The main tasks of maintenance workers are handing Failures and Troubles (F/T) at existing buildings and such tasks need to be handled rapidly. The time taken to repair an F/T is one of the most important evaluation elements for building performance and maintenance work quality. It is considered a Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
The time taken to conduct repairs depends on individual aspects of the F/T, such as the technical difficulty of the repairs and how busy the maintenance workers are. If multiple F/Ts occur simultaneously at the same site, the workers handle them based on a priority in terms of the importance of the objects or their effect on users of the facility. Their priority thus influences when it is repaired.
We analyzed maintenance data from several hospitals, and present the number of F/T instances and their times to repair for medical devices, air conditioning (AC) systems, sanitary systems, electrical systems and architectural elements. Moreover, we focused on maintenance load, which is defined as how busy the maintenance site is, and reported on the relationship between the maintenance load and the ratio of the number of tasks put off until the next day for the new daily number.
This time, we received maintenance data from two university hospitals. They both have academic facilities and incidental facilities, such as staff accommodation, at the same site. The maintenance priority reflects the difference between them. The main purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between the maintenance priority and the time to repairs.
First, we provide an overview of the two university hospitals and their equipment. Moreover, the collected data (31,109 items in total) and the way it is adjusted is presented. The results of the analysis are as follows.
1) TheF/T number per unit of the area and the recording day in the hospital facility group exceeds the academic and incidental facility groups. In particular, it is notably large in the ward buildings. The mean time-to-repair for any F/T in the hospital facility group is statistically significantly shorter, although the group has many complex systems. Therefore, the maintenance priority of the hospital facility group can be considered higher than the other groups, while the mean time-to-repair is shorter.
2) As the F/T number increases at a site and maintenance workers get busier, the time-to-repair for the hospital facility gets slightly longer. On the other hand, as the F/T number increases, the time-to-repair for the other groups gets significantly longer. Since indoor environmental management is very important in hospital wards, the maintenance priority can be higher than the other groups. The number of problems in wards is shown based on their contents as requested by building users. The time-to-repair is shown based on environmental items and the mean time-to-repair for any indoor issue is shorter than the others.
3) The monthly number of thermal issues increased in summer and winter. Issues such as “Hot” and “AC equipment operational problems” increase in June, while “AC equipment damages” and “AC equipment operational problems” increase in August. Issues concerning “Cold” and “AC equipment operational problems” increase in December.
4) The Pediatric surgery, Orthopedics surgery (Pediatrics), and Pediatric ward had many problems. The main causes were “Noise from ACs”, “AC equipment operational problems”, “Clogging” and so on due to children putting foreign objects in the equipment. The results of this research reveal the particular issues afflicting environmental management in Pediatric wards.
