Invitations to Tender for Facility Management Services

The present chapter introduces the topic of Facility Management (FM), highlighting its potential for business organizations as a source of competitive advantage. Afterward, the topic of FM Procurement Process is introduced, describing its main features and functions. Then, an analysis of the possible service delivery options for the provision of FM services (in-house, outsourced and hybrid) is carried out, stressing main strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Focusing on the outsourcing strategy, the chapter deals with the topic of Tendering Process, explaining its different typologies (e.g. competitive, selective, pre-registered) along with the related required Tendering Documents, among which the Invitation to Tender (ITT). Subsequently, the phases of preparation, development, implementation and execution of a FM contract are discussed, underlining for each phase the key actions to be performed. Lastly, the role and the importance of a well-written ITT, in the context of a Procurement Process, is emphasized both from the Client side—for a proper and accurate transfer of its strategy, policies and needs to potential Service Providers; for increasing its ability to adequately evaluate the received offers; for the comprehensiveness and clearness of the future FM contract—and from the Service Providers side, for a proper assessment of their suitability to respond to the ITT and for writing a comprehensive tender consistent with the Client requests expressed in the ITT.

The chapter introduces some keys for interpreting the FM scenario, considering both the main features of the current approaches and the most innovative and advanced experimentations and applications—deepened in Chap. 8—that may be opportunities for the evolution of integrated services. Whatever the approaches are—traditional applications or innovative experimentations—the chapter intends to underline how the quality and the success of a FM service depend meaningfully on the capabilities of the Client in orienting, monitoring and controlling the service delivery and in developing and managing a positive relationship with the Service Provider. For these purposes the ITT is a fundamental document. In order to prepare an ITT, the Client should develop several preliminary analyses focused, according to a process approach, on the needs and requirements of the demand organization considering the perspective of the whole life cycle of the FM service, as well as on the need to manage and enrich the knowledge base of the organization. Starting from these premises, the chapter assumes and analyzes several international standard references in order to propose a scheme of Sourcing Process, that starts from the preliminary analysis of the organization up to reach the tendering process, the development of a FM agreement and, lastly, the service delivery phase. The Sourcing Process is represented according a flow chart and each step of the chart is described highlighting its main goals and contents.

The chapter starts the in-depth analysis—continued in the following chapters—of some basic topics that should be considered in the writing of an ITT. In particular, the chapter introduces some keys to interpreting the following topics: the requested services, the Command Centre, the operative structure, the Help Desk. Regarding the requested services, the chapter proposes a list of possible services, starting from the awareness that the precise identification and description of the required services must be unambiguous and presented in a systematic manner within the ITT, specifying: characteristics and quantities (related to spaces, infrastructures and people), dealing with the services; the KPIs and the SLAs assumed as references for monitoring and controlling the quality of the performed services; the modalities, roles and responsibilities for monitoring and controlling the delivery of the services. Regarding the Command Centre, the chapter underlines the importance of clarifying to the tenderers the kind of governance of the service the client intends to assume, since many of the contents of the services offers depend on the distribution of the roles and tasks between Client and Service Provider. For this reason the ITT should clarify strategic and tactical aspects such as: the functions, the roles and the responsibilities of the Client and the Service Provider; their relationships; the responsibilities for decisions; the responsibility and the use of the information system, etc. In the Chap. 4 possible models of command centre are proposed and discussed, specifying, for each one, roles and responsibilities of the Client and of the Service Provider. Regarding the operative structure, the chapter discusses about the activities, related to operational level, that are mainly developed by the Service Provider. Lastly, regarding the Help Desk the chapter discusses the functions of this important structure, to be considered as a sort of communication hub for all the issues concerning the FM services, among which: receiving and tracking users’ requests, activating the Service Provider and the operative teams, supporting in the interaction with the team of the Service Provider, managing information.

The chapter deals with topics connected with information management. Starting from the assumption that information represents a key subject for the quality of a FM service, the chapter introduces a series of questions, that a Client should consider in preparing an ITT, related to the modalities of collection and organization of data and to roles, responsibilities, tools and procedures for the information management. In relation to these questions, some basic ITT topics, related to information, are analyzed in depth, namely: feedback data. The chapter highlights the importance of feedback data for developing a historical and statistical basis for the control and the possible review of the results of the services, as well as for increasing knowledge over time.

The chapter introduces the topic of monitoring and control of the performance and quality of services highlighting the main activities to be performed for implementing the measurement, the monitoring and the assessment of the service performance delivered by the Service Provider. In particular, an in-depth description of the main tools useful to measure, monitor, control and report the real achieved performance and quality levels during the service delivery phase is provided, focusing on: The chapter deepens these tools, highlighting—for each of them—the related information that the Client should include within the ITT.

The present chapter introduces significant key topics that the Client should discuss within an ITT for FM service provision, in particular: These topics are in-depth analyzed from the point of view of the Client, highlighting the main sets of information that should be included in the ITT.

The chapter considers the analytical activities that a Client should perform for the preparation of the tender documents both “ex ante” (self-analysis of its organization and needs, analysis of standards and of good practices to be assumed as references) and “ex post” (actions of monitoring and assessment, related not only to the performances of the Provider, but also to the quality of the ITT). Starting from the topics, analysed in the previous chapters, in the present chapter some frameworks are proposed in order to provide possible supports to be used in different ways according to the various steps of the FM service procurement, in particular: in the preliminary self-analysis of needs and goals developed by the Client, to support the activities of investigation; in the phase of preparation of the ITT, to assume key questions, to guide the organization of the text and to create ITT response templates; in the phase of assessment, to compare the received tenders according to a unique scheme, highlighting weaknesses and strengths; in the phase of service delivery, searching for improvements to be considered for the preparation of the next ITT.

The present chapter introduces some scenarios of innovation of FM practices, namely: Sustainable Procurement, Building Information Modeling (BIM), Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT). These innovations are described in detail and then discussed with respect to the elaboration of ITTs, analyzing the contents that consequently will have to be reviewed and added by the Client. Firstly, an overview of the Sustainable Procurement introduced by the international standard ISO 20400:2017 is provided, highlighting its principles, core subjects and drivers, as well as benefits and advantages. Then, the active measures for the integration of sustainable procurement practices within the steps constituting the traditional procurement process are described and analyzed. Secondly, the chapter introduces BIM as a promising technology for the innovation of the FM sector, highlighting its main features and capabilities—including visualization, interoperability and information exchange—useful to enhance collaboration among FM stakeholders and to streamline FM processes and activities, at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. Lastly, the chapter focuses on Big Data and IoT paradigms and their application to FM, highlighting how the availability of real-time data—gathered by a distributed and disseminated system of IoT sensors and devices implemented within the building—along with the capabilities of Big Data Analytics, may represent a significant driver for improving the monitoring and control processes of service performance, as well as for FM-related cognitive and decision-making processes, gaining the needed awareness useful to properly calibrate future choices and investments.