Maintenance Management Sourcing Practices And The Condition Of Tertiary Institution Buildings In South-West, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The deplorable state of buildings in tertiary institutions across the country due to non-strategic maintenance processes poses a threat to the delivery of qualitative tertiary education in Nigeria. Although building maintenance activities can be executed using insourcing or/and outsourcing practice(s), each of the sourcing practices has its merits and demerits. Policy makers in tertiary institutions are therefore saddled with the responsibility of deploying building maintenance practices that support the implementation of effective building maintenance activities. The making of an appropriate decision on either to insource or outsource maintenance services in a tertiary institution is strategic in nature. This decision-making process is usually complex and constitutes a difficult task to decision-makers. This is because different sourcing option suits different scenarios. This study aims at developing a decision-support framework for building maintenance insourcing and outsourcing practices in tertiary institutions. It examines the extent to which the condition of buildings in tertiary institutions is influenced by the quality of insourced and outsourced maintenance practices. Through a cross-sectional survey approach, data were collected from maintenance staff and building users using two sets of selfadministered questionnaires. The sample for the study comprises 43 maintenance managers, 165 maintenance technical staff, and 406 building users across South-West, Nigeria. Secondary data were sourced from the National Universities Commission and the National Board for Technical Education. The statistical tools employed for the analysis include mean scores, the relative influence index, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Welch’s test, principal component analysis and multiple linear regression. Results of the analysis indicate that there was no significant difference between the level of use of insourcing and outsourcing practices in tertiary institutions in South-West Nigeria. The results revealed the factors influencing decision to insource or outsource maintenance services in Universities and Polytechnics in South-West Nigeria. The results show that there was no significant difference between the perception of maintenance staff and building users on the condition of buildings in tertiary institutions with respect to the maintenance sourcing practices. Buildings maintained through outsourcing practice were found to be in better condition than buildings maintained using in-sourcing practice. The result shows that there was a significant relationship between the quality of maintenance services and the condition of buildings in the tertiary institutions. The study developed a decision-support framework to assist policymakers and maintenance managers on insourcing and outsourcing decisions-making for building maintenance services in tertiary institutions. The study concludes that insourcing and outsourcing maintenance practices were interchangeably used in executing building maintenance activities in tertiary institutions. The decision to insource building maintenance activities are influenced by strategic, management and technological factors while outsourcing decision are influenced by quality, strategic and management factors. There is a significant relationship between the condition of buildings and the quality of maintenance services. Hence, the condition of buildings can be predicted by the quality of maintenance services. The quality of outsourced maintenance services was better than those of insourced maintenance services. Policymakers in tertiary institutions should adopt the proposed maintenance sourcing decision-support framework as a tool for driving building maintenance sourcing practices.