Tuuli Jylhä

Impacts of poor quality of information in the facility management field

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the quality of information and its impact on the facility management (FM) service processes from a lean management perspective. Waste has a key role in lean management when improving productivity. Unfortunately, the potential of waste elimination has not been utilised in FM. Poorly managed information has already been recognised as a source of waste. Design/methodology/approach – The quality of information and related waste activities were studied in a value creation context through four in-depth case studies. The research included 130 interviews and workshops with the case organisations and their customers. Findings – The results confirm that poor quality of information produces a lot of waste activities. In the cross-case analysis, three impacts were found as a result of the poor quality of information in FM service processes: a lot of time is wasted for searching, a great deal of extra work is conducted and potential is lost. Research limitations/implications – Alth...

The state of value creation in the real-estate sector – lessons from lean thinking

Purpose – Although great emphasis has been given to the added value of real estate, the current studies miss the phase when the actual value is created, i.e., the production phase of real-estate services. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current state of value creation of the commercial real-estate services from a lean thinking perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Value creation is studied in four Finnish cases through 122 interviews and eight workshops. Findings – Cross-case analysis identified six sources of waste resulting as poor value creation: sub-process optimisation instead of optimising the entire process, the price minimisation instead of cost minimisation, difficulties responding to customer value, overloaded employees, inability to make improvements, and poorly managed information. Research limitations/implications – Although the findings are grounded on a solid data collection and analysis, the case study nature of the research and the Finnish case study settings ...

The perceived value of workplace concepts for organisations

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the value of workplace concepts. The aim is twofold. First, the development of expected value into actual perceived value of workplace concept is studied together with the methods adopted to realise such value. After this, the perceived value of concepts is analysed in more detail to supplement the literature. Design/methodology/approach – The identified relationship is analysed qualitatively through six Finnish case organisations. The data were collected both through interviews and observations and analysed through coding. Findings – The actual perceived value of the workplace concepts was richer than the expected value before the workplace implementation. The direction from cost- to business- workplace strategies was noticed. Active employee involvement and orientation towards their needs, as well as also the activity-based offices with unassigned workspaces and more meeting areas, were the main tools and methods used to perceive the value. Practical implications – ...

Partnership practices and their impact on value creation – reflections from lean management

The trend of outsourcing operational property management services by the property owners has had a prominent role in the Finnish real estate sector. At the same time, value creation has been scattered across many players such as the owner, the property manager and several service providers. This paper aims to analyse the value creation practices and mechanisms between two partners, a real estate owner and its property management company, in order to assess the current value creation. The assessment is based on a lean partnering framework presented by Lamming (1993). The customers are office tenants in the Helsinki business district. The case findings showed that the expected customer value was challenging to deliver, because waste activities disrupted the value creation. The partners had also adapted some of the value creation practices differently, which caused turbulence in value creation. In addition, the partners had missed the power of doing improvements jointly, but prefer to use bidding to establish value creation. However, through lean thinking the organisations found a much-needed new approach to develop their partnership. The principles of lean management made the problem clearer and enabled the organisations to start dealing with the relevant challenges.

Learning from lean management going beyond input-output thinking

Purpose – The aim of the research is to address why facility management (FM) processes do not support customer value creation.Design/methodology/approach – An in‐depth analysis of the value creation process in the industry was analysed with 15 interviews and a workshop based around a case process. The study considers the current value creation processes against the theory of lean management.Findings – The lack of literature shows that the overall value creation process has been neglected. The case findings indicate that the FM process does not support comprehensive customer value creation. The FM process has been structured based on agreements, not on value creation. A lot of effort has aimed to improve the value adding FM process, but not to minimise the unavoidable non‐value adding, i.e. waste activities, from the process.Research limitations/implications – The study is conducted in a globally operating organisation in Finland and, due to similarities, the results could also be applied in other countrie...

Towards Business Potential of Workplace Services in Finland

Abstract People no longer work as they worked 15 years ago. One of the major changes, as Laing (2013) stated, is that the employee no longer has to go to work, but information technology brings the work to the employee. Due to the independency of work from time and place, employees are working in a new way in multiple locations. For service providers, this offers a new business field. Thus, the paper focuses on this new business opportunity. The aim of the paper is to identify the business potential to build up and elaborate the workplace service business. Interviews with national workplace service providers and international workplace experts were conducted in order to get practical insight on the topic. Based on the interviews, two development steps are required to utilise the new business opportunity: (1) the transaction-oriented way to provide workplace services should be substituted by new business models, and (2) the workplace service should be re-thought and re-designed as a service that is not solely dependent on physical space. Based on the new business model and service, a new business opportunity could be harnessed.

Applying the KANO model to analyse the value of green FM

Purpose – This research project studies office tenants’ perceived value of green service attributes, with the focus being on facility services and management. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of what kind of green attributes tenants value in their office buildings. Design/methodology/approach – The research project was conducted using a single case study methodology. A green facilities management concept was tested in a pilot building. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire based on the Kano model of attractive quality. In addition, open-ended questions were asked to further understand the tenants’ views on the matter. Findings – The findings of the research project indicate that tenants have begun to value green attributes in their office buildings. While environmental efficiency is not yet a strategic guideline for small tenants, it would increase their satisfaction with facility management and services. Practical implications – Facility management and service organisati...

Towards responsive workplaces – identifying service paths for time- and place-independent work

Purpose The need to understand work processes and end-users has become an issue in corporate real estate and workplace management. Flexible work practices and technological advancement allow end-users to move outside the building boundaries. This influences workplace management to become more service-oriented and demand-driven, and better serve the needs of end-users. For that, this paper aims to investigate the ways in which new workplace services support the knowledge creation processes of mobile workers. Design/methodology/approach This study is exploratory and follows a multiple-case study strategy. Literature is reviewed on workplace and knowledge theories, and the market analysis consists of data from 57 firms that offer services to support the mobile knowledge worker. Findings Workplace services were categorized into three new groups that support knowledge creation processes for the mobile knowledge worker in various work environments. The analysis indicated that new services are driven by technological development and community formation around the physical or virtual place. Practical implications The proposed service groups can be examined as new business opportunities by workplace service providers, and the results suggest that the CRE managers should re-think their service portfolios, boost their collaboration with the service providers and invest in building a community. Originality/value This paper categorizes workplace services from a mobile knowledge worker perspective and follows a service-oriented approach to workplace management.

The many faces of office noise – case contact center

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to take a look at the phenomena of office noise and to try and outline the worker perceptions of noise in a multi-dimensional and holistic manner. This is done in a case study setting in contact center environment. Design/methodology/approach – The research was carried out in three phases. First, a review of existing research was carried out. Second, 28 interviews were carried out to outline the dimensions of office noise. Third, a set of 20 further interviews were carried out to study the dimensions of noise that appeared from the first phase of the research. Findings – The literature review introduces seven streams of office noise research. None of these looks at the office noise as a holistic and multi-dimensional experience of office workers. The results from the interviews suggest that office workers see the office noise to have negative, neutral and positive aspects. In call center context, the most important aspect of noise includes: psychological and physiolo...

Opportunities and challenges of workplace concept creation in Finnish government agencies

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to study the opportunities and challenges of the government workplace concepting process. Several Finnish government administrations have created nationwide workplace concepts for their network of agencies. These concepts give guidelines for designing workplaces for modern knowledge workers as well as service channels for the customers. Design/methodology/approach – This paper discusses five Finnish government workplace concepts that include guidelines and recommendations for workplace design. The five workplace concept manuals were studied using content analysis. Additionally, seven interviews were conducted with participants involved in the concepting process. Findings – The opportunities and challenges of the governmental workplace concepting process were studied using a six-step process framework. Each step has its own unique opportunities and challenges, which affect the outcome and the progress in implementing the concepts. Studying the opportunities and challenges...