As Malaysia continues to focus its efforts on becoming an education hub, universities are vital places where learning processes, teaching and research activities are conducted. A university is a factor of production in producing graduates, and the university buildings are considered to be assets and resources. Hence, to prolong a university building lifecycle to ensure all university activities continue performing at an optimum level, building maintenance management is vital. Despite the fact that several previous studies have been conducted in this area, there continues to be maintenance issues surrounding university buildings. The maintenance of university buildings has always been viewed as an insignificant activity. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to critically review key factors that affected maintenance costs of university buildings, and consequently propose different approaches to resolve this issue. The present paper reviewed related literature from previous studies and publications. As a result of the comprehensive review, it was identified that key factors that affected university building maintenance costs were fund allocations allocated by university management teams for maintenance departments, user behaviours, environmental factors, university design complexities and the quality of components and materials of university buildings. Each factor identified was critically examined and addressed to ensure that university buildings would be well-maintained.

The local authority in Malaysia is the giant holder of public assets and they are obligated in performing better management to ensure the assets are of prominent quality to serve the needs of the local people. The local authority should take initiatives in having the right systems in managing and maintaining their assets. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the maintenance management practices and performance improvement techniques to be integrated into developing the continuous improvement model towards achieving a sustainable performance of public assets. The resource-based view (RBV) and performance improvement (PI) theory are integrated as the reference to develop the maintenance management framework. The RBV emphasizing the resources and capabilities to achieve the value of strategic management. While the PI provides a suitable tool which is the maturity model for improving the current practices. Nine key elements of maintenance management were identified which demonstrating the maintenance capabilities and resources. Grounded on the theory of RBV and PI, the conceptual framework was established as the foundation towards developing strategic maintenance practices for sustainable performance of public assets and continuous improvement in maintenance management by the local authority in Malaysia.