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Towards innovative building maintenance

Towards innovative building maintenance Purpose – Building maintenance is not sexy – yet it is big business, arguably more than new‐build. It is under‐researched. Received wisdom from the 1960s and 1970s is that reactive maintenance is undesirable; planned preventive maintenance (PPM) is “the answer”. That paradigm fails to put people at the centre. Times have moved on. The thinking here challenges the public‐sector “think big’ command economy based approach, and aims to examine new ways ahead. The purpose of this paper is to summarise a range of new approaches and identify common threads. People are an organisation's greatest asset; the maintenance and enhancement of their working and living environments and their wellbeing deserve serious attention. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on semi‐structured interviews with maintenance and facility managers in organisations noted for their tendencies to innovate in their core business. The paper aims to assist maintenance and facility managers to review their building maintenance priorities in relation to user wants and needs. Findings – While the study is insufficient at this stage to support wholesale change in practice to any one new approach, a professional approach to the expenditure of considerable sums on building maintenance suggests that appropriate time should be spent in developing and evaluating alternative approaches. Originality/value – Calls for a complete re‐think on the approach taken to maintenance. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Structural Survey Emerald Publishing

Towards innovative building maintenance

Brian Wood
Structural Survey , Volume 23 (4): 7 – Sep 1, 2005
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References (26)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0263-080X
DOI
10.1108/02630800510630466
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – Building maintenance is not sexy – yet it is big business, arguably more than new‐build. It is under‐researched. Received wisdom from the 1960s and 1970s is that reactive maintenance is undesirable; planned preventive maintenance (PPM) is “the answer”. That paradigm fails to put people at the centre. Times have moved on. The thinking here challenges the public‐sector “think big’ command economy based approach, and aims to examine new ways ahead. The purpose of this paper is to summarise a range of new approaches and identify common threads. People are an organisation's greatest asset; the maintenance and enhancement of their working and living environments and their wellbeing deserve serious attention. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on semi‐structured interviews with maintenance and facility managers in organisations noted for their tendencies to innovate in their core business. The paper aims to assist maintenance and facility managers to review their building maintenance priorities in relation to user wants and needs. Findings – While the study is insufficient at this stage to support wholesale change in practice to any one new approach, a professional approach to the expenditure of considerable sums on building maintenance suggests that appropriate time should be spent in developing and evaluating alternative approaches. Originality/value – Calls for a complete re‐think on the approach taken to maintenance.

Journal

Structural Survey – Emerald Publishing

Published: Sep 1, 2005

Keywords: Customer service management; Facilities; Innovation; Maintenance programmes; Preventive maintenance

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