There are various reasons why you have reached the decision to provide new or improved facilities for your operations. Perhaps you experience overcrowding of office space, or perhaps the facility is inadequate to serve emerging technological or operational needs.

Your first inclination may be to ask an Architect or Design Specialist to identify new facility solutions, and in this case it will be necessary to produce an Architectural Program. However, it could well serve you better to examine your needs more closely, to explore the reasons driving facility shortcomings, and to look at your options. This is the aim of a Needs Assessment.

Among the many issues which a Needs Assessment may address are:

• Validation and quantification of facility needs
• Identification of facility alternatives
• Relocation analysis: Impact of changing

existing facility configurations

• Projection of workload and staff levels
• Effects of new operational procedures on facilities requirements
• Effects of existing facilities on productivity
• Phasing and time-table considerations
• Cost Analysis and Tradeoffs