Integrated design approach for building maintenance issues

Abstract

Maintenance and repair is a principal task in building operation in terms of time spent and cost. Therefore, improving maintenance performance can result in remarkable operational benefits. Traditionally, maintainability is not fully considered when designing a building, whereas many decisions to influence building maintenance are taken in design phase. Because of this, there is a need for a new approach to handle design and maintainability as a whole. Integrating design with maintenance eliminates design oriented maintenance issues and promotes knowledge transfer between designers and facility managers. This paper aims to identify design requirements for maintainability and present possible acquisitions of maintenance integration in design. Design parameters which are important for maintainability of a facility management are considered as accessibility, flexibility, standardization, modularization and selection of materials and equipment. Designers should give more attention to these parameters in order to create more valuable buildings for the users and to prolong the life cycle of the facility. A facility manager’s involvement in design steps would also improve maintainability of the building because of the specific technical details that a designer cannot fully designate. With a collaborative, new design approach considering maintainability, buildings profitability would be enhanced with less cost, time and labor. © 2016 ISEC Press.