AN APPROACH TO APPLICATION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN BUILDING MAINTENANCE OPERATIONS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

A careful look at Nigerian environment would reveal erratic building maintenance pattern among buildings owners/occupiers, especially, most of the public buildings are left unattended to the major preoccupation then seemed to be, construction of big edifice without considering subsequent maintenance of such a property. Thus maintenance of building in Nigeria tends to be a sort of onerous task, and it is also saddle with a lot of problems which tends to hampers it and makes it a sort of herculean task. Some of such problems being encountered in building maintenance in Nigeria and which needs to be attended to are as follows:

i. Inappropriate maintenance policy

ii. Non-compliance with statutory requirements

iii. Inability of management of organization to carry employee along in decision-making and policy formulation.

iv. Insufficient training and skilled manpower in maintenance operations

v. Lack of standards performance monitoring system.

The above listed problem could be countered by considering certain virtues in total quality management, which tend to provide way out of the problems. It is believed that if the principle could be applied in building maintenance most or nearly all the problem arising therein would be solved. To this end therefore, this research work is about studying an approach through which TQM principles could be adopted for an effective maintenance operation.