No abstract

There are significant challenges for local authorities in Malaysia in providing and managing the public facilities for the satisfaction of stakeholders. Therefore, the local authorities need to maintain the facilities to ensure the public to be able to use them effectively and comfortably. However, over the years, the local authorities faced countless critics and complaints regarding their performance in managing the facilities from the public. Moreover, the local authorities confronted maintenance cost issues while maintaining and operating the facilities, which lead to ineffective management. This unfortunate situation has tarnished the image of the local authorities, which supposedly act as a service provider to the public in their regions. This paper investigates the current maintenance management practices by the local authorities and to identify the barriers encountered during the implementation of maintenance management. The study utilized a comprehensive sample by distributing 149 questionnaires to the maintenance department of local authorities. The results of current practices were analyzed by using the mean value score and Relative Importance Index (RII) while the barriers were examined using the mean value score and Severity Index (SI). The results indicated that the current practices of the maintenance management conducted by the local authorities did not achieve the level of satisfaction which leads to the issues of ineffective maintenance management and the barriers that faced by the local authorities shows that building characteristics, vandalism and human factors have become the significant factors of maintenance cost issues. Consequently, the study provides the recommendation of directions and guidance towards the best practices of maintenance management to accomplish the maintenance efficiency and value for money throughout various strategies of improvements.

The building maintenance is a crucial part of the life cycle of the building. The maintenance strategies are planned to maintain the condition of the building for specified functions. The maintenance planning requires a comprehensive assessment in determining the effectiveness of building performance, especially in the maintenance budgets planning process. The effective budget preparation will reduce the risk of cost overruns and help the organization to execute the repair works efficiently with sufficient resources. This study attempts to identify the issues related to maintenance cost and proposed the key strategies for improving the sustainable building maintenance budgeting in dealing with the cost overruns. This paper utilizes a qualitative approach through a literature review of secondary data from previous studies. The proposed cost model of maintenance strategies will be used as a basis for further investigation and validation towards promoting the sustainable building maintenance management. The studies identified the push factors that influence the maintenance cost; human factors, tools and equipment, spare parts and materials, funds allocation and available information. Each of the push factors needs to be well-considered to ensure that the maintenance activities can be done efficiently and to avoid the issues of cost overruns.

Maintenance management is a crucial element which governs the economic value of the organization itself. The maintenance management portrays the practice of leading and turning the organization through the deployment and handling of available resources such as financial, human, material, knowledgeable and technology. Consequently, the maintenance management needs to be emphasized by any means of planning, directing, implementing and controlling and several improving methods to achieve economic aspects of the organization. This paper covers part of the study to examine the current practices of the local authorities in Malaysia in maintenance management of public facilities. A systematic literature review has been carried out to identify the existing models and frameworks related to maintenance strategies formulation, selection and its implementation. The literature support for all the key elements needed to achieve value-based maintenance management. Few models of maintenance management were examined to acquire the essential elements before proposing the maintenance management model for local authorities. By analyzing the models, it characterizes the innovations introduced by every author and compares the elements based on maintenance standard requirement for maintenance processes. Also, the discussion is made on the key elements to be included and improved to support organization needs and its application.

Local authorities in Malaysia are facing enormous challenges in satisfying the needs of the public while providing the facilities for various stakeholders. Previous studies show numerous criticisms and complaints regarding the incapability of the local authorities in managing and maintaining the public facilities (Adnan et al., 2012). Several barriers affected the uncertainty of maintenance cost which results in the insufficient allocation of funds. The study identified several barriers impacting the maintenance cost encountered by the local authorities while maintaining the public facilities. The barriers are classified into six related issues which are building characteristics, maintenance processes, people, economical and cost, regulatory and others. Based on the findings, the building characteristics-related shows the highest severity index followed by maintenance process-related issues. The results demonstrates that the local authorities need to focus more on their maintenance management practices to resolve the problems through continuous improvement.