MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Building maintenance plays an important part in Singapore as the land area in the country is densely populated with buildings (Singapore Master Plan 2008). The main bulk of the building stocks came from public buildings. The top three contributors of the public buildings are public housings, public schools and community clubs. Public buildings are responsible for serving the people living within the country (Pevsner. N, 1976). They provide various services almost every day which is why it is important for the facilities within the buildings to perform up to their stipulated standards. In addition, with public buildings representing a significant number of building stocks in Singapore, proper maintenance of public buildings can therefore help to significantly reduce the wastage of resources, protecting the environment. Two case studies were carried out to compare how the manager of each building deals with one maintenance issue. Case study 1 is on Jurong Junior College (information obtained through the operation manager. while Case Study 2 is on Hong Kah North CC (immersing into the actual case) is A detailed comparison between the two case studies was done in the form of table format to allow immediate comparison between them. One of the key findings is the lacking of estate management expertise in the community clubs resulting in long response time in rectifying maintenance issues as well as wasting valuable resources due to contacting the wrong contractor to solve specific maintenance issues. Another key finding is that a small maintenance issue when left unresolved can escalates into a bigger problem. It not only incurs more cost to repair/replace the affected components, it also affects the users as well as jeopardising their safety. In building maintenance, is important to identify problems early and resolve them fast to minimise the impact done to other components. The last finding is that managers find it hard to keep the morale of the maintenance staff high due to the repetitive nature of maintenance routine jobs. Some good practices derived from the study which can be adopted by public buildings include hiring the right person for the right job, adopting good maintenance routines, increasing the frequencies of building inspection and lastly, ensure high morale of staff to increase productivity (better services) which will indirectly boost the image of the sector.