Analysis of Maintenance Culture Employed in Public Infrastructure in Nigeria
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following are the objectives of this study:
- To examine the level of maintenance culture employed in public infrastructure in Nigeria.
- To identify the determinants of maintenance culture of public infrastructure in Nigeria.
- To determine the attitude of Nigerians to maintenance culture.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
This chapter reviews the literature on the analysis of maintenance culture in public infrastructure in Nigeria. It discusses issues arising from the topic of interest as viewed from different perspectives, with a view of giving a theoretical and empirical foundation to the study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
THE CONCEPT OF MAINTENANCE
British Standards Institute (1974) considered maintenance as the combination of technical and administrative actions taken to preserve or protect a structure, system or equipment to function properly. On its own part Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2009) defines maintenance as the action or process of preserving an object, activity etc. While Kumar & Suresh (2008) postulated that maintenance is an action taken to prevent a device or component from failing or to repair normal equipment degradation experienced with the operation of the device to keep it in proper working order. This paper therefore considers maintenance as a process of preserving an asset or facility in its state of continuous use and function, above a minimum acceptable level of performance, over its design span life. Companies undertake efforts to reduce costs and at the same time improve quality and productivity. These efforts include an examination of the maintenance requirements. The production system of any company requires effective maintenance attention necessary for its continuous functioning (Omotehinshe, et al., 2015a). This will increase equipment life, availability and retains its proper functioning. Poorly maintained equipment may conversely lead to more frequent failure of the equipment, low utilization rate and delaying of production schedule. Equipment that is malfunctioning or misaligned may cause a higher scrap rate or produce products with a questionable quality. Swanson (2001) considered poorly maintained equipment as a necessary evil. This is contradicted by Alsyouf (2007) who saw regular facility maintenance as a source of profit making rather than just unavoidable and unpredictable expenses.
A cursory look into several works on maintenance in multi-faceted fields or dimensions reveals several intellectual expositions of the word “Maintenance” both in a subjective and most importantly objective view point. Ajibola (2009) defined maintenance as “the work that is done regularly to keep a machine, building or a piece of equipment in good condition”. He expatiated further that maintenance is a combination of actions earned out to retain an item in or to restore the item to an acceptable condition”. Adeleye (2009) sees maintenance as involving keeping equipment and mechanized infrastructure in operational conditions for continual use. The word maintenance to Eli et al (2006) means preserving and keeping in good order as near as possible in their original state. By implication, maintenance means keeping in good order and shape, all projects of development that are of benefit to the people (Adedokun, 2011). Maintenance as defined by Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (FMW&H) in the central bank of Nigeria document, 2003) is a means of correcting deficiencies that have developed as a result of age and use. The RICS/ISVA working committee defined maintenance as “Work undertaken in order to keep, restore or improve every facility, to an acceptable standard and to sustain the utility and value of the facility”. This they tagged as “Proactive Maintenance”. The word maintenance is a noun derived from the verb “to maintain” that mean process of keeping something in good condition (Telang and Telang, 2010). The process of maintenance is involved task or activities to restore the equipments in its normal operating condition, at minimum cost throughout their life cycle. According to British Standard 3811:1984, maintenance is defined as a combination of all technical, administrative and managerial actions during the life cycle of an item intended to retain it in, or to restore it to a state in which it can perform the required function. A combination of any action consisted of technical, administrative and managerial that cooperates with each other in maintenance work. While ‘to retain’ and ‘to restore’ this item is a process of work carried out in anticipation of failure (retain) and work carried out after failure (restore) (Wordsworth, 2001; Chang 2010). Meanwhile, the required function or acceptable condition is referred to the acceptability of the person who is paying the work to the person receiving benefit or to some outside body with responsibility for enforcing minimum standards (Wordsworth, 2001). In other words, maintenance is defined as an action carry out by a group of person to protect, preserve and maintain the systems, equipment and structures to ensure the asset is capability to function effectively.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to analyse the maintenance culture employed in public infrastructure in Nigeria by using survey design and data collection method was through the use of questionnaires and observation of public Buildings in Osun State. Nigeria..
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
Primary source and
Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information regarding palm oil trade and its socioeconomic impacts. This Sampling was carried out with a total of 200 questionnaires administered. 150 questionnaires were retrieved representing about 75% of the total population which is considered sufficient for the study based on the assertion of Moser and Kalton, (1999) that the result of a survey could be considered as biased and little significant if the return rate was lower than 20-30%. Data gathered were analyzed using simple statistical tools such as mean item score, percentage and frequency.
selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
INTRODUCTION
It is important to reiterate that the objective of this study was the analysis of maintenance culture employed in public infrastructure in Nigeria.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in evaluating examine the analysis of maintenance culture employed in public infrastructure in Nigeria.
SUMMARY
This study was undertaken to examine the analysis of maintenance culture employed in public infrastructure in Nigeria. The study opened with chapter one where the statement of the problem was clearly defined. The study objectives and research hypotheses were defined and formulated respectively. The study reviewed related and relevant literatures. The chapter two gave the conceptual framework, empirical and theoretical studies. The third chapter described the methodology employed by the researcher in collecting both the primary and the secondary data. The research method employed here is the descriptive survey method. The study analyzed and presented the data collected in tables and the hypotheses were tested using the ANOVA and chi square to test hypothesis. While the fifth chapter gives the study summary and conclusion.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study reveals that there is no formal organisational structure showing the distribution of responsibility in all buildings. There is therefore need to construct a proper organisational chart showing the distribution and scheduling of responsibilities of power for proper functioning of the organisation and personnel. More so, maintenance work should be categorised according to their order of importance or severity as such maintenance work should be based on need “need driven” and not based on budget “budget driven”. User satisfaction survey should also be carried out regularly and maintenance work should be carried out in line with users’ requirement. Adequate funds should be provided for effective maintenance practices to be achieved regularly. The Government also should be interested in maintenance, which must not be neglected.
The need for economic analysis and workable financial plans should be prepared prior to the award of contracts.
The maintenance department is advised to carry out routine inspections of existing buildings and not to wait until structure are completely dilapidated.
REFERENCES
- Adenuga, O. A. (2010). Labour Composition for Maintenance Works in Public Hospital Built Environment in South-west, Nigeria. Journal of Building Performance. 1 (1) , 83-97
- Adenuga, O. A. (2010). Maintenance management practices in public hospital built environment: Nigeria case study . Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 14(1), 185-201.
- Akin Adeyemi (2005): “Poor Building Maintenance In Nigeria: Are Architects Free From Blames”, Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ibogun Campus. Paper presented at the ENHR International conference on “Housing: New Challenges and Innovations in Tomorrow’s Cities” in Iceland between 29th June – 3rd July, British Standard Institution (BS 3811) (1984). Glossary of general terms used in maintenance organisations. Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford. U.K.
- Adeleye S.I. (2009) ‘’Maintenance Practice in Nigeria, Policy, Budgeting and Legislative Issues’’. A paper presented at ‘’Sensitization Campaign on Maintenance Culture. Organized by National Orientation Agency, Oyo State Directorate, Ibadan
- Adenuga, O. A., Olufowobi, M. B., and Raheem, A. A. (2010). Effective Maintenance Policy as a Tool for Sustaining Housing Stock in Downturn Economy. Journal of Building Performance, 1(1), 93-109.
