Assessment of building maintenance management practices of higher education institutions in Niger State – Nigeria

Abstract

Higher education institutions face immediate pressure to preserve existing building facilities within the campuses and enhance the capacity of their higher education system to address growing demands of an increasing influx of students and academic activities. There is no doubt that dilapidated and unhealthy buildings in a decaying environment depresses the quality of life and contributes in some measure to antisocial behaviours. The buildings of higher education institutions in Nigeria only receive top management attention when there is a problem. Hence, the paper assessed the building maintenance management practices of 6 higher institutions available (2 universities, 2 polytechnics and 2 colleges of education) in Niger State. This was done by interviewing the Directors of Works of the 6 institutions using a structured interview method. The study revealed that there was no maintenance manual in any of the Works Department of the higher education institution, no user satisfaction survey has ever been conducted and none of the institutions had a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) in place. In addition to these, corrective maintenance was mostly adopted and there was inadequate staffing of the field operatives. All these shortcomings might be responsible for the backlog of maintenance work experienced in the institutions studied. A proactive maintenance system should be put in place, CMMS should be adopted to enhance effective maintenance work, and top management should be enlightened on the imperative of maintenance among other issues competing for funds within the institutions and be more flexible in allocation of resources to enhance maintenance works.

A review and compilation of critical success factors for the implementation of maintenance at Nigerian public universities

“…Mohd-Noor et al (2011) emphasised that the maintenance budget should not be tampered with at all times because it may be quickly needed without notice, especially in the case of emergency maintenance. And according to Blessing et al (2015), it is always a headache to estimate building maintenance cost assessment in current maintenance work practices in Nigerian universities. Because maintenance work is not carried out according to actual need, it is based on the allocated budget without carefully evaluating its exact needs.…”

“…E-maintenance: e-maintenance is a modern technology system used to optimise the inspection and make decisions that can affect the performance operations (Blessing et al , 2015). It captured good and quality data using a computerised system to execute maintenance work and monitor maintenance work progress by giving the maintenance manager feedback.…”

“…Future leaders, captains of industry, entrepreneurs, professionals and scientists are produced through the university buildings. Still, unfortunately, universities in Nigeria are faced with immediate pressure to preserve the existing building facilities within the campuses and enhance their higher education system’s capacity to address the growing demands of an increasing influx of students and academic activities (Blessing et al , 2015). Maintenance management of university buildings is also one of the most complex maintenance issues because it is multifaceted (Amankwah et al , 2017).…”

A Review of Key Factors That Affect University Building Maintenance Costs

“…University buildings are also recognized as a commonplace, rather than an essential facility. As a result, their value and functions are often ignored [13]. In recent years, the perception of university buildings is changing.…”

A Model for Managing the Performance of CMMS Deployment in High‐Rise Office Buildings: A View from Lagos, Nigeria

“…However, many organisations have no clear objectives for their maintenance activities, which together with strategies form the driving force for improving maintenance effectiveness [29]. In Nigeria, literature has shown interesting discussions on maintenance situations within a similar context of other developing countries; few studies have examined the underlying drivers and theoretical frameworks of the low response of CMMS [27,[30][31][32][33]; the market popularity of CMMS flourishes within the private sector than the public sector, while other interesting findings pointed towards the ill maintenance culture and the attitude of FM professionals in [34,35]; facility managers were generally less involved in the strategic tasks; the FM title is used as a "catch phrase" to improve patronage as they do not adopt FM principles in actual practice [36,37]. e application of CMMS certainly offers the possibility of optimising preventive maintenance operations.…”