Structured process improvements in facilities management organisations: Best practice case studies in the retail sector

Facilities management is a key managerial discipline and large corporations are increasingly
recognising its importance in respect of achieving organisational goals and objectives.
Enterprises are able to improve their performance by the more effective use of resources, the
matching of appropriate support systems to business activities, and the application of assertive
management by those best qualified and equipped to carry it out. However, FM organisations
lack clear guidelines to direct their improvement efforts and to benchmark their performance
against other organisations. The SPICE FM (Structured Process improvement in construction
environments – facilities management) maturity framework was developed as a response to
this requirement. SPICE FM draws a distinction between FM organisations that have ‘mature’
or well-established processes, and those where the processes are ‘immature’. This paper
briefly describes the characteristics of the SPICE FM Framework, followed by a review of the
key findings from the case study undertaken.