ABSTRACT
Definitions of facilities management have evolved over the years with the changing nature of the sector's work. Facilities management is believed to have first originated in the US in the 1960s with the growing practice of banks to outsource the processing of credit card transactions. In the 1980s, it emerged as 'the development, co-ordination and control of the non-core specialist services necessary for an organisation to successfully achieve its principal objectives' (US Library of Congress in 1989; see Mole and Taylor, 1992). A year later, Becker (1990) stated that it 'refers to buildings in use, to the planning, design, and management of occupied buildings and their associated building systems, equipment, and furniture to enable and (one hopes) to enhance the organisation's ability to meet its business or programmatic objectives'.
