Mind the chasm: integrating facility management requirements in design

Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs include approximately 80% of a facility’s overall expenses, while facility managers are often excluded from decisions made during the design phase. This disconnect results in a mismatch between the actual performance of the facility and what the design outcome is intended to be, leading to higher O&M costs and transfer of inadequate information during handover. While Lean Principles and digital platforms are proposed as solutions, practitioners lack a shared understanding of FM problems to meaningfully integrate FM requirements during design. This study addresses the gap through the lens of Transformation-Flow-Value (TFV) theory, and uses a DSR methodology combining problem identification from literature, extraction, and consolidation of FM requirements. The extraction produced 55 factors, which were grouped into 22 categories spanning stakeholder involvement timing, information quality, maintainability, and sustainability. The proposed taxonomy is lean-consistent and uses TFV theory also as a rule to classify ambiguous factors. This research methodologically contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a practical and structured taxonomy of FM requirements that supports early FM involvement and strengthens designers’ ability to address FM needs in design reviews across different project delivery settings.