Asset Maintenance Management

The overall aim of this assignment is to enable students to develop skills and ability to write critically and  professionally about an issue in Asset Maintenance Management and its relevance to Facilities Management  practice.  

The issues featured in the assignment should address much of the subject matter of this Course. The  assignment is designed to allow students to build up knowledge as the exercise develops. Where there is a lack  of data, students should make own assumptions so as to complete the assignment satisfactorily. Where such  assumptions are provided, these should be made with sound reasoning and common sense, and may require  substantiation such as references and annexes in a later part of the assignment submission.  

The content of the assignment submission must be individual student's own material and be the result of his  or her own research and efforts. However, in any appendices, each student may include extracts from relevant  literature such as trade brochures, etc. Submissions that involve direct copying from a fellow student and  other forms of plagiarism shall be failed. In addition, students are required to follow the assignment guidelines  strictly. Failure to do so will result in not being able to maximise marks.  

In tackling the assignment, each student should first be prepared by studying or revising the study material  and reading any other information in related areas. The assignment calls for an understanding of a number of  topics discussed in this Course. Students will be required to call upon studies in the Course to develop answers  more fully, and are encouraged to demonstrate their ability to give a full and complete answer by referring to  materials outside the study notes.  

Students are required to act in a professional and realistic manner when dealing with this assignment and the  submission will be assessed with this in mind. Note particularly that in the assignment marks will be awarded  in respect of any valid assumptions that individual students have made, and therefore it is imperative that  each student fully states them. Marks will also be given for presentation. 

Learning outcomes  

On completion of this assignment, students should be able to  

– Demonstrate competence to format and write an academic essay on an asset maintenance  management topic,  

– Evaluate critically an issue relating to asset maintenance management, and  

– Achieve personal development by demonstrating in the assignment the nature and extent of  experiential learning being acquired alongside academic studies.  

Assignment  

The assignment is designed for students to demonstrate a thorough knowledge use in asset maintenance  management by applying theory to a case study. Students are required to submit a coursework based on case  project information given in Annex I. For the assignment each student is required to submit a report on asset  maintenance planning to the Facilities Manager at City of Glasgow College, Glasgow. The report is to act as the  basis of a bid for professional asset maintenance services for the buildings forming the campus of City of  Glasgow College over the next ten years.  

The title of students' reports is 'Asset Maintenance of City of Glasgow College'. The report should contain  professional views and recommendations for a large city centre college campus in regard to the contribution  that asset maintenance management can make to facilities management. All submissions should have a  completion of the following four tasks:  

Task 1: Asset Maintenance Policy  

The first task is to develop an outline asset maintenance policy for the case project. This should recommend a  suitable maintenance management strategy for the next five years. It should recognise all the variables that  affect the asset. The approach should be based upon the relevance to the case project and students should  ensure that information is as accurate as possible. Where information is not available, students can make  assumptions in the report. The maintenance policy should cover all aspects related to asset maintenance of  the case project, and should clearly identify the recommended maintenance objectives that can best represent  the interests of the owner and/or occupiers.  

The submitted report would gain strength (an assignment would attract a better mark), with a discussion on  how the proposed asset maintenance policy being supported by proposed maintenance techniques and  programme (Task 2) would address the complex issues which will arise in maintaining such a highly serviced,  sustainable, city centre development. In addition consideration should be given as to how Building Information  Modelling (BIM) could be adopted or utilized to facilitate procurement and asset maintenance for the case  study project. For further information see http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/.  

Task 2: Maintenance Techniques and Programme  

The second task requires students to propose a set of maintenance techniques for the case project based on a  technical review and to develop a maintenance programme for implementation within the next ten years. The  Owner's Facilities Manager has indicated that a full asset maintenance management system (AMMS) is to be  produced as quickly as possible after the successful practice has been appointed, and one of the first sections  to be produced will be a full programme of planned, cyclic, and responsive maintenance works with  corresponding expenditure plans for the case project. Students are required to detail the factors and activities  that should be considered in the preparation of a full schedule of planned, cyclic, and responsive maintenance  works for the facilities to cover the next ten years, and to make an asset maintenance programme by using  Microsoft Project software 

Task 3: Maintenance Costs  

The third task is to identify asset maintenance costs and their impact upon Life Cycle Costs for the case project.  Students are required to provide an outline of the projected budget costs required to carry out the proposed  asset maintenance programme over the next ten years. It is generally recognised within the Owner's facilities  management team that 'the frequency and quality of maintenance works performed can significantly impact  upon the total life cycle costs of a building'. Bearing this in mind, students are recommended to collect related  cost data from RICS BCIS <http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/bcis/>, which is available from School's  Resource Centre at http://web.sbe.hw.ac.uk/currentstaff/supportservices/ResourceCentre.htm, and to make  necessary assumptions, with a comparison between two/three optional asset maintenance programmes in  regard to how asset maintenance and upgrade works can impact upon total life cycle costs, to produce an  estimate for the proposed asset maintenance programme in the next ten years.  

Task 4: Maintenance Outsourcing Strategy  

The last task is to make a suitable outsourcing strategy for at least 50% of the maintenance works. As the  facilities management team is concerned with the high cost of in-house maintenance works, they would like to  consider the possibility of outsourcing at least 50% of the asset maintenance works over the next ten years  and significantly reduce the overall asset maintenance budget. Students are required to outline a suitable  strategy for outsourcing a minimum of 50% of all asset maintenance works to the Facilities Manager. The  proposed outsourcing strategy for asset maintenance for the case project should have good connections with  solutions made in the first three tasks.  

To complete the four tasks, students are also encouraged to make good references to related information on  Asset Maintenance Policy, Maintenance Techniques and Programme, Maintenance Costs, and Maintenance  Outsourcing Strategy in similar projects. 

Introduction

Asset maintenance involves devising a maintenance strategy to resolve issues and maintenance resources (Eti, Ogaji & Probert 2006). This is directly dependent on asset utilisation determined through the reliability and maintenance considerations of an asset. Better asset utilisation is achieved through the asset’s efficient performance with limited maintenance resources at a lower cost. This is carried out by the maintenance department, which has its own policy to ensure better asset performance. There is a need for an integrated policy that interconnects all organisation departments (W.N.Cahyo et al. 2015).

With globalisation and the impending competition, organisations have to utilise both push and pull strategies to match the evolution of sophisticated technology and increasing customer requirements. This has created various challenges for the management of maintenance activities. A maintenance activity comprises different interventions and a framework to predict such interventions. This assists in developing policies to define the role of maintenance as an operation within the organisation. This has a significant influence on the maintenance activities of an organisation. 

In different industries, maintenance costs a substantial amount of annual expenditure. There is a considerable impact of maintenance at the operational level resulting in substantial financial implications. There is a growing trend of maintenance, becoming a part of an integrated business function. Outsourcing is another arena that shows potential for the external expert partnership to conduct maintenance activities efficiently. A significant emphasis is being placed on the availability, reliability and safety of assets. For the effectiveness and success of a maintenance strategy, highly qualified personnel are required with sufficient information system support. Lifecycle Costing (LCC) is evolving as integrated cost analytics for maintenance activities (Waeyenbergh & Pintelon 2002). 

This report assesses the existing infrastructure of the City of Glasgow College and determines which asset maintenance policy, techniques, and programmes are suitable. Further, the maintenance cost implications on LCC and the suitability of maintenance outsourcing are determined.

Background

The City of Glasgow College was designed through the joint venture between Reiach and Hall Architects and Michael Laird Architects to combine the views of the city, community and the student experience. The buildings are organised around two civic spaces allowing access to teaching spaces. These rooms are visually engaged with city views. The college consists of an atrium as part of its architectural design to improve blended learning. Three buildings are clustered and organised around a garden, and the accommodation is arranged around a grand hall. The completed buildings are formed from a community of rooms and places that are all geared towards enhancing the opportunities for teaching and learning. 

Specialist facilities include a working ships engine, cross-discipline project bases to encourage blended learning, an innovative multi-discipline engineering hall, a ships bridge simulation suite alongside generic teaching, learning and support space. Manually openable windows are supplemented with automatic actuators ensuring temperature and air quality is maintained at high levels of comfort. Bespoke acoustic attenuators are included to ensure acoustic privacy between rooms and the atrium. Supporting all of these passive approaches is a comprehensive suite of onsite energy generation. The building incorporates a range of low carbon and energy generation measures, including exposed thermal mass to reduce cooling loads, natural ventilation, night purging to remove heat from the structure, careful modelling of external facades for solar shading, onsite energy generation with solar thermal panels and solar photovoltaic panels, bio-oil boilers (suitable for clean air city centres) and intelligent lighting systems. The IES SBEM Model forecast a total carbon dioxide emission of 13.8 kg CO2 /m2 per annum.