Building maintenance management in Malaysia: an overview

Abstract

This paper gives an overview on the development and current practices of building maintenance in Malaysia. The literature review focusedon building maintenance and its related concepts including the current practice of building maintenance carried out by institutions of higher education. Maintenance practises for buildings in Malaysia started in the year 1971. However, it became more active in the year 2007 when the government insisted on maintenance management as a new culture for the nation. Findings show that several improvements have been made in few areas including better condition of the government buildings and the better understanding of the practice among the maintenance staff as well as the stakeholders. However, findings from the study on institutions of higher learningshow that universities in Malaysia are still managing their facilities in the traditional waysviz-a-viz the corrective, reactive and condition based approach. Among the several problems that were identified, the absence of IT based maintenance management systems seems to be the major factor hindering the development of maintenance culture in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia.