Appraisal of Building Maintenance Practice Among Landlords
CHAPTER ONE
Purpose of the Study
The main objective of the study is to conduct a survey of Appraisal of Building Maintenance Practice among Landlords in Niger Central Senatorial District and come out with some basic information on this study below:
- Find out the importance of building maintenance among landlords in Niger Central Senatorial District.
- Find out the responsibilities of landlords and the rights of tenants in building maintenance practices in Niger Central Senatorial District.
- Determine the factors affecting building maintenance practice among landlords in Niger Central Senatorial District, e.t.c.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Classification of maintenance of buildings and infrastructures
Maintenance of buildings and infrastructures can be classified under the following headings;
- planned maintenance
- unplanned maintenance
Planned maintenance
Planned maintenance is maintenance organized and carried out with fore thought, control and the use of records to pre-determined plan. It was also defined by BS 3811 as “work undertaken in accordance with sandy based system of priorities, each operation properly planned and organized in advance with necessary labour, plant and materials assembled ready for use when required” if this is properly applied it leads to a greater margin of safety and reduce the risk of having to resort to emergency work. Planned maintenance is further divided into;
Planned preventive maintenance.
Planned corrective maintenance
Planned preventive maintenance
This is defined as work undertaken to reduce the possibility of an item not meeting an acceptable standard and also to prevent breakdown facility or service. It involves regular inspection and identification of signs anticipated breakdown and consequently carrying out of repairs on the building and its facilities. This is carried out at pre-determined intervals intended to reduce the probability of failure. Ivor H. Seeley also stated that this is work directed to the prevention of failure of a facility, carried out within the expected life of the facility to ensure continued operation. The maintenance official knows what he is aiming at and plans how to arrive at it. Other qualities of preventive maintenance include;
It provides essential management records.
The programme is flexible and subject to review.
The work is organized and controlled.
It is cost effective.
Planned corrective maintenance
This is defined as work performed to restore a facility a facility to operation or to an acceptable standard. It involves replacement or rectification of damage or deteriorated facilities or parts. This type of maintenance is carried after a failure has occurred and intended to restore an item to state in which it can perform its required function. It involves those tasks to be performed as a result of failure to restore the component to its original state of performance. It may involve outright replacement or to remedy established defects. It is work needed to restore the integrity of a damaged or deteriorated structure and it includes the repair or replacement of defective parts or components.
Basically, the first step is to handle the cause of the problems. Because, most natural defects become critical only slowly and usually evidenced by visible signs whose development can be monitored over a considerable period of time.(JF Hill 1969).
This is to enable the observer to correctly identify their origin because, uninvestigated treatment of defects may not bring lasting solutions rather it may lead the maintenance personnel treating just the symptoms instead of the causes. The maintenance personnel must be able to ensure that the structure remain suitable for their intended use such as;
The critical point of disrepair which is recognized as the point at which the on set of progressive failures occurs. If the structure is before this point is reached its life may be extended.(Ivor H.S. 1979). If the repairs are not carried out major loss of use and reconstruction will be inevitable, if the structure is to be returned to its functional level.
The point at which the rate of expenditure needed to maintain serviceability escalates to such an extent as to be uneconomical by comparison with partial or complete replacement ( Ivor H.S 1979).
It is important to note that however thorough investigation and diagnosis of defects have been and whatever the extent of careful details in overcoming it, it is not very possible to foresee the extent of remedial work involved until the defect is opened up and exposed to indepth examination.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
This study adopted the survey research design using some six selected food and beverage, textile and pharmaceutical manufacturing organizations as case study. They include Emzor pharmaceuticals, Doyin pharmaceuticals, Consolidated Foods limited, Chi limited, Nichemtex and OK Foods limited.These organizations used provided data for the study.
POPULATION OF STUDY
The total population of study was 600 distributed among the groups
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
Data were statistically analysed and presented in this chapter based on the research questions and hypothesis that guided the study.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Having presented and analyzed the data extracted from the questionnaires, interviews and personal observations, some principal findings, conclusion and recommendations could be made.
The building Facilities compliment their functions at a very low extent. The building Facilities used for production are either sub – standard or performing under capacity thereby reducing the quantity and quality of products, which is one of the reasons consumers, opt for foreign commodities. The basic building Facilities provided are either out of use or performing poorly, these include the air – conditioners, telephones, generators/plants etc.
Though there is an above average affirmation of residential building maintenance by landlords in the selected manufacturing industries, but a further probe into the effectiveness of management showed a very high degree of poor residential building maintenance by landlords. Further enquires made during the oral interviews revealed that effective residential building maintenance by landlords depends on the overall maintenance by landlords policy of each residence. Besides, there is poor or lack of good maintenance by landlords culture in Nigeria, organizations are reactive instead of proactive .
Some other interviewees mentioned inadequate finance, Lack of modern automation and skilled personnel as reasons for poor residential building maintenance by landlords.
Building Facilities users (production staff/machineries operators, distributors and consumers) requirements are not satisfied. Most requests are not met and bureaucracy often stands on the way of building Facilities users requirement satisfaction efforts. It also has a direct effect on attitude to work and level of production.
Most of the manufacturing industries sampled affirmed that their building Facilities are not fully modern automated. modern technology is not being used in all production stages. There is still a high degree of manual operation. Interviews conducted revealed that some of these manufacturing industries sometimes import sophisticated machines to improve production but due to Lack of competent professionals to operate them they pack up and are abandoned.
Oral interviews revealed that most organizations that have residential building maintenance by landlords in place make use of in-house maintenance by landlords which is handled by technicians. Further enquires showed that they opted for in – house maintenance by landlords because they felt it is cheaper and would minimize cost in the long run. Those who make use of in-house/outsource said they use the latter when the former fails or when complex maintenance by landlords works that needs special professionals need to be carried out.
CONCLUSION
Residential building maintenance by landlords as a discipline has stood its test and gained ground in the developed western world and is most likely to succeed in our economy. It is most required now to correct our present poor maintenance by landlords culture. An effective residential building maintenance policy is indicated by the extent to which the requirements of the users, staff and owners are met. These are reflected on the physical, aesthetic condition of the facility, its functionality in performing its basic services and the ability of building Facilities maintenance or management team to overcome challenges that constrain them. Residential building maintenance need to be proactive, flexible, adapting to changes in a continuous changing world. There is need for all the various professionals relevant in residential building maintenance to work together to handle the enormous task ahead of them instead of engaging in inter – disciplinary wars for who is the right profession to handle residential building maintenance.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Having concluded that problems of residential building maintenance constitute constrains to effective residential building maintenance in manufacturing industries the following remedies are recommended.
ADEQUATE BUDGETARY PROVISIONS
An organizations management should have clear goals and objectives and must plan to operate within its budgetary limits. In order to ensure that maintenance operations are not held up by shortage of funds, budgets must be made with due consideration given to contingencies for unforeseen problems.
This goes a long way in reducing down – time effects. In replacement of outdated and dysfunctional building Facilities and equipment, funds must be expended prudently. There should be no room for corruption and sharp practices. This helps to ensure that budgetary provisions are sufficient.
SKILLED PERSONNEL
The staff strength of the maintenance crew and engineering departments should be strengthened to enable them cope with the work of keeping the building Facilities in good shape.
This should be backed up with engaging services of special residential building maintenance consultants when the need arises to handle special or complex building Facilities. Management should invest in staff training and sponsoring programs, which will contribute to competence in executing tasks. All the maintenance staff must be proficient and professionals in their different fields.
MATERIAL PROCUREMENT
The procurement of materials for building Facilities maintenance might entail importation of components from abroad. The building Facilities and equipments might also be so out-modeled and obsolete that it would be impossible to get spare parts of the components. In designing building Facilities all these should be taken into consideration.
Alternative equipment with readily available spare parts and components should be installed so that maintainability is enhanced. Design and maintainability should be the watch word right from inception.
LEVEL OF AUTOMATION
Investment should be made in computers and software packages that are relevant to space and data management. This will enhance management performance and introduce modern technology in tackling residential building maintenance problems. Automation aids the evaluation of performance and monitoring of control operations. It will hasten response to building Facilities problems and save labour – hours thereby reducing operation costs.
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