ABSTRACT

The growing importance of facility management (FM) has engendered new opportunities and challenges in the industry. One of the challenges as an FM is the need to consistently achieve high-quality end-product to satisfy the built environment's users (visitors, owners, and occupants). To achieve this, FMs typically hire and outsource most of the construction work and ensuring high satisfaction at the end of every project is critical for success. On the other hand, the contractors also need to ensure that the FMs are satisfied with their quality of work. Customer satisfaction scores during the post-occupancy evaluation stages have emerged as an essential tool to measure the applicators' performance and the satisfaction level of the facility manager. One of the important sectors within the construction industry is construction coatings that are applied to the finished surface, such as roofs, floors, and walls, that improve surface properties such as appearance, waterproofing, and resistance from scratch or wear and tear. The literature review shows little research on the impact of critical job parameters like the region, season, and temperature on the customer satisfaction score within the construction coating sector. To identify additional factors that can improve the customer satisfaction score, the researchers studied various parameters like the job region, the season of installation, the temperature at which the applicators installed the products, and its effect on customer ratings collected from end-users/FM's. The study showed that out of the three factors of region, season, and installation temperature, the region and the season significantly affected the overall customer satisfaction rating. This study also provides additional parameters to improve customer satisfaction scores for facility managers seeking to enhance project success and for applicators who want to improve customer satisfaction ratings for construction coating projects.

ABSTRACT

Building equipment failure can have drastic effects on a company's operations and budget. This paper presents two types of maintenance approaches that if done effectively, can prevent or significantly reduce the failure of building equipment assets. The first is traditional time-based preventive maintenance (PM), which conducts prefailure inspections and tasks in a cyclic time-based approach. The second, is predictive maintenance (PdM), which conducts maintenance functions based on the condition of the equipment found through continuous or cyclic measurements and analysis during machine operation.

The purpose of investigating these maintenance approaches is to determine whether we can improve on the U.S. Navy's (Navy) existing facility maintenance program, helping to reduce overall costs while improving sustainability, equipment resiliency, and efficiency. By presenting each maintenance program and leveraging today's technologies we show that these advancements in technology can directly improve the Navy's operational mission and warfighter readiness.

Research was conducted through the following methods: interviews, books, third party reports, journal articles, industry websites and articles that focus on equipment maintenance. The Navy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the University of Washington provided case studies, existing facility/utility maintenance data, and budget information used in this research. The results show that PdM approaches using advanced analytics are more effective in diagnosing equipment, prescribing equipment problems, and predicting equipment failure. It will also show that when a PdM model is used, building tenants have less operational impacts as equipment operates longer with less downtime between maintenance events. By changing to a PdM program, facility managers and owners can improve asset efficiency and resilience, directly improving environmental sustainability and lowering overall longterm costs. It highlights the significant capital costs of a fully online PdM program and the benefits of using a hybrid model of PM and PdM.

This research concludes with an overview of how building maintenance is currently being conducted on Navy bases by Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC), and how they are transitioning to a more sustainable maintenance program leveraging existing advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), building control systems (BCS), and utility control systems (UCS) with Smart Grid (SG), OSI Pi, and advanced analytics. In addition, major gaps in this transition are identified, and solutions are proposed to optimize these building system investments.

ABSTRACT

Commercial buildings are asset intensive facilities and therefore have unique challenges in the asset lifecycle management. When procedures and guidelines on decommissioning are not enforced, these buildings can be left unattended for years. As a result, the lack of maintenance may expedite asset deterioration, thus leaving less material salvageable for future use. This study aims to better understand current trends in the decommissioning of commercial buildings by surveying industry professionals across three possible dimensions 1) planned decommissioning, 2) condition assessments on commercial buildings, and 3) current awareness of procedures and guidelines. Through correlation analysis, the study explores how professionals’ roles in the industry relate to these three dimensions, offering valuable insights into the dynamic interplay shaping decommissioning practices. This study analyzes data collected through a Qualtrics survey designed to target construction and facilities management professionals. The 720 respondents were associated with the International Facilities Management Association and the American Institute of Architects. Results of the study show that planning for decommissioning mostly occurs once a building has been vacated or due to reactionary planning in an attempt to save a facility for reuse or remodeling. There is a consensus among the survey respondents that condition assessments on unoccupied/vacated buildings should be conducted annually. Results also indicate that although there are instances where vacated facilities maintained a minimal supply of utilities, there are many instances where facilities have had lights switched off, doors locked, and the building completely shut down. This study provides results that identify key variables as to what may influence how a building is decommissioned and promote standardized decommissioning procedures and guidelines for commercial buildings.

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

Renovating existing buildings to render them more energy efficient is critical. However, current energy-efficiency efforts in the building sector remain insufficient. Despite the growing literature related to energy efficiency in buildings, context-driven reasons for stakeholders to undertake energy-efficiency retrofits remain less understood. The researchers conducted a systematic literature review to synthesize and consolidate the results of studies worldwide from 2009 to 2020, examining factors and associated contexts that influence building stakeholders’ decisions to implement energy-efficiency retrofits. The review involved searching databases and topic-specific journals using multiple keywords and synonyms for energy-efficiency retrofits and decision-making. The initial search yielded 25,093 articles, and 134 were further assessed for inclusion and exclusion. Forty-two of those articles met the criteria for inclusion and were examined to evaluate the factors and context associated with the decisions related to energy-efficiency retrofits. Recent relevant research was analyzed, considering methodologies, regions, economic development, building types, participant characteristics, and study size. Based on the extensive review of the literature, this study identified 30 factors that can be categorized under seven decision criteria involved in determining retrofits: economic feasibility, team process, technical practicality, institutional characteristic, governmental policy, occupant impact, and environmental impact. The main factors that influenced energy retrofit decisions included life cycle cost, coordination and collaboration, system compatibility, internal value, government commitment, satisfaction and well-being, and eco-friendly installation. Variations regarding factors influencing stakeholders’ perceptions among different regions and building types were also examined. The study found that risk management, technology readiness, and standards and regulations were more significant in countries with developing economies. Conversely, system compatibility, reputation, and political influence were more important in developed economies. The findings from this study provide insights into future research that may guide the development of more context-appropriate strategies that drive stakeholders to implement energy-efficiency retrofits in their buildings.