Critical success factors for low cost housing building maintenance organization

Building services are the elements within a building which supports the fundamental operation of a building. Efficient performance of building services able to facilitate and avoid an unnecessary aggravations to the end users. Thus, the role of building services maintenance (BSM) organization is vital during the building operation phase in order to be responsible for overall performance of the building and its services. However, in recent years the maintenance performance provided by BSM organization is lack on many aspects. In Malaysia, the performance provided by BSM organization especially in low cost flats are considered to be poor. Hence, this paper focuses on identifing the BSM problems, the cause and consequently identify critical success factors (CSFs) to be applied by the BSM organization to overcome those problems. Reviews on literatures, questionnaire survey and interview were conducted to collect the valuable data for the study. The data obtained was analyzed using frequency, mean, standard deviation and content analysis. The findings indicatethat the common BSM problems occur in low cost flats are refuse disposal, rain water disposal and fire fighting system. While, lack of expertise, long duration taken and limited numbers of staffs are among the factors identified as the causes of those problems. 10 CSF namely clear goals and objectives, workforce development and training, effetive monitoring and feedback, project team competence, dedicated resources, management planning, taking account past experience, good interdepartmental communication, education on new technologies and clients expectations are identified to solve the challanges facing by the maintenace organization which causes various BSM problems. The 10CSF identified based on the opinion given by 24 interviewees from various Local Authorities. A low cost flat managed by Kuala Lumpur City Hall located at Cheras was used as case study. This study expected to help respective parties to overcome the BSM problems in the low cost flats