Managing facilities in building environment

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Apparently irked by the dilapidated state of public buildings across the country, former President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at the State House in Abuja signed into law the Executive Order 11, a landmark order which focuses essentially on the maintenance of public buildings. The first of its kind with a policy framework for maintenance of national infrastructures, the Executive Order expects Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government (MDAs) to set up maintenance departments. The Order gives legal backing to the country’s national maintenance policy and expects the office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation to establish a department of federal public assets maintenance. The Executive Order is highly commendable as it would address the deplorable state of public buildings, strengthen and sustain its development as well as the development of infrastructures in the country. This is because building maintenance which is an important aspect of building management is often neglected and it is expected that implementation of the Executive Order would give a facelift to public buildings across the country.

With the institutionalisation of maintenance culture, buildings are expected to retain their economic life; there would be lower depreciation cost, and consequently, there would be higher productivity and profitability. In other words, proper maintenance would ensure lower expenditures on replacement, and would allow more expenditure or funds for incursion into new productive ventures and investment. As commendable as the government initiative was, it should be stated however that in today’s dynamic and high paced world, what matters to the corporate and business world are functions which integrate people, place and processes within the built environment and which rubs off on the quality of life of people and productivity of the core business. Corporations increasingly recognise the importance of managing not only buildings, but management which juxtaposes with people and processes, which also integrates the principles of administration and architecture, into the behavioural and engineering sciences.

Encouraged by globalization, facilities management vocation has spread from the US and Europe into Nigeria with big multinational corporations operating in developed countries and African countries such as Chevron and Mobil adopting this relatively new practice. Current developments in information technology, rising expectations of employees, advancements in telecommunications and the removal of trade barriers are gradually transforming the world into a global village, and one of the fallouts has been the spread and acceptance of the concept to every country’s doorstep, Nigeria inclusive. In other words, a functional, effective and productive system and organization requires goes beyond building maintainace. It is now all about a mix of functions and services which provides essential support system in the right form, at the right quality and for the right cost to core business operations. These are embedded in facility management.

To the extent that essential lifeline for the sustainability of the society is quality shelter, the growing population of Nigeria, growth in urbanisation, expansion of business, tourism, hotels, institutional buildings and the like, leads to demand for facility management services for proper maintenance of properties. Of utmost importance is the need to keep up with the requisite facilities to satisfy the growing needs of the population which in turn would contribute toward the economic growth of the country. Urbanisation influences sustainable development by increasing productivity, by allowing innovation, and novel ideas if properly managed. Hence, this trend is expected to continue to drive the Nigeria facility management services market growth. Nigeria’s response to rapidly advancing technology includes buildings and construction at a corresponding pace that has never been witnessed before anywhere in the continent of Africa. With the aid of technology, we are having new types of buildings; green, smart and intelligent buildings. There is also renew commitment to mass housing and new infrastructure and these comes with more interests in the facility management industry in the country. There is however a huge challenge of capacity here. Organizations in the built environment need to concentrate on building capacity to manage the industry because there are gaps in knowledge and skill managers. Facility management is a multi-disciplinary space; people from other fields such as engineering and construction are being drafted to manage buildings, but quite unfortunately without tutelage by facility management consultants and these are people with experiences over the useful life of buildings, people who understand how buildings degrade over time. It is very important to take into account the body of knowledge for managing buildings because it takes a lot to keep assets value up and running.

There is also a huge deficit in energy efficiency and energy provision for the facilities. This does not necessarily mean we have enough power for our built environment, but because we are wasting about 40 percent of the power we are generating. We engage with a lot of clients across the country and realize that we could save electricity and diesel cost for up to about 30-40 percent just by intervening and using some smart systems. We have to close that gap through training. It is however noted that there is an increasing demand and vacancy in the facility management space in Nigeria, and basic shelter can transform to new heights of safety, comfort and functionality through innovative implementation of quality facility management.

A degree of determination, collective efforts by practitioners and stakeholders, career training and development, regulatory framework and standardization are required in overcoming challenges in the field and practice of facility management. Estate Surveyors and Valuers are professionals responsible for land, buildings, plant and machinery management, and in reasonable senses, we should be more purposeful and visible in the arena of facility management.

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