INTRODUCTION
In the present era of globalisation and modernisation, each and every company is putting all its efforts to maintain a competitive and winning edge in the vast international economy. For achieving this set of objective, they lay their significant concern over analysing and evaluating the needs and requirements of a business entity in order to survive long in the hyper competitive business environment. With this context, they focus on the concept of Facility Management in a very significant way (Lavy and Shohet, 2010). This concept helps an organisation to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the primary activities in a crucial and appropriate way. It is an interdisciplinary function of an organisation that builds an effective and strong relationship with infrastructure, human resource, space and business entity.
Currently, facilities management contributes around 5% towards the global GDP. The overall concept of facility management varies from one company to another. It mainly takes into consideration the crucial administration associated with office blocks, convention centres, arenas, shopping complexes, shipping and manufacturing (Ilic, and et.al., 2014).
With regard to this, the present report will highlight the crucial aspects of Facility Management in Toyota Motor Corporation, which is one of the leading Japanese automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Japan. It has over 338,875 employees working across different corners of the country. It is the largest auto mobile manufacturing company followed by General Motors and Volkswagen Group.
In lieu of this fact, the present report will throw light on the scope of facilities management within the Toyota Motor Corporation along with the major facility management services provided by such group of business. The study will also deal with the roles and responsibilities of facilities manager and the communication methods undertaken by the concerned organisation to enhance the external and internal customer’s understanding of facilities management.
TASK 1
1.1 Scope and extent of facilities management (FM) functions in Toyota Motor Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation implements the aspect of Facility Management with a view to bring organisational efficiency and effectiveness in a very significant way. It reflects a disciplinary function undertaken by the said entity to achieve the desired set of company’s goal within the pre determined time frame (Liu, 2010).
The scope of facility management within Toyota Motor Corporation mainly covers the non-core activities of an organisation crucially related with the property management. Its framework within the company describes the vital aspects of managerial practices followed within the organisational structure of the concerned automotive manufacturing business entity. It significantly covers a wide range of many essential activities associated with workplace, support services, infrastructures and real estate properties.
One of the most important classifications related to the scope of FM in Toyota Motor Corporation is support services, premises and Information Technology. Such a classification within the said entity emphasise on the physical infrastructure of the organisation rather than all the primary activities. The another main classification reflects the space services, customer services and building services. Currently, such a classification of FM services has not been adopted by the mention entity (Nicolle and Cruz, 2010). Toyota Motor Corporation undertakes the easiest way of classifying its overall FM activities by dividing its total set of activities in three main dimensions which are “soft FM”,“hard FM” and “Business Support Services”. Soft FM deals with the major services which are crucially required for building or facility operations.
All such services allows the organisation to attain a comfortable and effective working environment. These activities are also referred as additional support services of an organisation. Hard FM, on the other side, reflects the services generally related to the physical maintenance and infrastructure (Facilities Management at Toyota, 2004.). It reflects the activities and services which helps the business premises to conduct its entire business activities in an effective and appropriate way. Business Support services are the services that underpins and facilitate the growth and development of overall business entity. Such set of activities renders completion and supplementary for the entire scope of FM (Scupola, 2012).
Based on this, Toyota Motor Corporation classifies its main Hard FM, Soft FM and Business support services in the following way-
| Hard FM services | · Electrical and Mechanical maintenance
· Fire security · Archiving and storage systems · Building alteration and expansion · Suitable communication and IT systems · Plant repair and maintenance · Shell maintenance and building structure |
| Soft FM services | · Cleaning services
· Safety and security · Waste management · Health and safety · Vending or catering · Courier or portering services · Laundry services · Helpdesk/ Reception services · Transportation and travel · Print, fax and reprographics · Car parking facility · Sports leisure and fitness centre services · Facility of conferences and board rooms. |
| Business support services | · Property renting and leasing services
· Location and site selection · FM contract management and control · Configuration, space planning, utilisation and allocation monitoring · Communication and information technologies |
Apart from this, the extent of FM activities in Toyota Motor corporation reflects the aspect that how well this concept has helped the company in attaining the leading heights of corporate success within the standard time frame. After the completion of 10 years of implementing the best FM practices within the organisational structure, the said organisation was effectively and impressively able to reduce its overall operating costs by 35% along with the energy consumption expense by 40% (Gheisari and Irizarry, 2011).
This benefited the company to attain higher economies of scale thereby maintaining a sustainable business activities in a very significant way.
1.2 The range and diversity of contexts in which FM services are provided
FM consists of three crucial elements that results in bringing maximum value to Toyota Motor Corporation. These three essential elements encompasses the effective management of soft and hard FM services which includes the need of physical assets highly required to support the culture of organisation and the vital impact of all such elements on individual employee of the said company (Going Green: Toyota Making It Work, 2009).
When all such functions of FM are aligned to the main objectives of business unit, they not only support the vital activities of business organisation but also tends to influence the platform that exist between the people and physical workplace. An effective framework of FM within the concerned automotive industry reflects the essential improvement of business efficiency and effectiveness in the vast hyper competitive international market (International Facility Management Association, 2010).
Different sectors, Toyota’s developmental stages and size of its enterprise are the main factors which determines the overall demand for FM values and services. According to the study, it has been revealed that different sectors posses different forms of FM values and services related to the core functions of business entity.
The range and diversity of contexts in which facilities management services are provided by the Toyota Motor Corporation includes public sector, private sector and not for profit sectors. The public sector of the said business entity facilitates the realisation of profitability, higher occupancy rate along with the business repeat.
This reflects the evidence of hard FM services (Junghans, 2011). Apart from this, the cross functional FM practices results in adding maximum value to the private sectors by effectively and strongly managing the knowledge and information in a significant and appropriate manner. In case of not-for-profit sector, the company’s exotic management and fascinating quality with impressive infrastructures and spaces helps in adding maximum value to the organisation’s growth and performance. By creating a friendly and welcoming business environment, Toyota’s sales facilitates higher growth prospects.
The vital supportive FM function which is highly associated with the core business ethics is classified into three main categories which are wholly cored business, wholly non-core business and partly non-core business segments. The criticality of functions of FM in various sectors is clearly explained in the following diagram:
Illustration 1: Criticality of functions of FM in various sectors
(Source : Velez, and et.al., 2015)
From the above diagram, it can be assessed that the major activities of FM are the wholly core business to the providers of FM. For public sectors, the physical environment along with the intangible services works in great deal in effectively shaping the perception level of huge crowd of customers towards the FM services. With regard to this context, FM works as a potential central to the company’s core business functions. As per the study, the applicability of FM in private sectors tends to create a significant impact on its customers as they posses direct facility to contact with the respective private sector entity.
By analysing and examining the range and diversities of FM services, it can be said that Toyota Motor Corporation, which is an automotive manufacturing company performs non-core business functions in a significant and appropriate way (Ahamed, Neelamkavil and Canas, 2010). Besides this, the major FM activities which have been substantially outsourced by the said business entity includes mechanical and electrical maintenance, fire and security, portering and courier services, property leasing and renting services, clearing, security and pest control services.
1.3 Relationship between the FM functions and other business functions
The following study will clarify the major relationship between the FM functions and other core business functions of Toyota Motor Corporation. With regard to this context, Michael Porter’s value chain analysis has been taken into consideration which focuses on drawing relevant theories related to strategic FM, types of coordination and governance. This value chain helps the company to analyse the certain activities through which the concerned organisation can maintain its competitive and winning edge in the tough trading corporate environment.
The value chain for support functions and core business activities are also analysed which helps the said entity in the process of major relocation.
By analysing this value chain, Toyota Motor Corporation identifies its crucial FM services along with core business services which assist the company to grow and expand effectively in the increasingly competitive business environment. The relationship between the company’s core business and its FM services is determined as a general and primary business orientation while the major relationship between the core business and non-FM services on the other hand, is identified as a particular customer orientations (Vyskočil,. and Kuda, 2011).
Therefore, it can be concluded that the above discussed relationship is appropriate for FM services while there exist a significant need to develop an appropriate relationship between the non-FM services and the core business management of the organisation.
TASK 2
2.1 Difference between support services and building services
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