Managing director of Omniyat Mark Pheonix in an interview with Construction Business News Middle East said that facilities management (FM) team should be considered as during the design brief in the initial stages of a building project.
By including the FM professionals from the beginning, Phoenix says that now his design team have a better understanding about how to design something that could maintain a reasonable service charge later.
He said: “You just cannot expect people to pay up later.” He explained that by being inconsiderate toward maintenance a developer can eventually be negatively affected. He said that buyers would come back and say, “Your building looks good, but costs me a fortune!”
Phoenix added: “FM teams are not included in the design phase in this region, because most developers do not have an in-house FM team like we do. Involving FM teams are much easier when they are all working under one umbrella.”
Experts from the construction industry strongly believe that it is essential to construct a building that is easily maintainable. Mohanad Alwadiya, managing director of Harbor Harbor Real Estate and instructor at the Dubai Real Estate Institute, said that not including FM in the beginning could be poorly managing an asset.
At this year’s FM Expo he said: “FM professionals are experts in operating the asset. They can’t just change everything once the asset is completed. They should be involved from the very beginning.”
With an AED155bn turnover in the construction sector in Dubai this year, the FM industry is said to be valued over AED20bn per annum by 2016. With increasing number of projects, FM needs to be given a more active role to build and maintain stronger assets.
By Lorraine Bangera
