Ogbeifun, E; Mbohwa, C and Pretorius, J H C (2018) Developing an effective renovation plan: The influence of data collection tools. International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, 36(1), pp. 63-76. ISSN 23984708
Abstract
Purpose: All built facility begins to show signs of deterioration immediately after the facility is completed and put to use, thus necessitating routine maintenance. Increase in defects due to age, usage, and other factors, requires extensive maintenance activities known as renovation. The data used for a typical renovation plan can be collected using the condition assessment (CA) tool which depends on physical inspection of the defects or through a facility condition index which hinges on harnessing and analyzing the information in the operational history of the facility. The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of a typical renovation plan using both tools. Design/methodology/approach: The single case study of qualitative research was adopted. The data were collected through the principle of semi-structured questionnaire complemented with interviews and document analysis. The documents include periodic operational reports and a CA report used for planned renovation exercise of the Facilities Management (FM) Unit in a higher education institution in South Africa. Findings: The findings revealed that although the FM Unit produces periodic reports, but there was no evidence of detailed analysis of the reports. Therefore, the programmed renovation exercises are based purely on the information from a CA. Research limitations/implications: This research is a single site case study of qualitative research; the data collected are limited and not sufficient for generalization of the results. Furthermore, the lack of record of the analysis of the operational history in the periodic reports negatively affected the computation of facilities condition index (FCI). Thus it was not possible to demonstrate the strength of FCI over CA from empirical information. Originality/value: The quality of a typical renovation plan is influenced by the tool used for data collection. Although the CA tool is commonly used, experience shows that the renovation exercise developed from such records is prone to many execution setbacks, such as frequent scope changes and the associated cost and time overruns. These setbacks can be minimized if the FCI is used as the tool for data collection.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | condition assessment; detailed analysis; facilities condition index; maintenance; periodic report; renovation |
| Index terms: | inspection, document analysis, case study, exercise, time overrun, higher education institution, renovation, routine, scope change, deterioration, interview, facilities management, history, South Africa, documents, computation, questionnaire, evidence, qualitative research, methodology |
| Subjects: | project controls, sociology, educational institutions, quality assurance, renovation and retrofit, management, research methods, Geography, professional development, data science, architectural and construction history, material degradation and durability, data collection methods, evaluation and assessment methods, computational methods, research design and methodology, health behaviours and lifestyles, scope management |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Education, Time Control, Quality Management, Digital Applications, Geographical Context, Project Management, Research Practice, Construction Materials, Information Management, Engineering Principles, Business Strategy, Health and Safety |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here