Strategic Maintenance Systems in Sustainable Building - Case Study Example

Using a case study approach, we identified four construction companies that have their main offices in Australia - with a global presence, and investigated the issues above. These companies were Brookfield Multiplex International Company, Pyramid Group Australia, IDCON Inc. and JLL. These companies are international construction companies that have been involved in major construction projects in Australia, Asia and across Europe and have divisions of building maintenance. From the research findings, we concluded that building maintenance in organizations is a critically important in sustainable building to maintain value, improve health and safety, increase productivity, extend life service, and maintain the structural integrity and service reliability of buildings.

The findings were also in agreement with our proposed hypothesis that poor maintenance condition of buildings is due to ineffective or lack of strategic maintenance systems put in place during the initial planning and design stage. At the end of the research, we came up with a number of recommendations that can be implemented by different stakeholders in the building construction and maintenance industry to address some of the challenges encountered when carrying out sustainable building maintenance by organizations.

The life cycle of a building starts from construction, operation or service life, maintenance, and finally, demolition and removal. A commercial building has an expected lifespan of about 100 years. Over this lifespan, a building should offer long-term service to the users as it consumes time and a lot of resources in terms of cost and human labor to complete a building (Sodangi, et al., 2014). However, to attain a long-term service to users, there is need to put in place strategic maintenance systems that will ensure that a building and its components function adequately as in the initial design.

The purpose of having strategic maintenance systems is to preserve the value of the building, satisfy legal obligations put in place by the regulatory authorities, meet the safety needs and achieve the best value in terms of building occupancy. According to Adamu & Shakantu, (2016), strategic maintenance and sustainable building is a complex activity that demands adequate skills in systems survey, implementation and management. As a matter of fact, maintenance and sustainability strategies should always be part of core business decisions in the building management agenda.