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Proposed partnering standard needs FM input

FMs should add their voice to a consultation on a proposed British Standard on partnering to ensure it considers the face-to-face aspect of facilities management.

The BS 11000 collaborative business partnering standard ‘is perfectly logical for the FM sector’, said Martin Pickard, managing director of The FM Guru Consultancy.

‘But lots of manufacturing and software businesses are commenting on the standard and FMs could find it is not as fine-tuned to their concept of good-practice collaborative working as it should be,’ he told FM World.

Pickard represents the Facilities Management Association as a member of the BSI drafting committee.

The consultation process for BS 11000 will end on July 31, after which a comment review board, including Pickard, will meet to consider revisions with an eye to finalising a standard some time in the autumn.

‘There is a danger that the standard will get a spin away from the more face-to-face way of collaborative working that FMs do,’ said Pickard.

For many supply chain activities partnering means meeting with suppliers infrequently, sometimes with meetings weeks apart. The only continuous contact might be with delivery people once a week.

An FM provider, as a supplier, is working in a very different world, said Pickard.

‘Often the FM suppliers is literally living in your building with you. This requires s different style of management for such a collaborative situation where your supplier is in your face every day.’

A good partnering, or collaborative way of working, for an FM and its client likely means more frequent meetings, more in-depth reviews and much more detail about the human interaction aspect of a good business relationship.

BS 11000 will be a voluntary British Standard to support collaborative business partnering. It has been developed from the Publically Available Specification PAS 11000 with the involvement of industry, government and BSI.

BS 11000 enables an organisation of any size and sector to apply good partnering practice and to manage valuable business relationships. The standard will help organisations establish, manage and improve collaborative partnering between public and private sector organisations.


The draft of BS 11000 is available online and BSI is calling for comments from all interested parties.


This article was also featured on http://www.fm-world.co.uk