Decision-making variances: Creating deferred maintenance solutions using the paradigm of sustainable design.

摘要

Facilities under management of public sector organizations are suffering from maintenance backlogs estimated to be on the order of billions of dollars. Solutions to this maintenance backlog problem have emphasized methods for obtaining large scale funding or increased use of maintenance management systems allowing for better planning and tracking of maintenance problems. These approaches do not address project-level Facility Manger decisions during the analysis, generation, evaluation and selection of a design solution to a specific maintenance problem. Three literal replication case studies were completed on conventional facility manager's design decisions. Results indicated the conventional decision process was highly informal with an important temporal aspect. Sustainable design was identified as an alternative method of decision-making to the conventional paradigm. A methodology was developed for identification of sustainable design champions in the field of facilities management. Two additional literal replication case studies were completed on facility mangers identified as sustainable design champions. The sustainer decision process was determined to depend heavily on the analysis, generation and evaluation phases. Similarities and differences were identified between the conventional and sustainable decision methodologies for the overall decision process as well as the phases of analysis, generation, evaluation and selection. Results indicated more similarities then differences between the two methodologies. Findings for each decision making phase (analysis, generation, evaluation and, selection) are discussed and future research opportunities are identified.