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The need for maintenance policy

The need is due the three main failings:

1. Inadequate finance a major constraint on effective


property management.
- Easiest to cut but limited when building is to provide an
efficient and acceptable operating environment.
- only 0.5 percent of commercial and industrial
organisations turnover costs, still taken for granted except
when it threatens production or profitability.
- more serious in public sector where damaging effects of
poor maintenance are less immediately obvious.
- efforts at improvements & rehabilitation are considered
lower priority than new construction.
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2. Bad management simply a reflection of idleness & waste among


maintenance personnel, and usually much more.
- Is maintenance a planned activity? Or does the manager simply
react to the most immediate crisis?
- building management is an aspect of construction that require
effective management procedures.
3. Poor building design
- uncommon to find buildings are inherently expensive to maintain
due to inappropriate priorities applied during the design phase.
Poor detailing & specification of unsuitable components &
materials are common complaints.
- construction errors arising from inadequate drawings &
specifications, coupled wit poor workmanship by incompetent
contractors.
Functional Obsolescence
- Due to inappropriate building design. Rooms are
too small, ceiling too high, natural light is
inadequate or the architectural plan, style and
design are poor.
- structural layout and materials depreciate or
decrease in value of building classified as
functional obsolescence.
- Large sums of money for improvements or
rehabilitation to bring building back to
satisfactory standard.
The Economics of Building
maintenance
Maintenance function:
Divided into three groups: cleaning & servicing, rectification & repair,
and replacement.
- Timely expenditure on the first two can postpone the need to
replace materials or components, a very expensive business.
- Cleaning & servicing should be carried out regularly & may be
combined with a system reporting faults. So that repairs can be
carried out soon after faults become apparent, thereby avoiding
from expensive repairs or even replacement at later stage.
- The frequency o cleaning depends on type of operation: for
example, floors swept daily, but polished weekly, windows cleaned
monthly & decoration taken placed every few years.
- Commissioning of new buildings should be based on total cost in
use rather than purchase cost.
Maintenance economics:
Attempt to determine the use of resources
available to maintain structural safety of
buildings & provide a reasonable return on
capital assets, while providing an acceptable
living or working environment for the
occupants.
Building should be appraised at design stage
or at the time of purchase to determine initial
and long-term maintenance costs.
Initial & Running Costs:
Initial costs refer either to cost of purchasing a
property or the cost of developing a new building.
Running cost include cleaning, rectification & repair,
replacement and other recurrent costs of heating,
lighting & other services.
In principle, a reduction in future maintenance costs
may be obtained by increasing initial costs.
Accepting high initial costs is that cheaper materials
often require more frequent maintenance and may
have a shorter working life then more expensive
alternatives.
Strategic Design:
The cost of building is not necessarily a
measure of its quality, both technically and
functionality.
A lavish building may also be expensive to
maintain.
Poorly designed & constructed builsings amy
cost as much or more than a well-designed &
properly constructed building.
Budget constraints:
Minimizing maintenance liability is a matter of careful
initial design & selection of components & materials than a
function of capital cost.
If budget constraints have to be considered, however, their
effects on long-term maintenance of the buildings must be
considered.
It should be possible to estimate the annual maintenance
costs of a proposed design.
The total expenditure on maintenance (M)(discounted)
should be added to the initial capital expenditure (C) and
less scrap value for calculating the cost in use of a building:

Cost in use = C + M - S
Effects of early decisions on building life-cycle
costs

100
80

60

Feasibility
(2 %)
30 Design Construction Maintenance
Phase (6%) Development Operational
Phase (42%) Phase (50%)
Cost in use
Besides the relation of maintenance cost to
initial cost, the designer also have to consider
the relative total cost-in-use of design
alternatives.
E.g. A developer is presented with two
alternative building design:
Building A Building B
Initial cost (RM) 3 250 000 2 500 000
Annual 50 000 100 000
maintenance cost
(RM)
Life of building 60 years 40 years

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