Knowledge management strategies for sustainable facilities management in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The profession of facilities management (FM) is becoming knowledge driven. In this regard, managing facilities managers’ knowledge helps for sustainable outputs through the creation of supportive and cost effective physical environment that strongly supports the primary objectives of office buildings sector. This study attempts to bring in knowledge management insights into facilities management and explores strategies of managing facilities manger’s knowledge. Case studies of three in-house FM teams occupied in three leading office buildings in Sri Lanka were used to approach the research problem. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with three individuals from each case. The findings revealed that a wealth of knowledge is accumulated within a handful of FM practitioners as tacit knowledge in the form of experiences, intuitions and insights. Hence, a personalisation approach is preferred to a codification approach in managing FM knowledge within individual organisations and the profession as a whole. However, codification strategies are also suggested to complement the process in the long term due to the emerging nature of the profession and the need for transferring knowledge to future FM professionals. This research is of exploratory nature, which explored an emerging FM profession in Sri Lanka. Further research is required to fully understand how knowledge management concepts could be incorporated within FM professions worldwide for sustainable FM.