Improving office users' workplace perceptions using plants

This paper explores the importance of user perceptions within an organisational context, and more specifically, aims to identify and demonstrate the benefits of plants in offices in contributing to employee wellbeing by influencing their perceptions of a working office. Via comprehensive literature reviews, the importance of user perceptions is determined as well as the importance of indoor plants in office environments in improving employee wellbeing through psychological benefits. It is argued that user perceptions can be analysed through their input and functionalities in the workplace and their consequent application of workplace productivity. In this study, a perception survey was completed, which demonstrated that occupants of planted offices feel more comfortable, more productive, healthier and more creative and feel less pressure than occupants of non-planted offices. The paper provides an insight into how plants can be incorporated within facilities management strategies to improve employee health and wellbeing and improve perceived productivity

Sustainability best practice in PPP: Case study of a hospital project in the UK

Globally, sustainable development has been given high priority for the Government agenda in order to achieve a balance of social, economic and environmental factors. The UK government realise the importance and criticality of sustainable development and they intend to use the public procurement power to demand more sustainable public building development to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Public Private Partnership (PPP) is an effective procurement tool for the government to deliver the provision of public services. In the UK, the most common PPP form is Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Up until March 2012, a total of 717 PFI projects have been delivered to sustain social and economic development in the UK (HM Treasury, 2012). There is potential to use PPP to incorporate the sustainability agenda and support low carbon economic development. However, little research has been conducted to demonstrate the benefits and advantages of the PPP procurement system incorporating sustainable development. This paper aims to demonstrate best practice in sustainable development through PPP (PFI) procurement system in the UK. It initially illustrates the relationship between PPP and sustainable development and then uses a case study of one of the largest PPP hospital projects in the UK, utilising interviews and secondary data to show evidence of how the sustainability issues have been addressed within the procurement process and the advantage and limitations of using the PPP procurement system in delivering sustainable development. The results show best practice across different strands of sustainability through contribution to local employment and the local economy, a high percentage of waste recycling, dust and noise reduction and technical innovations such as green roofs, natural ventilation and a focus on occupant comfort

Preference for Plants in an Office Environment

Plants in the workplace are known to bring a number of benefits including psychological as well as aesthetic and air quality benefits. Therefore, plants can have an impact on overall organisational performance. However, findings of previous studies have rarely been applied in the FM context and yet strategic FM delivery in improving workplace productivity is essential for business survival. The paper explores the importance of interior plants in maintaining the physical and psychological well-being of office occupants utilising a survey of participants’ perceptions of photographs of an office with various levels of planting installed from no plants up to very high levels of planting. The paper provides preliminary results of a longer programme of research into the benefits of plants within the FM context. The work demonstrates that a reasonable level of interior planting in offices is preferred over offices with no plants. These perceived benefits may have a direct impact on overall organisational performance and therefore incorporating elements of nature within building design and management may in future be considered imperative to achieving the desired strategic outcomes of the organisation

Total Quality Facilities Management and Innovation: A Synergistic Approach

The ideas of quality and performance management and innovation in facilities management service provision are not new. Total Quality Management (TQM) is widely recognised throughout the world as a concept capable of providing competitive advantage. Innovation has also received considerable attention as having a crucial role in securing sustainable competitive advantage. However, there has been little consideration of the potential for integration of TQM practices with innovation principles in determining facilities management performance. TQM and innovation appear to corroborate each other and are becoming increasingly important in facilities management. This study takes a theoretical approach to critically review the relationship between TQM and innovation and to determine the relationship between TQM and Innovation in regard to facilities service provision. The theoretical implication is that FM service providers may adopt a synergistic approach to TQM and innovation, leading to sustained competitive advantage in terms of better positioning themselves within the saturated FM marketplace

Music Among Friends

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Facilities Management Approach For Achieving Sustainability in Commercial Buildings in Nigeria

The purpose of this research is to determine the extent of sustainable facilities management (FM) practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria and identify barriers to it, in order to develop a solution model that will proffer ways of overcoming these barriers and ultimately determine sustainable methods by which facility managers in Nigeria can effectively manage commercial properties. This study is a work in progress and it presents a theoretical review on the extent of sustainable FM in developed countries, especially the United Kingdom (UK), and comparing it with the development of sustainable FM in developing countries and Nigeria in particular. Nigeria has a history of unsustainable building practices, mismanagement of buildings and poor maintenance culture with no consideration for its impact on the environment. Findings reveal the three main barriers to sustainable FM practice in corporate organisations in Nigeria, as lack of training and tools, lack of relevant laws and regulation, and lack of knowledge and awareness. Nevertheless, there remains the urgent need to investigate barriers of sustainable FM practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria

Flat fiber: the flexible format for distributed lab-on-a-chip

Integrated optical devices offer dense, multifunctional capability in a single robust package but are rarely considered compatible with the fields of remote or distributed sensing or long-haul 'one-dimensional' fibers. Here we aim to change that by introducing a 'flat-fiber' process that combines the advantages of existing low-cost fiber drawing with the functionality of planar lightwave circuits in a novel hybrid format. By taking this approach, we hope to extend beyond the limitations of traditional planar and fiber substrates - allowing exotic material compositions, device layouts, and local sensing functions to be distributed over extended distances with no coupling or compatibility concerns in highly functional distributed lab-on-a-chip devices

Weighting Background-Subtracted Events

Often a full maximum likelihood (ML) estimate is inconvenient for computational reasons (e.g., iteration over large data sets). If a variable x is a discriminating variable (s(x) 6= b(x)), a weight function can be found which allows estimation of the number of signal events with a variance approaching that of a ML estimate of the same quantity. We derive a formula and discuss it in the context of more general results on event weighting from earlier papers by Barlow and Tkachov, which also nd weighting out-performs cutting