After the presentation, I had clear the understanding of Just in Time production; I thought that it was model or an approach that you can implement in a company like another model. However, now, I have cleared the meaning, it is basically something that you can improve constantly in your company; it is a series of task that you company has to achieve in order to improve the speed of the production. These series of task can be: select the suppliers, create efficient partnerships, evaluate the suppliers, reduce the number of suppliers, reducing the inventories, adequate the space in the company and adequate the facilities, train the workers. The result of the different task is Just in time.

Now, it makes more sense. When I visited the Jaguar production plant, I realised that they were implementing this model, and just in time was the result of a series of strategies the lead to the proper example of Just in time where the raw material is when it is needed and the product is despatched when is finished.

Henry Ortiz Toloza : 01 May 2012 20:26 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem