2013 Awards for Excellence

Article Type: 2013 Awards for Excellence From: Property Management, Volume 32, Issue 1.

The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award forProperty Management

“Building maintenance strategies: planning under uncertainty”

Hans Lind and Henry Muyingo

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate maintenance strategies and determine to what extent models from other sectors can be applied to building maintenance.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a theoretical paper based on a number of Swedish studies, both case studies and questionnaires. From these a number of stylized facts have been identified and the purpose is to explain and draw conclusions from these.

Findings – The main finding is that there are a number of specific uncertainties that affect building maintenance planning making more detailed long-term plans less meaningful. A new structure for maintenance is proposed focusing on long-term strategies goals for various buildings/components and then short-run adjustments when new information comes up.

Research limitations/implications – The case for the new model needs to be strengthened by further studies, including studies from other countries.Practical implications – Maintenance activities will be more important as the large building stock from the 1950s to 1960s needs to be renovated or demolished. A rational structure and realistic expectations concerning maintenance planning is then important.

Originality/value – The most important contribution of the paper is to underline the importance of different types of uncertainty for the structure of maintenance planning for building.

Keywords: Maintenance planning, Maintenance programmes, Property management, Uncertainty management

This article originally appeared in Volume 30 Number 1 2012, Property Management

The following article were selected for this year's Highly Commended Award

"Measuring the impact of higher density housing development"

Valerie Kupke, Peter Rossini and Stanley McGreal

This article originally appeared in Volume 30 Number 3, 2012, Property Management

Outstanding Reviewers

Dr Terence Lam

University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Dr Valerie Kupke

University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia