Managing facilities under the multi-service result-oriented approach: some insights coming from the field in Italy

This paper presents a literature survey coupled with a standards survey as standpoints to develop a new facility management model based on the multi-service result-oriented approach. To prevent the most popular pitfalls in the field, the model focuses on customer satisfaction and, broadly speaking, on performance control, by embedding the customer-supplier relationship within the six-sigma framework and by suggesting the define, measure, analyse, improve and control (DMAIC) methodology. The applicability of the proposed model to the industrial environment is validated through an extensive survey on small- and medium-sized Italian enterprises: results point out that the majority of companies are well aware of the opportunities offered by the facility management discipline, but they are not still able to fully exploit these opportunities. Finally, two case studies coming from the healthcare industry further witness the applicability of the proposed model even in some particular industries, and confirmed the relevant potential improvements of the customer-supplier relationship when dealing with facilities-related services.