Bespoke Approach for Maintenance Management of Built Facilities of Universities in Nigeria

Abstract

In Nigeria, most public universities are currently under pressure to preserve their respective built environments. The poor states of facilities on campuses of public universities has been the concern of stakeholders of these institutions because, the facilities are no longer able to support academic activities as they did decades ago. Several factors may be blamed for the deteriorating states of the facilities. However, most of these factors may be directly or indirectly related to maintenance management systems in use by the maintenance managers. In this paper, a bespoke approach for an effective maintenance management system for facilities at public universities in Nigeria is proposed. The paper is based on theoretical understanding of maintenance management and previous research findings about the deteriorated state of facilities and an insight into the maintenance management systems that are currently operated at the public Nigerian universities. It is noteworthy that there are no policies/strategies that guide maintenance activities of the departments/units saddled with such responsibilities (strategies cannot be developed in isolation of any impact factors). In addition, gaps exist between the top management staff that have the decision making and planning skills and the on-site operations staff that conduct the maintenance task on site. The need for proactive approaches for facilities at the Universities is an important drive towards sustainable campuses.