The potential of knowledge management processes for facilitating PFI projects

Knowledge management (KM) is one of the strategies that can be used to improve organisational competitiveness and performance. Like the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), KM attempts to improve service performance. Facilities Management (FM) now has an increasingly important role to play in PFI projects. It is therefore important within the PFI-FM context, to manage knowledge for facilities, particularly on its processes, the approaches to dealing with problems, and the management of day-to-day operations. This allows facilities managers to be more effective at both the operational and managerial levels. The aim of this paper is to identify knowledge management’s potential and its relevance to the integration of facilities management practice in PFI projects. Reviews on current practice, issues and problems, indicate that it would be beneficial to adapt knowledge management in FM organisation, particularly at the operational level. By adopting KM, it could facilitate the effectiveness of managing services and later overcome the shortfalls in meeting expectations and the desired performance level of FM organisations. A discussion is also included on the future research direction for the development of a conceptual framework to support the integration of facilities management practices with relevant knowledge management principles.