What are the key challenges in property maintenance and how can strategies mitigate these crises for sustainability?

Abstract

The research revolved around the treatment of ongoing crises in property maintenance, including determining the property maintenance current treatment, the principal crises involved, the principle causes of those crises, the impacts on an operation, and potential solutions. The issue of property maintenance in the construction sector has become a more prominent challenge with aging property, reactive maintenance techniques, and limited resources. The research has considered how organisation systemic weaknesses and project environments may have resulted in a history of failures in property maintenance. The research was structured around five themes: current practices in the industry, major maintenance crises, causes of those crises, impacts of the crises, and solutions to those crises. The study was designed as qualitative method research in that it presents data drawn from semi-structured interviews with maintenance managers, contractors, and facility managers. Thematic analysis of qualitative interview data was analysed and processed selected from participant’s responses. The results showed that most organisations relied heavily on reactive maintenance, with very limited utilisation of predictive or preventive maintenance. In the interviews, many challenges were mentioned, including high costs, labour shortages, older buildings, and communication during the maintenance service which result in increased costs and safety issues and delays in operations and loss of tenant satisfaction. The research found that although there were improvements in the introduction of technology such as Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), the usage of these systems is inconsistent by all organisations and in some cases by small organisations. As a result, effective solutions required a commitment to preventive maintenance, training associated with the increased investment, and incorporating sufficient technology. The research participants suggested considering maintenance as early as possible in the design and construction process. All participants indicated that a more proactive, better funded and technology-enriched culture towards maintenance would help to reduce maintenance crises in the construction industry and help maintain and improve an asset's performance over its life cycle.