PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT : COMPREHENSIVE BUILDING MAINTENANCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

Abstract

As the number of government schools increases over the years, the maintenance of these physical stock becomes more demanding. The old system of maintenance that depended heavily on school principals could no longer meet the need because the principals do not possess the relevant maintenance skills and were also more concerned with their teaching responsibilities. Therefore, there was a need for a more effective and efficient maintenance system. The new Comprehensive Building Maintenance of all government secondary schools and junior colleges was implemented in May 1994. This new system was adopted so that maintenance of schools can be proactive as well as responsive to breakdown maintenance work request. As performance measurement is an area that is often overlooked, this dissertation will evaluate the responsiveness of the breakdown maintenance under the new system. In addition, this study will propose improvements in the area of requesting, execution and monitoring of the breakdown maintenance. The analysis of this study is both qualitative and quantitative. Interviews and surveys conducted form the qualitative portion while the quantitative portion is made up of statistical data analyses. From the results of the surveys, most of the schools are satisfied with the overall performance of this new system. They find it successful because the heavy burden of maintenance is no longer on their shoulders. The appointed managing agent and contractors now handle all the aspects of maintenance including housekeeping and regular building condition surveys. Although this new system was carefully formulated and most schools find it successful, there are still many areas that can be further improved. A systematic approach is adopted in this study. Firstly, an ideal model based on recommended practices from literature reviews is presented It is then compared with the current practice based on the Comprehensive Building Maintenance system. Finally, a proposed model is formulated by incorporating both the merits of the new system and the recommendations made from the ideal model.