Identifying key performance indicators for engineering facilities in commercial buildings—a focus group study in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a vibrant city with numerous commercial buildings that are large in scale and good in quality. Keeping or enhancing the value of these buildings in the long run relies on the satisfactory performance of their engineering facilities. To ensure the effective management of the operation and maintenance (O&M) of these facilities, it is necessary to measure their input resources and outcome performance. Since a holistic scheme that can evaluate the performance of engineering facilities in commercial buildings in Hong Kong was not available, a research study has been undertaken in an attempt to develop such a scheme. Forming part of the study, a focus group meeting that aimed at identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) for representing the performance of the engineering facilities was convened with the participation of highly experienced and professional O&M experts. This paper reports on the arrangement of this focus group study, the design of its data collection tool, the process of the discussion among the experts, and the ways in which the KPIs were shortlisted. Future works needed for completing the development of the scheme are also described.