A reliability based approach for sustainable management Of public buildings

Management of aging community buildings is a major cost to many local government organizations in Australia. One of the major challenges is integrating physical or engineering condition ratings with the sustainability issues and community service driven parameters. A new research project continuing at RMIT University in Melbourne is exploring an innovative reliability based approach for deterioration prediction and decision making for sustainable management of community buildings. The paper will present the practices adopted in management of community buildings by six local government agencies in Australia, identifies the community needs and gaps in knowledge. A new integrated methodology for management of community buildings is presented as well as the development of a software tool for implementation of the methodology in local government. The tool covers a building hierarchy, condition monitoring method, deterioration prediction and a decision making process