Facilities @ Management

2.5 Missional Journey Toward Raising the Recognition of Facilities Management as a Business Advantage to Organizations in Singapore

Steven Ee

Through this writing, I hope to share with you my missional journey on how I contributed toward raising the recognition of facilities management in Singapore and to serve as a guide to advance the reader’s career in facilities management. My writing is organized as follows:

1. Before Adopting the Facilities Management Approach
2. Research into Facilities Management
3. My Journey during the change of FM arena in Singapore
4. Sharing of Learning on Facilities Management
5. Moving Forward

1. Before Adopting the Facilities Management Approach

In the 1990s, Facilities management (FM) was still a very new concept and unheard of in Singapore. For those of you who have not heard of my country, Singapore, it is a sunny island in South-East Asia. We are a thriving global financial hub, and we take pride in our stability and security.

As mentioned, the practice of FM was hardly known in the 1990s, in Singapore. That was the time when I completed my studies in Building Services Engineering and entered the working world. My entry into the practice is quite accidental. My first job was as a Sales Engineer in a water treatment chemical company, responsible for cooling water systems, chilled water systems, boiler systems, and waste treatment systems. Being an active and inquisitive guy, I was bored with the predictable and uninspiring water treatment chemical job. ...