Current issues and barriers of maintenance management practices for public facilities in Malaysia

There are significant challenges for local authorities in Malaysia in providing and managing the public facilities for the satisfaction of stakeholders. Therefore, the local authorities need to maintain the facilities to ensure the public to be able to use them effectively and comfortably. However, over the years, the local authorities faced countless critics and complaints regarding their performance in managing the facilities from the public. Moreover, the local authorities confronted maintenance cost issues while maintaining and operating the facilities, which lead to ineffective management. This unfortunate situation has tarnished the image of the local authorities, which supposedly act as a service provider to the public in their regions. This paper investigates the current maintenance management practices by the local authorities and to identify the barriers encountered during the implementation of maintenance management. The study utilized a comprehensive sample by distributing 149 questionnaires to the maintenance department of local authorities. The results of current practices were analyzed by using the mean value score and Relative Importance Index (RII) while the barriers were examined using the mean value score and Severity Index (SI). The results indicated that the current practices of the maintenance management conducted by the local authorities did not achieve the level of satisfaction which leads to the issues of ineffective maintenance management and the barriers that faced by the local authorities shows that building characteristics, vandalism and human factors have become the significant factors of maintenance cost issues. Consequently, the study provides the recommendation of directions and guidance towards the best practices of maintenance management to accomplish the maintenance efficiency and value for money throughout various strategies of improvements

Key strategies to overcome cost overruns issues in building maintenance management

The building maintenance is a crucial part of the life cycle of the building. The maintenance strategies are planned to maintain the condition of the building for specified functions. The maintenance planning requires a comprehensive assessment in determining the effectiveness of building performance, especially in the maintenance budgets planning process. The effective budget preparation will reduce the risk of cost overruns and help the organization to execute the repair works efficiently with sufficient resources. This study attempts to identify the issues related to maintenance cost and proposed the key strategies for improving the sustainable building maintenance budgeting in dealing with the cost overruns. This paper utilizes a qualitative approach through a literature review of secondary data from previous studies. The proposed cost model of maintenance strategies will be used as a basis for further investigation and validation towards promoting the sustainable building maintenance management. The studies identified the push factors that influence the maintenance cost; human factors, tools and equipment, spare parts and materials, funds allocation and available information. Each of the push factors needs to be wellconsidered to ensure that the maintenance activities can be done efficiently and to avoid the issues of cost overruns

Settlement as a determinant for community's resilience to local economic development in Ghana

Local Economic Development (LED) is the main anchor through which economic development is achieved by building entrepreneurial capacities and improving opportunities for economic growth and citizens' quality of life, especially in rural settlements. In Ghana, the implementation of LED is under the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development (MLDGRD) through the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) at the local level. The implementation of LED contributes significantly to Ghana's economic growth, business creation, and employment generation. LED is therefore identified as essential to sustainable development and poverty reduction in rural settlements in Ghana. However, the challenges of poor implementation of the LED policy are financial constraints to implement LED activities at the local level, performance action of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) towards LED, and limited exploration of the sanitation value chain LED efforts at the local level. The poor capacity of small-medium micro enterprises (SMMEs) and smallholder farmers have often affected the successful implementation of LED activities at the local level. Hence, this paper seeks to identify the determinants for resilience in Local Economic Development in Ghana. The paper further provides an overview of the LED challenges in Ghana. Finally, this paper recommends appropriate theoretical frameworks that integrate the determinants for the resilience of Local Economic Development to address the identified challenges of LED, leading to poverty reduction in Ghana

Integrating resource-based view and performance improvement theory in developing maintenance management continuous improvement model: a conceptual framework

The local authority in Malaysia is the giant holder of public assets and they are obligated in performing better management to ensure the assets are of prominent quality to serve the needs of the local people. The local authority should take initiatives in having the right systems in managing and maintaining their assets. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the maintenance management practices and performance improvement techniques to be integrated into developing the continuous improvement model towards achieving a sustainable performance of public assets. The resource-based view (RBV) and performance improvement (PI) theory are integrated as the reference to develop the maintenance management framework. The RBV emphasizing the resources and capabilities to achieve the value of strategic management. While the PI provides a suitable tool which is the maturity model for improving the current practices. Nine key elements of maintenance management were identified which demonstrating the maintenance capabilities and resources. Grounded on the theory of RBV and PI, the conceptual framework was established as the foundation towards developing strategic maintenance practices for sustainable performance of public assets and continuous improvement in maintenance management by the local authority in Malaysia

An adaptation of the Malay kampongs or villages concept on modern housing schemes development in Malaysia

Traditionally, villager's houses organised in groups, surrounded by green nature, landscape, each space connected by informal pathways to form a settlement known as village, kampong or 'kampung'. The kampong setting grow harmoniously and evolved over the years. Indirectly the culture and values of the Malay community in the village are slowly influenced by the atmosphere and living environment that tested through many years. Today, the existence of a traditional Malay village as an early settlement pattern of the Malay community threatened by the process of urbanisation and modernisation of the country. The kampong setting has replaced by mass production of housing schemes called 'taman perumahan'. As a result, the existence of traditional Malay kampongs in urban areas has been replaced by a planned housing schemes that is considered modern and well-planned. However, there is an effort to re-adapt the traditional village concept ideally into modern urban housing either through architectural design, landscape and neighbourhood planning at different level. This paper is written based on qualitative approach by collecting and structuring field data through several methods such as observation, and fieldwork study. This paper explores such effort in modern housing schemes at the Precinct 8 (Putrajaya) and Nong Chik Height (Johor Bahru)

Relationship between medium and large grade contractors on implementing safety management in construction site

Construction sectors are familiar with dangerous and exposed to accidents including of minor accidents, ergonomics problem, outdated machinery can cause the breakdown, and lack awareness from employers and employees. However, the occupational can be reduced through the effectiveness of prevention measure by training, good housekeeping, hazard assessment, better personal protective equipment (PPE) and inspection. The main objective of this research is to identify safety management implementation in medium and large grade contractors. A questionnaire was used as the main instrument on a Likert-type scale with a total of 46 returned questionnaire out of the 100 distributed. The respondents of this study are includes project manager, site supervisor, Safety and Health officer (SHO), engineer, clerk, planner, Quantity Surveyor (QS) and architect. The finding of this paper was identified mostly the contractors implement safety before start bidding; and after bidding and before start site work phases. The highest rank of safety activity is implemented in contractor companies is a formal safety incentive program. Furthermore, the results show significant differences on safety management implementation to working experiences and the relationship between contractor companies and safety management implementation. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the medium and large grade contractors implement safety management properly and good

Current Issues And Barriers Of Maintenance Management Practices For Public Facilities In Malaysia

There are significant challenges for local authorities in Malaysia in providing and managing the public facilities for the satisfaction of stakeholders. Therefore, the local authorities need to maintain the facilities to ensure the public to be able to use them effectively and comfortably. However, over the years, the local authorities faced countless critics and complaints regarding their performance in managing the facilities from the public. Moreover, the local authorities confronted maintenance cost issues while maintaining and operating the facilities, which lead to ineffective management. This unfortunate situation has tarnished the image of the local authorities, which supposedly act as a service provider to the public in their regions. This paper investigates the current maintenance management practices by the local authorities and to identify the barriers encountered during the implementation of maintenance management. The study utilized a comprehensive sample by distributing 149 questionnaires to the maintenance department of local authorities. The results of current practices were analyzed by using the mean value score and Relative Importance Index (RII) while the barriers were examined using the mean value score and Severity Index (SI). The results indicated that the current practices of the maintenance management conducted by the local authorities did not achieve the level of satisfaction which leads to the issues of ineffective maintenance management and the barriers that faced by the local authorities shows that building characteristics, vandalism and human factors have become the significant factors of maintenance cost issues. Consequently, the study provides the recommendation of directions and guidance towards the best practices of maintenance management to accomplish the maintenance efficiency and value for money throughout various strategies of improvements

Implementation of affordable housing programmes in Johor, Malaysia for sustainable housing

Sustainability in housing includes the concept of housing affordability that revolves around the elements of sustainable housing affordability. Affordable housing provision could be discussed under the context of social equity where it demonstrates the ability of all segments of the population to have access to housing. Housing production in Malaysia is mostly dominated by private sector developers and is generally based on supply and demand in the open market. Government intervention in the form of policies and programmes that include affordable housing programmes were introduced to assist all segment of population to have access to housing. This study looks at the implementation of these programmes in the state of Johor, Malaysia. The objectives of this paper are to define housing sustainability through implementation of affordable housing programmes; to determine if these programmes comply with the concept of sustainable housing affordability. Finally, general issues on its implementation will be identified. Findings indicates that the concept of the housing programmes introduced fulfils the criteria for sustainable housing affordability, such as in terms of its price, quality of house, specifications, proximity to facilities and to work place. Some of the main issues identified on its implementation at state and local government can be summarised as the existence of separation of jurisdictions and authorities between the federal and state governments; conflicting requirement for policies between state and federal government and lack of specific Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which contributes towards delays in the overall development process

Revitalizing rural areas in Malaysia: a framework for economic revitalization

Rural, poor and marginalized community often face many challenges in achieving economic equality and attaining socio-economic sustainability, especially among rural communities who have limited sources of income. In countries with emerging economies such as Malaysia, rural populations constitute the majority of citizens. They are generally poorer and more disadvantaged than their urban counterparts. In Malaysia, rural communities and their development are important aspects of a country's political and economic stability in which revitalization of the rural economic is part and parcel of a nation's development. Rural revitalization is an outcome of the interplay between many sources of influence and it is also a response to the opportunities and challenges which are presented by rural decline. This paper provides an overview of revitalization of rural areas. Besides that, it also explains the factors differences in economic performance and socioeconomic differentiation in rural areas in order to achieve a better outcome for rural revitalization. Finally, this paper discusses the framework to revitalize rural areas and the methods to use this framework that measure rural economic performance