Context-Specific Information Delivery for Building Maintenance of

   CONTEXT-SPECIFIC INFORMATION DELIVERY FOR BUILDING MAINTENANCE OF INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA

Dr. Mohamad Syazli Fathi (Leader)
Professor Ir. Dr. Abdul Karim Mirasa
Dr. Shuib Rambat
Sr. Dr. Siti Uzairiah Tobi
Dr. Yusof Daud
Mohd Zulakhmar Zakiyudin
Nor A'ini Rajab

[Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)]

ABSTRACT

Buildings today, including institutions of higher education, have evolved to be more sophisticated in design and functionality. Building maintenance management system is very important in facilities management activities. Building maintenance management system helps the organization to develop the agreed services of the building which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities. Although this has brought about numerous benefits, it has also made building maintenance more complex.

However, there are still unreported failures and lack of timely maintenance in any parts of the building which can lead to a disastrous outcome. There are also issues on lack of a proper property unit/department within a ministry, a minimum number of expertise, improper maintenance strategies, improper management procedures and IT usage was not being fully utilised. Nowadays various building maintenance management system tools including the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) have become necessary to remain effective. It is well-understood that the use of mobile technologies is critical in building maintenance as the right information needs to be accessed by the right person at the right time and in the right place. The widespread use of mobile devices envisions a growing market for new applications in building maintenance.

Unfortunately, existing building maintenance applications only support the transfer of static modes of data without considering the clients' differing settings. Building maintenance applications could be made easy and responsive to users' wishes if they were context-aware. Thus, the intelligent and integrated system could benefit the users in current needs to collaborate and increasing speed of information flow. The system will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of information and communication delivery, thus may reduce the operational cost.

This research has reviewed the developments and current practices of building maintenance in Malaysian higher education. The current tools and technologies for computerized building maintenance practices were also identified and discussed. The user requirement study was made to identify the objectives of maintenance departments, maintenance reporting processes, maintenance verification processes and other associated tasks. In addition, the contributions of CMMS on facilities to maintenance practices are also being taken into consideration. As to make the analysis visible, the user requirements for the building maintenance management process have been divided into five different stages: the medium of request, the requestor of the information, defect or failure information, information to maintenance staff and the post-maintenance process.

Based on the user requirements study, the proof of concept prototype was developed and evaluated with practitioners. Findings show that the concept of supplying specific information and services to the building maintenance manager has become technically and financially feasible because of the capability of integrating mobile devices, context-awareness, data, voice and positioning technologies.

As a building's value changes in accordance with the quality and quantity of the maintenance invested in it, it is important to have some intelligent system like context-aware computing available on their supportive devices. Although on a small scale, this prototype application proved that the concept was achievable and could function in real-time. This concept will lead to the idea of smart building management and intelligent maintenance management system.