Structural Survey

Investigating building maintenance practices in Malaysia: a case study

Abdul Lateef Olanrewaju Arazi Idrus Mohd Faris Khamidi

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Abdul Lateef Olanrewaju Arazi Idrus Mohd Faris Khamidi, (2011),"Investigating building maintenance
practices in Malaysia: a case study", Structural Survey, Vol. 29 Iss 5 pp. 397 - 410
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R.M.W. Horner, M.A. El-Haram, A.K. Munns, (1997),"Building maintenance strategy: a new
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Investigating building
maintenance practices in
Malaysia: a case study
Abdul Lateef Olanrewaju, Arazi Idrus and Mohd Faris Khamidi

Building
maintenance in
Malaysia
397

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Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Petronas,

Tronoh, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose There have been complaints and criticisms of the conditions and performance of
university buildings in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to report research looking into building
maintenance practices in Malaysia.
Design/methodology approach To achieve its objectives, the research combined a literature
review and a case study. The case study aimed to provide a details and factual information on the
maintenance procedures of a university.
Findings It was found that the maintenance procedures on the case studied were corrective and
budget driven. It was also found that the university favours out-sourcing to in-sourcing their
maintenance service.
Research limitations/implications The findings of this study are based on a case, therefore the
findings may not represent the maintenance practices of other public universities in Malaysia or
elsewhere.
Practical implications Some universities may adopt some of the good maintenance practices of
the university studied. Some of the observations could be helpful to other universities striving to
achieve best maintenance practices.
Originality/value The paper is able to expose the weakness in university maintenance practices in
Malaysia and outlines some positive attributes.
Keywords Malaysia, Universities, Buildings, Maintenance programmes, Outsourcing
Paper type Case study

1. Introduction
Under the current Malaysian Plan or 10 MP (2011-2015) universities are expected to
contribute significantly to the Malaysian high-income economy status. This will entail
the universities producing graduates that can compete meaningfully nationally and
internationally in economic and technological advancements and at the same time for
the universities to be able to commercialese their discoveries. The government will also
grant autonomous status to the (public) universities by reducing their direct control.
Under the new arrangements, the government will only serve as a regulatory agent.
The independence of the universities in taking strategic decisions is important to
the government policy (the New Economic Model), aiming to achieve educational
excellence, innovation and internationalization. The principal objective of granting
universities autonomous status is for the university management to take prime
responsibility for the governance of the university. Currently, public universities have
to rely solely on government intervention for all major decisions. Among other things,
this practice is reducing maintenance to corrective interventions and thus encouraging
poor management. However, under the autonomous arrangement, it is very likely that
The kind participation of the respondents is greatly acknowledged. The authors also thank
anonymous reviewers who have offered useful suggestions in order to improve the paper.

Structural Survey
Vol. 29 No. 5, 2011
pp. 397-410
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-080X
DOI 10.1108/02630801111182420

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the management of the buildings will be more efficient since universities might not
need to wait for too long to implement maintenance services promptly.
Universities often dedicate small units of their resource to manage the buildings
and outsource the larger part (sometimes up to 90 per cent) of their maintenance
services to external contractors. However, the main research undertaken for this paper,
observed that building maintenance is a core business of the university institutions.
It is, however, unfortunate that universities only perceive the maintenance of their
buildings as a necessary evil that costs what it must cost. Times have moved on.
Universities need to take on the management of their buildings as investments
because, without it, their business cannot provide the required services they were
established to supply. University administrators will need to consider the maintenance
of their buildings as an extension of their core services, and as such this function
should be shown the same amount of care and attention. The failure of universities
to accept maintenance as a core service is a serious failure to a sector that prides itself
as being a vehicle for scientific and technological advancement.
This paper is part of ongoing research on the development of a systemic building
maintenance management model for universities in Malaysia. There are many
complaints and criticisms in the media and research literature that many of the
university buildings in Malaysia are not in good condition and are performing below
expectations. However, many of the problems are related to poor management
practices. This research combined extensive literature review and a case study. The
literature seeks to provide overviews on building maintenance practices. The research
adopted the case study approach in order to identify and describe the maintenance
procedures of a public university. In the case investigated, maintenance programmes
were corrective and budget driven.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 is preceded by the
introduction that discusses the purpose of buildings with specific reference to
facilitating the achievement of university corporate objectives. In Section 3, the
characteristics of maintenance departments are described. The review is specific
to university organizations. Section 4 describes the research method used for this
study, specifically the reasons behind adopting the case study technique are
explained. The case study is introduced in Section 5, and background information of
the case investigated is provided in Section 6. In Section 7, the university maintenance
practices are assessed while the discussion of the findings follows in Section 8.
The paper summary and conclusion are brought together in Section 9.
2. Literature review and background to the research
The government aims to transform Malaysia into a high-income nation. However, in
order to achieve this aim there is the urgent need to produce a quality human resource;
that is to produce well-grounded graduates that can compete nationally and
internationally. Apart from the faculty members, buildings are the most significant
resources of a university. Universities need functional buildings to operate and the
buildings must achieve high functional performance standards. Miller (2007),
enumerates the essence of higher education buildings to include for office, lounges,
reception areas, conference/seminar rooms, storage, treatment rooms, workrooms
for equipment (photocopiers, fax machines, printers) and mailbox. Others include
classrooms, teaching and research laboratories, libraries, residence halls, cafeteria,
places of worship (e.g. mosque), tea rooms and athletic facilities. A failure in the
performance of the buildings is a loss in value to the university institution, users and

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other stakeholders. Constructing new buildings helps to upgrade educational facilities

and provide better quality education, but obviously buildings do not remain new
throughout the design life. In other words, the value of a building decreases unless
maintenance is administered to the building.
In actual reality, more than 90 per cent of the building life cycle requires active
maintenance. No building is maintenance free. Thus, without maintenance, the full
service life of buildings cannot be attained. Building maintenance constantly affects
everyones life because peoples well-being and productivity is related to the
performance of the buildings in which they live, learn, conduct research and work,
not to mention the impact it has on social fabric and economic growth. It is practically
impossible to replace or rebuild all of an organisations buildings at one time.
No nation, no matter how well endowed it is can embark on such an unachievable
mission. For example, in order to replace 1960s buildings in English universities
alone is estimated to cost 11 billion (Rawlinson and Brett, 2009).
In Malaysia, an analysis of maintenance expenditure for the public universities
in the last five years revealed that this has increased by more than 80 per cent
(Olanrewaju, 2010). The analysis also suggests that, this amount represents about
1 per cent of the total allocation to the education sector, however this amount is grossly
inadequate to cater for the backlogs. Yet, it cannot be concluded that an increase in
the maintenance allocation and expenditure will raise the building performance and
user satisfaction. Because, by increasing the allocation alone, maintenance could only
be given tactical attention rather than value-based consideration (Olanrewaju et al.,
2010). Therefore, there is the basic need for a step change in the way maintenance
is being managed. Maintenance management should be value driven if better service is
critical. Building users are not concerned about the physical condition of the building
per se, rather it is the building performance that concerns them. It is the extent to
which the building allows the users to carry out the intended functions that determines
whether the building is regarded as functional. Building performance is the ability
of the building to support its design functions. Building performance criteria
include indoor climate, acoustics, lighting, flexibility, safety, comfort, security, convenience, indoor air quality, glare, accessibility, aesthetics, etc. Maintenance should be
related to building performance not necessarily building condition.
3. Status of maintenance departments in organizations
Irrespective of the nomenclature given to the roles of the maintenance organization
maintenance department, property division, facilities department, administration
department, logistic and building department or asset management department the
common aim is the same. The maintenance organization is that department, section or
unit within the main organization that is responsible for the management of buildings
and engineering services. The size and scope of the department is a factor of size,
complexity, nature and geographical location of the buildings in the main organization
portfolio and the size and nature of the main organization using the buildings. The size
of the maintenance department is also dependant on the type of procurement systems
that the parent organization adopts. For instance, an organization that prefers to
outsource large parts of their maintenance services will have a small maintenance
department compared to an organization that insources its maintenance services. In
a small company, the functions may be performed by a staff member in addition to
his/her other duties (Wordsworth, 2001). In a larger organization, the staff in the
maintenance department are staff that perform dedicated maintenance functions.

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400

In other words, the staff do not perform other duties aside those within the
maintenance organization. According to Seeley (1987), the functions of maintenance
organization includes determining maintenance policy, assessing funding
requirements, preparing maintenance programmes, monitoring maintenance costs
and implementing feedback. The other functions include organizing maintenance
works, monitoring progress and providing advisory roles to the organization on new
development. In addition, maintenance organizations must continually benchmark
their service with best in class in order to be more efficient and effective.
Many organizations prefer to outsource what they consider to be non-core services.
In fact, the growth of outsourcing maintenance organizations largely results from large
companies wishing to contract out their maintenance responsibility (Marsh, 2003).
However, with large organizations like universities that have many buildings in their
portfolios, it is almost inevitable there will be a need for a dedicated maintenance
organization, particularly, considering its significant contribution to their corporate
business. While buildings only perform a supporting role to the university mission it is
almost inevitable that no university can operate without functional buildings. The
physical facilities deserve more attention than is currently accorded by the university
management. Its status needs to be elevated to the rank of human resource, since
without functional buildings, universities could not operate. Even the virtual
universities require some minimum buildings to carry out their basic function.
Therefore, in order to earn optimum value for money invested, maintenance
organizations must be intrinsically linked to the university corporate mission and
vision. This is indicative of positive policy (Chanter and Swallow, 2007) and thus
recognizes buildings as capital goods. University maintenance managers deserve a
dedicated seat at the top management board meetings.
4. Method of data collection: the case study approach
There are various methods of data collection for a study. The method to use depends on
the nature of the information required and other prevailing circumstance pertaining to
the topic and the study area. There is no one method that is perfect rather any approach
that will provide the required information is appropriate. The case study approach is
very useful to collect detailed and contextual information (Fellows and Liu, 2008).
According to Bell (2005), the case study approach seeks to put flesh on the bones of the
survey. However, often the data that is produced from case study are rather more
qualitative than quantitative.
A major shortcoming of the case study approach is that of generalization of the
findings from the case study to other cases even though they are similar. Critics of the
case study approach also observe that there is always a tendency for data distortion
since there is no yardstick for data comparison and argue that the approach is very
selective (Bell, 2005). However, proponents of the approach have since disagreed
arguing that the extent of such generalization depends on the similarity of the case, and
the methodology employed in data organization, collection and analysis (Bell, 2005).
In fact, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the findings of the case study may in
some instances be generalized. According to Komu (2008) it is not the sample size
in research that determines the scientific rigour, rather it is the consistent, systematic
and fitness for purpose that matters.
McNiff (1992) also opined that although the case study approach is time consuming,
the data obtained is accurate and representative of the case studied. Case studies may
be multi-methodology in nature. For instance, various techniques including interview,

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survey, observation and experiment can be used. These techniques are often used
independently. Through the case study approach, the corporate structures, and the
information management of the organization under study will be well understood
(Barker, 2005). According to Naoum (2007), case studies are appropriate when the
researcher wishes to support their hypothesis on a particular subject or topic.
Following, Naoum classifications, on the types of case study design; this particular
case study is explanatory in nature.
5. Case study
The case study was carried out in mid-April, 2010. The case study involved the
maintenance department of a public university, although there are 22 public
universities in Malaysia. The university investigated was located in Kuala Lumpur,
the capital city of Malaysia. There were about 27,000 students at the time the case
study was conducted. The case involved conducting interviews, document and
archival analyses. Before the interviews, suitable dates were agreed on and the purpose
of the interview was made clear to the respondents although the researcher was in
touch with the respondents prior to the interview. Besides, the interviews, there were
a series of follow-ups for further clarifications through telephone conversations
and e-mail. The principal respondent (a maintenance engineer) was asked a set of
predetermined questions on the maintenance management procedures they were
using. The major predetermined questions that were addressed to the respondents
include (not necessarily asked in that order):
.

How long have you been working in this position?

What is size of the built-up area?

What is your approximate annual budget for maintenance?

How do you estimate your annual buildings maintenance budget?

How do you take care of budget deficits?

Which of the maintenance approaches do you use?

Have you conducted any users satisfactions surveys?

What does the outcome tells you about services?

The identity of the university remains confidential while other information is factual.
Any information that could reveal the university is concealed here. Prior to the interview,
the respondents demanded confidentiality and anonymity of the data obtained.
6. Background information of the maintenance department
The maintenance department was located at the central complex of the university. The
department was officially established in 2001 as a subsidiary of the university. This
made it slightly independent, even from the onset. In 2002, the company entered into
partnership with another private company, a facility management company. The
objective of the partnership was for the private facility management company to train
the staff of the university maintenance organization. The partnership ended four
years later, based on the understating that there have been successful transfers of skills
and knowledge.
The maintenance department is responsible for managing the operations and
maintenance of all the physical facilities of the university. The maintenance

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department has a total work force of about 200 people including the cleaning staff,
managing more than 109,000,000 square feet of built up area across the three
campuses. Annually, about 16 million Malaysian ringgits are spent on building
maintenance-related works (US$1 RM3.12). A computerized maintenance
management system (CMMS) is used for the maintenance inventory. The CMMS is
also used to sort and store works orders, and for monitoring expenditure and
maintenance team distributions. The maintenance is under the purview of the
Development Division. The Development Division is responsible for management
of the construction of new assets as well maintaining and operating the existing
ones. The head of the Development Division is a member of the university top
management team.
7. Maintenance process and procedures
The works of the department are divided into seven zonal areas in accordance
with faculties and hostels in the university. Works in each of the building are further
grouped into trades: electrical, firefighting works, air conditioning, water cooler,
walls/floors/roofs, cleaning and landscapes. Furthermore, the scope of services is
broadly categorized into two, namely technical services and non-technical services
(Table I). The technical scopes are further divided into mechanical and electrical
services, civil and structural services. Similarly, the non-technical scopes are
subdivided into custodial services and other (related) services. The department is
headed by a general manager who is assisted by a facilities manager. The facilities
manager is in turn assisted by one electrical engineer and a mechanical engineer.
Table II indicates the staff distribution.

Mechanical and electrical services

Civil and structural

Custodial services

Other (related) services

Table I.
Scope of services

Source: The university document analysis (2010)

Fire control system

Lift systems
Electrical distribution
Generator set
Air conditioning and mechanical
Ventilation system
Domestic water
Plumbing sewerage
Building structure
Landscaping
General cleaning
Pest control
Waste disposal
Hygiene
Janitorial
Housekeeping
Energy management
Event facilitation
Engineering consultancy
Warranty management
Performance management
Health safety and environment
Quality management

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The official working hours are between 8 am and 5 pm, Monday through Friday.
Maintenance requests for services outside working hours are made directly to the
facilities supervisor or respective facilities manager followed by maintenance request
forms the next working day. Works outside the official working hours are works that
are received at nights, weekends and during holidays. Requests for works from
5:30 pm to 1 am are attended to by standby staff while those that are from 1 am to 8 am
are dealt with on an on-call basis. The on-calls requests are made through hotlines
to any of the dedicated staff.
All requests are made through personal visit phone calls or by fax. Request received
through customers are logged into the CMMS through the help desk and will be
responded to by the maintenance team. However, request for residences are reported
to the hostel administration. Each of the hostels has it own administration offices.
There are two or three staff in each of the offices. A senior lecturer is appointed head
of each of the offices to oversee the management of the staff, who are usually referred
to as fellows. The fellow does not need to be in the office everyday. In any case, their
roles are purely administrative ones. The tenure of office of the fellow is at the
university management discretion and is influenced by the fellows other academic
and administration engagements and it does not matter what their academic
backgrounds are.
Requests are responded to on the basis of urgency (Table III). The table illustrates
the response time within which requests are attended to by the maintenance
department. The response time is the time that the maintenance team responds to
the situation and not for completing the defects, decay, damage or deterioration.
Routine maintenance is attended to with immediate effect, but non-routine
maintenance requires approval from the supervisor, facility manager or the general
Position

403

Number

General manager
Facilities manager
Facilities engineer
Facilities supervisor
Facilities technician
Event facilitator
Custodial coordinator
Chargeman
Helpdesk/administrative clerk
Practical student
Total

1
1
2
8
70
1
1
1
8
3
96

Source: The university document analysis and discussion (2010)

24 hours
12 hours
2 hours
Within 15 minutes

Building
maintenance in
Malaysia

Non-critical and non-emergency situation

Critical but non-emergency situation
Critical and emergency situation
Life-threatening situation

Source: The university document analysis and discussion (2010)

Table II.
Staff distribution at the
main campus

Table III.
Response time

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404

manager depending on the nature of the work. Upon receiving a request the customer
will be given a maintenance request reference number (MRRN), to aid communication
and information processing for future inquiry.
The annual allocation to the maintenance division is made on the basis of the
previous years expenditure plus 720 per cent for contingency. Usually the department
experiences a surplus annually as they seldom use all their allocations for the year within
the given period. They receive about 3,000 to 4,000 requests every month. Mondays have
the highest number of requests due to the accumulation of problems over the weekend.
For condition-based policies, the condition of the buildings are assessed in terms of very
urgent, urgent and not urgent. The first of these assessment categories, i.e. very
urgent, involves conditions where there is a high risk of structural building failure or
serious electrical or mechanical fault that is life threatening. Under such a condition a
request can be lodged at any time with any of the staff through their hotlines. In addition,
the contact details of the general manager, facilities managers, projects manager, facilities
and event facilitator are provided on flyers to facilitate contacts in case of emergency. The
maintenance schedules are conducted monthly in terms of the works group.
However, the monthly inspection is usually confined to items like such as air
conditioning units and electrical substations. The maintenance procurement strategies
used are both in-house and outsourcing maintenance activities. Simple items like
changing of bulbs, plumbing, general washing for which the division has the materials in
stock are done in-house while works that require more expertise are implemented through
outsourcing. Works that are outsourced include collapsed drains, chasing of walls to
repair electrical and plumbing installations and roofing works. The department lacks the
man power to carry out such works. Generally cleaning is also outsourced but is mainly
monitored by the maintenance organization. The department relies on building
automation system (BIS) to monitor the performance of certain electrical appliances.
The Development Division set 10 key performance indicators (KPIs) for the
maintenance department. Partly the KPIs were based on a survey conducted on
the services provided by the maintenance department (Table IV). This is to enable the
Development Division to monitor and appraise the performance of the department and
for the maintenance department to gauge itself. In total, 85 per cent of the customers
complaints must be responded to within 30 minutes of lodging the complaints. All
complaints must be responded within 48 hours of such complaints while 80 per cent of
the complaint must be resolved within the same day. At least 90 per cent of all electrical
and mechanical installations must be maintained using planned preventive
maintenance. A minimum of 95 per cent of all executed works must be efficient. All
complaints must be efficiently closed within two months or 60 days.
However, all works that are outside the scope of the maintenance department are
referred to the Development Division for necessary action. Such works include
renovation, works that relate to the defect liability period for newly completed works
and new installation and works that are associated with design problems notably roof
works. Usually the Development Division will call for tenders from suitable contractors
and/or consultants. Sometimes, the department is also invited to partake in the tender
submission. The maintenance department outlined that when there is the need for
priority maintenance, commonly they deferred all other maintenance works in hostels,
quarters and other areas to attend to those in administration and academic buildings.
This is because the university is greatly concerned with its corporate image. However,
attention should be carefully considered otherwise the consequence could be much
greater than expected. The hostels are equally important to the students.

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KPI

Target value

1
2
3

Customer satisfaction survey

Customers complaints
Response time to complaints

Response time to complaints

Turnaround time to resolve

complaint
Recurring complaint
Engineering systems stability

Rating of 3.00
Maximum of 600 complaints
85 per cent of customer complaints responded within
30 minutes of receiving a complaint
100 per cent of customer complaints responded
within 48 hours of receiving a complaint
80 per cent of customer complaints resolved within
same day
Maximum of 5 per cent of total works order
Minimum 90 per cent planned preventive
maintenance
Minimum of 90 per cent closed
Maximum 5 per cent work order as poor
100 per cent closed

6
7
8
9
10

Efficiency of work order execution

Poorly executed work
Efficiency of work order execution
within 60 days

Source: The university document analysis (2010)

See Figure 1 for the complaint reporting procedure vis-a`-vis completion of the repair.
The figure shows the activities involved from the time that a complaint is received to
when the job is completed. Most complaints are made by phone, personal visit or a
combination. The figure starts with customer request through to work request close.
Detail of the activities in each of the stage is provided in Table V.
8. Discussion and observations
The examples of maintenance procedures described above illustrated a
professionalism in the practices that is consistent with the dedicated maintenance
management procedures. It will be seen that there are organized procedures for
implementing the maintenance programme, from reporting the maintenance problem
to making repair. The maintenance function is carried out by an independent
organization. Although, the maintenance department is part of the university, the
services it provides are more or less based on an outsourced agreement per se. Its scope
of services is clearly defined, while they are being monitored by another arm of
the university, the Development Division. This also becomes clear with respect to
tendering for work that is outside the scope of maintenance department. Whenever the
Development Division calls for tenders, the maintenance department is allowed to
submit with the understanding that they will carry out the works independently if they
are successful.
The response time to maintenance request by the maintenance department further
indicates their level of commitment to maintenance and the safety of the users.
However, the maintenance practices are broadly divided into preventive and corrective,
though much of the services are provided by the outsourcing organization.
Maintenance complaints could be lodged through phone calls, personal visit, phones
and fax. This is good practice and it suggests there is sense of urgency. The number
of complaints received monthly is quite large, however. Could that be as result of age of
the buildings or because the maintenance practice has not been efficient? The former
reason should not be correct, as the buildings are only about 20 years old on average

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Table IV.
Key performance
indicators (KPI)

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Service request
received

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406

Customer received work request reference

number
Maintenance team attend to
the request
Work evaluation

Commence rectification

Complete work

Customer acknowledge the

level of work
No
Works acceptance
confirmation
Yes

Figure 1.
The flow chart of
maintenance management
processes and procedure

9 request
Work
close

(15-20 years). Monthly inspection conducted on the building could facilitate defect
identification before they become more severe. This is considered a good approach
especially for the electrical and mechanical parts. However, the building fabric and
structure also need inspection so that early detection of the defects can be achieved and
appropriate courses of action taken before the defect becomes severe and expensive to
correct. However, before any corrective maintenance is proposed and initiated; the
cause of the defect must be identified and analysed. If this is not done, almost certainly
the correct solution cannot be proposed.
In addition, it seems the organization is in favour of planned maintenance policies
though only for some mechanical and electrical fittings and appliances. The
maintenance department also adopts a strategy that favours classrooms, lecture
theatres, laboratories and workshops as compared to other buildings such as
the students hostel or even the staff quarters. This is probably as result of their

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Step

Descriptions of activities

Services request
received

Customer received work

request reference
numbers

Maintenance team
attend to the request

Work evaluation

Commence rectification

Complete work

Customer acknowledge
the level of work

Works acceptance
confirmation

Work request closed

A request is received from a customer through either personal

visit or phone for impending defects, damage or decay.
Helpdesk clerk will key in all the data into the computerized
maintenance management system
The customer is issued work order form and a reference
number for either correspondence or reference or both.
Customer can use the reference number to check the status of
their work order status
On the basis of the work order, the division delegate the works
to the maintenance team on the basis of the nature of the works
to survey the nature and extent of works required
Based on the condition survey, the work is evaluated, materials
and labour arranged for the necessary works. Where material is
not available, arrangement is made with the supplier(s)
Upon arranging for the materials and components, the
materials and components are moved to site and subsequently
the necessary works is commenced
All the necessary repairs and maintenance completed and
ready to hand over to the customers. Supervisor will verify the
work completed
Upon handling over the completed work to the customer, the
customers will assess and evaluate the work. If the customer is
satisfied then the work is closed
The customer will confirm acceptance of work if satisfied.
However, in cases where the customer is not satisfied with the
condition of the maintenance, the maintenance team will reopen
the repair again until such a time that the customer is satisfied.
Customer will sign the work order to accept the work closed. A
non-conformance report shall be generated to log in the
situation for future rectification and record. If work acceptance
is confirmed, it will be lodged into the computerized
maintenance management system
The works order will be closed when the customer confirm his
or her acceptance of the necessary repairs. Work order will be
updated into the computerized maintenance management
system

Source: Interviews and discussions (2010)

perceptions of their core businesses. As institutions of learning, the learning

environment is naturally a basic concern of the institutions authorities. This thinking
is narrow, though. Such narrow thinking is one of the basic factors preventing
universities from approaching the management of their buildings as value-added
initiatives. A major drawback is that maintenance is reduced to corrective and reactive
maintenance. Maintenance should be positively planned, strategically organized,
proactively led, holistically controlled and dynamically implemented if best value is to
be achieved.
It is rather unfortunate that, the university outsources a good proportion of their
service to external contractors. The shortcoming of outsourcing can be extensive: loss
of skills, loss of control and exposing the organization to threats by suppliers of

Building
maintenance in
Malaysia
407

Table V.
Definitions of key
maintenance procedures

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408

maintenance services. In fact, outsourcing the maintenance function reduces

maintenance to corrective maintenance. There are also some organizational politicalproprietary data that the university would not like to reveal to external parties.
Outsourcing maintenance invariably reduces maintenance procurement to lump sum.
However, the risk and uncertainty involved with maintenance services dictate that
the traditional lump sum procurement route is usually unsuitable for maintenance
works. The lump sum contract assumes that the work to be executed can be measured
(Kirkham, 2007). Buildings and its management are critical to survival of the
university and thus should not be significantly outsourced. Although the funding
allocated to maintenance may be sufficient, as the maintenance organization claimed
they often have left over but it is equally clear that the available budget is not
effectively or efficiently managed. Otherwise, the volume of complaints they received
would not be as high it is.
Another good principle with respect to university maintenance practice is the
presence of the KPIs. Without the KPIs, comparisons on the achievements and
deficiency of practice cannot be made obvious and as result better services could
be difficult to achieve. Although, the maintenance officers do not reside on the
campuses as in some other cases, hotlines were provided in case of an emergency for
standby calls at anytime outside the working hours. However, the fact that there is
an accumulation of complaints on Monday as a result of weekends suggests that the
hotlines services have not been fully exploited. Perhaps users were not aware of the
hotlines or the number of the standby staff are inadequate to cater for the amount
of complaints coming from the building users at weekends. Users may not be aware of
the hotlines because of lack of publicity. Users may only be aware of the hotlines if
they have the need to visit the maintenance department offices or administration
offices in the residences.
9. Summary and conclusion
The structure of the maintenance department is indicative of the importance the parent
organization attaches to the performance of its buildings towards achieving the
organizational business objectives. The organizational culture could impact on the
strengths and weaknesses to the organization. The cultures of organization/
department shape and defined the departments value systems. An organization that
places greater value on the buildings will certainly be concerned with the nature and
characteristics of the personnel and resource of the maintenance department.
Organization mission statements ought to stem from the contribution of the building
performance. For instance, in the hotel sector, the buildings are considered a direct
generator of incomes and profits. In the same vein, almost certainly, universities
cannot operate without functional buildings and even the virtual university requires
some minimum amount of building to conduct its business. Thus the need for high
building performance is dictated by political, social, cultural, economic demands.
The lack of a well-constituted maintenance department can manifest itself in poor
building performance as a result of poor service delivery. Systemic maintenance
management encompasses the position of the maintenance department within the
parent organization. Maintenance issues are often considered as tactical rather than
strategic. In other words, building maintenance is only discussed at the tactical level
rather than at the board room level. Things only come to the attention of the top
management of the university when things already go wrong. However, issues get
strategic attention when brought to the attention of the top management. At that

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stage, however, the maintenance department cannot be blamed. The roles of the
decision makers and decision takers of the university have greater influence on
the building performance. For instance the concerns of the decision takers on
maintenance have greater influence on budget allocation and on the procurement
methods.
The case study presented, illustrates the procedures of building maintenance
management. The maintenance procedures were designed to suit the capacity of the
organizations. To improve the value of the expenditure, proactive procedures for
maintenance are required. Maintenance service is initiated on the basis of some
knowledge about the deterioration of the components either through inspection of the
building by staff or through customers as result of complaints by the users. Although,
the conclusions drawn were based on this case, it is known that the practices of
other public universities in Malaysia are very similar. The maintenance organization
is the most neglected unit in the university administration. This can be explained
by the missing link between the building performance and university mission. This
paper concludes by advocating professional roles for maintenance management if
delivering best value is critical. Furthermore, maintenance management should be
introduced into engineering disciplines in order to harness the knowledge and skills
of maintenance management into these functions.
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Further reading
Mills, E.D. (Ed.) (1994), Building Maintenance and Preservation: A Guide to Design and
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Muijs, D. (2004), Doing Quantitative Research in Education with SPSS, Sage Publications,
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Corresponding author
Abdul Lateef Olanrewaju can be contacted at: Abdullateef.olanrewaju@ymail.com

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