About ICF

ICF is a not-for-profit,non-governmental, and scientific and educational organization. We do research and development into the planning, management, and use of facilities. We have several networks of experts, organizations, and other supporters, from around the world.

1-page description of ICF (15KB)

Mission

Our mission is to help improve the functionality, serviceability, & quality of the places where people work and live.

How we define these terms

• Functionality - Performing or able to perform a regular function.
• Serviceability - The capability of a facility to provide a range of performances for which it is designed, used, or required to be used, over time.
• Quality - Totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.

We carry out our mission by supporting public and private organizations, individual users, and the general public.

To do so, we:

• create effective methods and tools for executive decision making,
• develop best practices, guidelines, benchmarks, performance indicators and model documents,
• focus our R&D efforts into unique projects about user requirements and the capability of facilities and constructed assets to respond,
• share our expertise with standards organizations such as ASTM and ISO,
• publish summaries, reports and self-help tools, such as "how to" guides and workbooks,
• teach, train and provide skill development, and• provide expertise in all aspects of facility ownership, use and
• management, for every type of asset, and at every phase of their life cycle.
  

We believe we can best serve your interests by participating in standards development. We are active in several standardization and pre-standardization bodies, such as ASTM, CIB, IAI, IFMA and ISO. ICF contributes extensively to the development of standards to define user requirements and for the management, performance and serviceability of buildings and building-related facilities, and other constructed assets.

Our work is an essential component of the application of ISO 9000 to buildings and facility management and other productivity measures. ICF assists large organizations and governments, and the results of our research are published. We
developed and published the Serviceability Tools & Methods (ST&M ®) to provide:

• demand scales, which are in a multiple-choice format, for setting workplace and user requirements for functionality and quality on more than 100 topics,
• matching supply scales, in technical language, for rating the capability of assets to meet those levels of needs, and
  function-based methods for estimating how much floor area an organization needs, and how to set priorities for project funding.

These methods and tools have been used by a number of public and private organizations.

We are proud that the ST&M methods and scales became ASTM standards in 1995, and American National (ANSI) standards in 1996. ST&M has also been translated into French and demonstrated on projects in France under contract from the French government in collaboration with the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB). We also support major associations —pro bono, including the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), and the Environmental Design
Research Association (EDRA).

For IFMA, ICF designed and conducted IFMA's first benchmarking survey, titled IFMA Benchmarks 1987, and contributed most of ICF's costs. Gerald Davis, ICF's president, chaired the IFMA Standards Committee, 1993-1998. In recognition, Davis received the Chairman’s Citation, 1998. He was named an IFMA Fellow in 1999. Several ICF senior advisors support
IFMA activities at national and chapter levels

For CIB, several senior advisors participate in CIB activities and Working Commissions. ICF contributed in-kind to the recent PeBBu Thematic Network project (2001-2005) funded by the European Community.

For EDRA, ICF and several of its senior advisors participate in EDRA activities and networks and have served in leadership roles. In 1997, Gerald Davis and Françoise Szigeti received the EDRA Lifetime Achievement Award.