Maintenance problems are not always clear and never easy. It explains why developed countries are always seeking out ways to improve the mechanism of maintenance across the board. However, for developing countries, it is still generally a struggle to sustain an acceptable level of maintenance despite huge expenditures on infrastructure.
In today’s global economic climate, facilities managers have to constantly justify their spending as senior management attempts to cut costs, which indeed is a struggle in the real estate sector.
The starting point to developing any plan of action for maintenance that will be fit for purpose is to understand the need for maintenance. It is, therefore, crucial for facility managers to familiarize themselves with basic elements of an infrastructure or facility and its components, and how they behave individually and collectively with other materials to cause specific maintenance problems to occur.
Having understood the behavior and properties of materials, the next step is to evaluate the extent of possible deterioration and determine whether to abandon, replace or repair the particular materials in question.
Maintenance is required for many reasons; one reason is to extend the life of the facility and its support system. Another reason is to ensure the facility and its users are free from health and safety issues likely to result in damage or injury.
Therefore, maintenance is a necessary aspect in the day-to-day life of a building or infrastructure, this can be essentially classified into three stages:
1) Planning and design stage:
This stage provides an opportunity to save a lot of money by planning and designing the building or infrastructure to be maintenance efficient. Considerations relative to the scope of maintenance should always be present in the design process. The yearly cost associated with the maintenance of facilities due to improper design and planning is phenomenal.
2) Construction stage:
The meticulous process and additional expenditure of designing maintenance-efficient buildings or infrastructure are of no value if the materials and equipment are not assembled and installed properly. For this reason, the construction stage must be performed with the highest quality of workmanship to create a facility requiring the minimum level of maintenance.
As soon as construction begins, every pipeline, valve, floor tile, and electrical outlet should continually be observed as construction progresses to ensure proper location and the highest quality of material. The best quality control and inspection process should be implemented to monitor construction progress.
3) Maintenance stage:
This is the maintenance of the infrastructure i.e. buildings, properties, etc. This covers every aspect of the building or infrastructure including items that are, for instance, auxiliary to the building such as sidewalks and landscaping, the structural elements supporting the building, and other equipment which allow the building to be functional.
It is common practice to implement only the maintenance stage, making facility management unnecessarily expensive. Incorporating the planning and design, and construction stages will surely make a difference in the life of the facility.
The common belief is that the maintenance culture in our country could largely improve if stakeholders in the facility management sector strive to make it happen.
