Maintenance

Introduction

Maintenance is an action necessary for retaining or restoring a piece of equipment, machine, or system to the specified operable condition to achieve its maximum useful life. It includes corrective maintenance and preventive maintenance

involves a considerable amount of work which Harper (1969) as cited in (S. Afranie and E. Osei-Tutu, 1999) has been categorized into three components namely, servicing, Rectification and replacement.

Components of maintenance

1. Servicing: Servicing is essentially a clearing operation undertaken at regular intervals of varying ‘frequency and is sometimes termed day-to day maintenance. Daily sweeping of floors monthly washing and cleaning of windows and regular painting for decoration and protection every for years are some examples of servicing, however, as more equipment that are sophisticated are introduced so more complicated service schedules become necessary. Servicing becomes necessary because of constant use of facilities, the effect of the weather and atmospheric conditions on the components of the buildings.

2. Rectification: Rectification work usually occurs fairly early in the life of a building; but it can also occur some time within the lifespan of the building. It arises from shortcoming in design, inherent fault in or unsuitability of component, damage of goods in transit or installation and incorrect assembly. Rectification represents a fruitful point at which to reduce the cost of maintenance, because it is available. All that is necessary at any rate in theory is to ensure that components and materials are suitable for their purpose and are correctly installed. Rectification work could be reduced by the development and use of performance specifications and codes of installation (Lee 1987 p. 23) (according to Cobbinah 2010). Rectification is the response to inherent defects in design, construction or installation stages of the building process.

3. Replacement: Replacement occur at all cost in buildings. It is inevitable because service conditions cause materials to decay at different rates. Much replacement work stems not so much from physical breakdown of the materials or element as from deterioration of the appearance.

Aims of maintenance

The primary aim of maintaining a building is to ensure that the building continue to serve the purpose for which it was put up. The purposes for which maintenance are undertaken include:

1. To create suitable appearance can make a positive contribution to external environment and social condition. Dilapidated buildings can contribute to social deprivation and badly maintained services and facilities, waste energy and resources and can affect the environment.

2. To maximize the life of main components and materials – maintenance can reduce cost of subsequent maintenance by extending periods between repairs and replacements.

3. To ensue that building do not detract from surroundings and also maintain a suitable appearance.

4. To maintain the value of a building – a better maintained building normally has greater value, however, increased value may be marginal as location and size of site all play an important in the determination of value (S. Afranic and Osei-Tutu 1999) according to (Cobbinah, 2010).

Factors influencing decision to undertake maintenance

According to (Cobbinah, 2010) identify the following as influencing the decision to carry out maintenance on a building.

1. Inadequate finance: It is generally acknowledged that inadequate finance is a major constraint on effective property management, partly because maintenance budgets are the easiest to cut when money is scarce. Maintenance expenditure can be absorbed more easily in commercial and industrial organizations where it may account for as little as 0.5% of turnover but even in these cases maintenance is taken for granted except when it threatens production or profitability.

However, the situation is more serious in the public Hospital building where damaging effects of poor maintenance are less immediately obvious.

1. Bad management – refers to the idleness and waste among maintenances personal. Stapleton (1994). In S. Afranie and E. Osei-Tutu (1999), according to (Cobbinah, 2010) relates than the decision to carry out maintenance is affected by many factors among whch are:
2. Cost – Investors would want to have the most economic method for carrying out maintenance work whether corrective or preventive, thus they look at:
   1. Actual cost of maintenance of the building to the cost of maintaining similar buildings.
   2. Consideration of money spent to achieve acceptable standard at present.
   3. Cost of maintaining same standard in future and economics of replacing facilities
   4. Amount of work available and priority of work to be executed.
3. Availability of physical resources – the availability or non-availability of physical resources affects decisions in that, when suitable materials for maintenance are not available, it becomes difficult to undertake maintenances. Again even if suitable materials are available but not in adequate quantities and the alternative materials are not available, it will deter people from undertaking maintenances activities. The level of craftsmanship in terms of both skills and efficient numbers can also affect decisions to carry out maintenance.
4. Urgency of work – Thus also affects decisions on maintenances in that investors consider whether delayed work in the shot run will required more expensive work at a later stage. This usually take into account.
   1. Safety of building
   2. Possible damage to structure and finishes used in the building
   3. Interference with activities carried out in the building.