Friday, 25 March 2016

#7 Report: Introduction

1.1  Introduction
Every building has its own lifespan to carry out its intended function. It deteriorates over time and reduces the quality of the building structures, services and facilities. To a more critical extent if a building is being managed with poor and improper building maintenance, it will cause more damages and costly repair works if left unattended, eventually endanger the occupant health and safety. This phenomenon is clearly seen especially among the older building with longer utilization period.

To ensure an optimal performance of a building life cycle, maintenance is really essential. The term ‘maintenance’ is defined as activities undertaken aimed to taking care about building structure and service to ensure that a building serve its intended functions throughout its entire lifespan, which occur after completion or after any repair, refurbishment or replacement to current standards. It is a continuous activity, not necessarily a contributing factor to the building condition but to ensure the building meets its required functional performance.

Nature of Maintenance
Based on the defined function of maintenance, there are three components measures consists in maintenance:
1)      Cleaning and servicing
This operation is normally carried out by building occupier. It should be carry out regularly, and it is known as ‘day-to-day’ maintenance. It combines with a reporting system to record down any possible breakdown and malfunction which are apparently visualize to prevent the later stage of repairs or replacement which consumes higher cost. The frequency of each cleaning job depends on the type of operation. For instance, floors should be swept daily, but polished weekly, windows can be cleaned monthly and painting and decoration will only take place every few years.

2)      Rectification and repair
Rectification is discusses as activity occurs early in the life of the building and arises from default in design, inherent faults or unsuitability of components, damage of goods in transit or installation and incorrect assembly. Objective of rectification is to ensure that components and materials are suitable for their purpose and are correctly installed.

3)      Replacement
Replacement usually happens to items with limited lifespan, normally in short-, medium- and long-term operation. Some organizations practice this kind of maintenance system because they feel like one-time payment of replacement cost of items is much more lowers compared to continuous payment of repair or routine maintenance cost. In addition, some routinely repair and maintain items might still need to be replaced at the end of its lifespan even though it might be medium- or long-term operation. This further bring about the thought of organization not to implement repair or routine maintenance, where having repairing and maintaining several times during their life but still ended up with a same amount of replacement cost.
1.2  Objective
There are a few objectives highlighted as guidelines throughout the time frames of us doing the task given:
a)      Maintenance management & task organizational chart
b)      Types of maintenance & maintenance activities.
c)      Administration of contracting works and documentations
d)     Building maintenance report & budget
e)      Health & safety aspects of workers/ contractors in maintenance works (OSHA)

1.3  Methodology

Figure 1.1: Methodology for this study

In order to complete the task, three main methods are used:
a)      Desk study
Also known as literature review, we did prepare some materials before going to the place of case study which is Penang City Stadium. Some researches were done by each of us in many different mediums such as books, related websites and previous news. The research done is based on our main topic, maintenance management system. The useful information will be used in report to strengthen the result and guide the analysis.

b)      Site Visitation & Data collection
Our group did a few site visitations which we collected some data based on our visual inspection throughout the Penang City Stadium that accessible and permissible. The data was recorded. Other than that, the information from the office of Penang City Stadium were also collected and analysed. For example the organizational chart of maintenance unit and maintenance daily routine schedule. 

c)      Interview

An interview was conducted on 29th February 2016 with Mr. Zawawi, who is the supervisor of activity for Penang City Stadium. During interview session, matter of maintenance budget, responsible parties in the management, and others related question has been discussed. All data and information provided is as one of the input for us to make this report. Besides, we also meet Mr. Sharif, Chief of Clerk (CC) since he holds almost all data and record that we need for the case study. However, unfortunately the next appointment cannot be made due to his busy schedule and some related information and data did not obtained. 

No comments:

Post a Comment