Optimal maintenance scheduling for local public purpose buildings

Building conditions and citizen satisfaction with local public services

Purpose

Although Norway is an affluent country, there is widespread and long-lasting worry related to the condition of public purpose buildings. The purpose of this paper is to study how the condition of local public purpose buildings affect citizen satisfaction with local public services in Norwegian local governments, using data from two Norwegian survey data sets.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper investigates how the conditions of local public purpose buildings affect residents’ satisfaction with local public services, using data from two Norwegian survey data sets. The data is analyzed using regression analysis.

Findings

This paper finds a significantly positive relationship between building conditions and overall satisfaction with local public services, kindergartens and schools. This paper finds no such relationship between building conditions and satisfaction with nursing homes. This paper quantifies the average expected impact on public service satisfaction from a hypothetical one unit improvement in building conditions, as measured on the building condition scale, and discuss this impact in the context of expenditure on public services.

Originality/value

There is widespread worry that poor facilities adversely impact public services, but the size and significance of this impact are open questions. This paper contributes by offering new insights into the relationship between the condition of public buildings and provision of public services. The results indicate how the state of public facilities should be considered a part of the production function for public services.

Identification of the Criteria for Building Maintenance Decisions in Facility Management: First Step to Developing a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

Building maintenance is a fundamental practice in facility management, which supports the longevity of a building. Increasing costs of maintenance practices is a challenge for facility management professionals. Given that, building maintenance decisions often comprise complex and conflicting criteria. The primary purpose of this study is to develop and rank a set of criteria needed for constructing a multi-criteria decision-making model for use in building maintenance processes. This study also has an exploratory aspect and tries to establish the decision-making and condition assessment practices currently used in facility management. To do so, a literature review was conducted to reveal the significant criteria for building maintenance decision-making processes. Moreover, the results of a nationwide survey conducted with the members of two globally recognized facility management organizations were utilized. Identified criteria address a gap in facilities management research, i.e., the lack of comprehensive criteria in building maintenance decision-making, and can be used for the development of a multi-criteria decision-making model for use in building maintenance processes. Furthermore, the results of this study can help establish the current status of decision-making and condition assessment practices in facility management.

Critical success factors for maintenance of local public buildings

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a survey on critical success factor for the maintenance of local public buildings and how reported score values and factor rankings depend on characteristics (contingencies) of the local governments that participated.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use data from a large-scale survey of Norwegian local governments that covered 66 per cent of all local governments and 80 per cent of the population. The authors combine these data with contingent information from public registers on demographics, fiscal, political and geographical characteristics. The authors run regressions to determine whether contingencies affect survey results. They further study how score values vary with a key contingent factor.

Findings

The main result of this paper is that the reported importance of critical success factors is contingent on local government population levels. A comparison of importance rankings based on population quartiles shows that ranking orders change, both between quartiles and from the overall ranking, and that certain factors show systematic changes. Further, the authors find that when controlling for sampling error, groups of factors should be considered as equally important. This result holds both for the full sample ranking and for rankings within population quartiles.

Originality/value

The results of this paper have implications for all survey-based investigations of critical success factors where contingent information on respondents are available. Contingencies need to be taken into consideration, both when assessing rankings according to some criteria and when comparing actual score values.

Facility management demand theory

Purpose

This study aims to confirm the inverse relationship between scheduled corrective maintenance (SCM) and corrective maintenance (CM) in health-care facility management. That is, the higher the SCM, the lower the demand for CM, and the lower the SCM, the higher the demand for CM. Furthermore, the study shows the importance of SCM as compared with CM in healthcare facilities.

Design/methodology/approach

This study investigated 28 services in facility engineering services for an exploratory study by using the open-ended approach of the grounded theory. Five years of data with a total of 20,480 SCM work orders and 84,837 CM work orders were extracted from the central management information system database. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences program. Data were presented in the form of mathematical scores using descriptive statistics and correlation test to elaborate the variable characteristics and make conclusions.

Findings

This study provides empirical insights about the effectiveness of proactive maintenance in reducing breakdowns for systems or equipment in health-care facilities. Findings suggest that increasing SCM will reduce CM demands.

Research limitations/implications

The location approach, with restrictions to the comparison between CM and SCM, still allows for exploration, especially on the factors that can reduce the demand for correction. These factors include planned preventive maintenance, work flow process, level of competency of maintenance workers and health-care maintenance strategic planning.

Practical implications

Proactive maintenance is important in preventing dangerous occurrences in hospitals. Reducing breakdowns increases customer satisfaction. Therefore, this study shows implications to health-care maintenance organizations in the context of business strategic development.

Originality/value

Data are crucial in proving a hypothesis. This study confirms the evidence of facility management demand theory and highlights the inverse relationship between SCM and CM.

Building conditions in Norwegian local governments: trends and determinants

Purpose

In light of evidence of low levels of maintenance of public buildings, this paper aims to investigate trends and determinants of public building conditions in Norwegian local governments.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors consider data from surveys and public records in regression analyses.

Findings

On average, the condition of Norwegian local public facilities has improved slightly in the period 2004-2016. The survey data suggest substantial fluctuations in building conditions and a negative relationship between building conditions in 2004 and 2016. Local governments with poor building conditions in 2004 had higher investment in the following years. The authors find no systematic relationship between the conditions in 2004 and maintenance expenditures in subsequent years. They conclude that if maintenance levels are too low, the results suggest that investment levels are too high. Further, they find that both political and fiscal factors are important in explaining building conditions.

Originality/value

The authors provide insight into determinants and trends of building conditions in Norwegian local governments. The results hint at an unhealthy balance between maintenance spending and public investments.

Concerns among local government facility managers: a Norwegian survey

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate which concerns are most important for local government facility managers in Norway.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors analyze a survey dataset covering about two-thirds of all Norwegian local governments and 80 per cent of the Norwegian population. The authors consider both descriptive statistics and results from an ordered probit regression analysis.

Findings

Facility managers are most concerned about weak fiscal conditions and lack of political priority of facility management, and local governments reporting public buildings in good condition generally have fewer and less serious concerns. Further, managers in municipalities with a solid fiscal balance are less concerned both about how tight fiscal conditions and lack of political prioritization affect facility management. Managers in municipalities with a centralized facility management structure are less concerned that the organizational structure of the facility management is sub-optimal. Finally, managers in populous municipalities have less concern about tight fiscal conditions, organizational structure and recruitment issues.

Originality/value

The paper offers insights on which concerns are most important among local government facility managers and how these concerns vary with local government characteristics. These insights are valuable in the ongoing debate over best facility management practice and in facility management policy work.

On the ranking of critical success factors

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss rankings of critical success factors (CSFs) from survey data, both with respect to what information such rankings should be based on and how to evaluate and interpret uncertainty from sampling errors.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a survey on CSFs in public facilities management. The survey data set covers two-thirds of all Norwegian local governments and 80 per cent of the Norwegian population. The authors analyze the data using basic statistics and bootstrap sampling techniques.

Findings

Rankings of CSFs are sensitive to the information one chooses to collect in the survey. With the survey data, the authors show that the typical approach of inquiring about importance of various factors leads to a different ranking of factors than if one inquires about cost efficiency. The authors further consider a ranking that reflects all information in the data; the authors look in particular at a ranking with equal weights to importance and cost efficiency. The authors also find that many factors, when controlling for sampling error, should be ranked equally, and that further considerations need to be consulted when priorities are decided.

Originality/value

The authors demonstrate the effect of cost efficiency and uncertainty considerations on rankings of CSFs for facilities management. The study paves the way for a broader and more comprehensive perspective on CSFs and what these factors should and could reflect.

Using game theory to stimulate provision of local public facilities

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study how the central government can use well-known game-theoretical concepts in order to stimulate provision of local public facilities.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use the classical adverse selection framework to discuss how the central government can use investment transfers as efficiently as possible to stimulate increased provision of local public facilities.

Findings

The benefits of local public facilities, such as kindergartens, schools, and primary healthcare institutions are greater than what each local government takes into account. Consequently, the central government, which maximizes social welfare in total, wants more local public facilities than the individual local government find optimal to supply. The central government thus would want to stimulate additional provision of local public facilities using contracts where local governments receive a transfer as compensation for increasing their supply. Since local governments differ regarding their efficiency in supplying facilities, the required amount of facilities and the corresponding transfer size should be allowed to vary across local governments.

Originality/value

Almost all countries are organized with multiple tiers of government, and local governments are important providers of many important welfare services. After labor, facilities are probably the second most important input in production of local public services. This paper offers insights into how the central government can efficiently stimulate the production of local public facilities.

Long-run relationship between investment and maintenance in local governments

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the relationship between maintenance of existent and investment in new infrastructure in Norwegian local governments.

Design/methodology/approach

A reduced form vector autoregressive system is estimated using a 29-year-long panel data set for the Norwegian local governments.

Findings

The data reveal that increased investment in new infrastructure sparks little, if any, increase in maintenance. The results also indicate that increased maintenance expenditures spark new investments. Because more investments mean more infrastructure and adequate maintenance should give that investments are not caused by maintenance, the results suggest that the local governments have not optimized their maintenance scheduling in this period.

Originality/value

Even though maintenance and investment are large expenditures that both serve as inputs to the stock of infrastructure, little is known about the relationship between the two. The findings in this paper suggests that Norwegian local governments have not planned their maintenance and investments well in the past, and this can be part of the explanation as to why local public infrastructure in Norway is presently in poor condition.