This article provides a brief overview of the history and development of facility management research in the Netherlands and indicates future directions. Facility management as a profession has developed from single service to multi-services and integral services over the past 15 years.
Purpose– The present paper aims to explore to what extent the quality of facility services can be related to the differences in educational achievements in higher education.Design/methodology/approach - This paper is based on the first preliminary analyses of a national online survey among 1,752 lecturers of 18 Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences. Via explorative desk research, additional data were gathered regarding the educational achievements, size and religious identity of the institutions. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regressionwere used to test the propositions.Findings – The results seem to indicate that the perceived quality of facility services that are education-related and provide personal comfort to teachers have a positive relationship with study success. Layout, fitting out, and general facility services show no statistically significant relationship with study success, whereas (traditional) workplaces have a negative relationship. Also, we found that the size of the education institution strongly negatively relates to studysuccess, and institutions with a Christian identity outperform non-Christian institutions.Practical implications– These preliminary research findings suggest that a prime consideration in learning space design is the facilitation of social interaction, creating a (virtual) small-scale learning environment in large institutions.Originality/value - This paper suggests that facility services can assist the quality of higher education.
An important challenge for facility management is to integrate the complex and comprehensive construct of different service processes and physical elements of the service facility into a meaningful and functional facility design. The difficulty of this task is clearly indicated by the present study that shows that different employee categories for interpersonal services have quite different perceptions of the facility design that stem from different but coherent needs and interests. Employees with management perspectives (i.e. top managers and facility managers) were significantly more positive about the facility design than frontline employees and their supervisors with providers’ perspectives. Also, providers attributed a more important role to facility design with respect to delivering interpersonal services than management did. We found strong indications for the need for cross-functional cooperation in decision making about the facility design, creating a more balanced setting and possibly empowering providers for the service encounter.
Met het rijksbrede programma ‘Nederland Circulair in 2050’ wil de Rijksoverheid een omslag maken naar een circulaire economie, met als uitgangspunt 50% minder verbruik van primaire grondstoffen (mineraal, fossiel en metalen) in 2030. In hun voorbeeldfunctie tegenover bedrijven en consumenten hebben overheidsorganisaties als doel gesteld om in 2020 slechts 35% restafval te genereren binnen hun bedrijfsvoering. Een afdeling Facility Management, gericht op ondersteuning van het primaire proces, kan daaraan een belangrijke bijdrage leveren. Maar hoe doe je dat? Facilitaire professionals van overheidsorganisaties ervaren knelpunten die hen belemmeren om de doelstellingen te behalen. Zij vinden het bijvoorbeeld lastig om de circulaire gedachte en circulair gedrag in alle schakels van het bedrijfsproces te stimuleren. En beschikken niet altijd over de juiste kennis om gericht actie te ondernemen. In dit project wordt dan ook handelingsgericht onderzoek verricht rondom de vraag: “Met welk handelingsprotocol kunnen facilitaire professionals van de Rijksoverheid duurzaam gebruikersgedrag stimuleren, de afval- en grondstofstromen verduurzamen en daarmee bijdragen aan een circulaire bedrijfsvoering?” De projectpartners Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen en FM Haaglanden willen samen met De Haagse Hogeschool een handelingsprotocol ontwikkelen zodat facilitaire professionals de circulaire bedrijfsvoering binnen overheidsorganisaties kunnen optimaliseren. Het project speelt daarmee in op de huidige handelingsverlegenheid bij facilitaire professionals die in zeer korte tijd de ambitie van 35% restafval in 2020 dienen te halen. De urgentie van het project is daarmee zeer groot. In twee jaar ontwikkelt De Haagse Hogeschool dit handelingsprotocol samen met de projectpartners. Het projectplan bestaat uit activiteiten die zijn gericht op 1) het inventariseren en stimuleren van duurzaam gedrag bij eindgebruikers, 2) het inventariseren en stimuleren van duurzaam gedrag bij facilitaire professionals, 3) het ontwikkelen en toepassen van een praktisch handelingsprotocol voor facilitaire professionals van de Rijksoverheid en 4) het dissemineren in praktijk, onderwijs en onderzoek.
Single-Use Plastics (SUPs) are at the centre of European Union Agenda aiming at reducing the plastic soup with the EU Directive 2019/904. SUPs reduction is pivotal also in the Dutch Government Agenda for the transition to a Circular Economy by 2050. Worldwide the data on SUPs use and disposal are impressive: humans use around 1.2 million plastic bottles per minute; approximately 91% of plastic is not recycled (www.earthday.org/fact-sheet-single-use-plastics/). While centralised processes of waste collection, disposal, and recycling strive to cope with such intense use of SUPs, the opportunities and constraints of establishing a networked grid of facilities enacting processes of SUPs collection and recycling with the active involvement of local community has remained unexplored. The hospitality sector is characterised by a widespread capillary network of small hospitality firms nested in neighbourhoods and rural communities. Our research group works with small hospitality firms, different stakeholders, and other research groups to prompt the transition of the hospitality sector towards a Circular Economy embracing not only the environmental and economic dimensions but also the social dimension. Hence, this project explores the knowledge and network needed to build an innovative pilot allowing to close the plastic loop within a hospitality facility by combining a 3D printing process with social inclusiveness. This will mean generating key technical and legal knowledge as well as a network of strategic experts and stakeholders to be involved in an innovative pilot setting a 3D printing process in a hospitality facility and establishing an active involvement of the local community. Such active involvement of the local inhabitants will be explored as SUPs collectors and end-users of upcycled plastics items realised with the 3D printer, as well as through opportunities of vocational training and job opportunities for citizens distant from the job market.
Climate change is one of the most critical global challenges nowadays. Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration brought by anthropogenic emissions has been recognized as the primary driver of global warming. Therefore, currently, there is a strong demand within the chemical and chemical technology industry for systems that can covert, capture and reuse/recover CO2. Few examples can be seen in the literature: Hamelers et al (2013) presented systems that can use CO2 aqueous solutions to produce energy using electrochemical cells with porous electrodes; Legrand et al (2018) has proven that CDI can be used to capture CO2 without solvents; Shu et al (2020) have used electrochemical systems to desorb (recover) CO2 from an alkaline absorbent with low energy demand. Even though many efforts have been done, there is still demand for efficient and market-ready systems, especially related to solvent-free CO2 capturing systems. This project intends to assess a relatively efficient technology, with low-energy costs which can change the CO2 capturing market. This technology is called whorlpipe. The whorlpipe, developed by Viktor Schauberger, has shown already promising results in reducing the energy and CO2 emissions for water pumping. Recently, studies conducted by Wetsus and NHL Stenden (under submission), in combination with different companies (also members in this proposal) have shown that vortices like systems, like the Schauberger funnel, and thus “whorlpipe”, can be fluid dynamically represented using Taylor-Couette flows. This means that such systems have a strong tendency to form vortices like fluid-patterns close to their air-water interface. Such flow system drastically increase advection. Combined with their higher area to volume ratio, which increases diffusion, these systems can greatly enhance gas capturing (in liquids), and are, thus, a unique opportunity for CO2 uptake from the air, i.e. competing with systems like conventional scrubbers or bubble-based aeration.
