Maintenance issues

Planned maintenance is only one approach to dealing with deterioration of components. Alternative and complementary strategies include:

• Condition-based maintenance - maintenance is carried out when the condition of the component requires intervention.
• Responsive maintenance - maintenance intervention takes place after the component has fallen below an acceptable standard.
• Improvement - a maintenance policy may involve replacing failed components with components that better the original component.

Best practice indicates that 60-70% of maintenance should be planned maintenance. While the focus of this section is planned maintenance, the principles relating to maintenance planning are applicable to the complete maintenance service.

Planned maintenance focuses on the medium- and long-term maintenance of buildings.

The management of planned maintenance covers many issues from the strategic (ensuring the maintenance strategies meeting the needs of the organisation) to the practical (managing maintenance activities).

Issues that may be addressed by the management of planned maintenance include:

• determining maintenance strategies to meet the organisation's aims and objectives;
• defining responsibilities and personnel for maintenance tasks;
• determining the aims and objectives of the maintenance department;
• developing a maintenance plan;
• setting condition standards and asset performance requirements;
• collecting and analysing built asset information;
• establishing priorities;
• liaising with asset users;
• financial - allocation of organisation's budget, costing and budgeting maintenance works;
• programming work;
• maintenance information - costs, technical information, maintenance manuals; and
• reviewing and feedback on performance; annual reports.