Sustainable building maintenance practices for assessing defects in UiTM: the SWOT and survey research approaches

In Malaysia, the maintenance of public university buildings is crucial in ensuring functionality, safety and security towards the establishment of a conducive learning environment for students and staff. Building maintenance involves a comprehensive process that includes defect identification, severity assessment, and the subsequent recommendation of appropriate solutions. Defects pose a prevalent challenge in Malaysian public university buildings, potentially causing significant damage if not promptly identified and rectified. These issues may arise from various factors, such as poor design, construction errors, and a lack of maintenance. The current approach to developing building maintenance practices for defect assessment in Malaysian public university buildings relies on manual inspections, which are often time-consuming, expensive, and less accurate. This paper aims to discuss the differences between the existing building maintenance practices and the potential of sustainable building maintenance practices for defect assessment in Malaysian public universities through SWOT analysis and questionnaires. This paper will compare current conventional maintenance practices with sustainable maintenance practices to identify prominent defects in Malaysian public universities and investigate common building maintenance practices to address these issues. It will then suggest significant sustainable building maintenance practices to address these defects. A case study and questionnaire were conducted at a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, focusing on a sustainable maintenance practice for assessing defects at the university. SWOT analysis was applied in order to highlight the strength, weakness, opportunitie, and threat of each maintenance practices for the best application in mitigating the issues of building defects in the university. The results also suggest that by implementing sustainable maintenance practices in the buildings will not only address current defects but also contribute to mitigating potential issues in the future.