Chapter 28: Critical Review of Design for Maintainability Research in Buildings
As maintenance of buildings and facilities is one of the key tasks in improving the sustainability of buildings, the design for maintainability (DfM) has recently become one of the hot issues due to the complexity associated with maintaining buildings and facilities. While the body of knowledge on DfM has started increasing, there is a lack of the systematic and comprehensive review on DfM-related issues. Thus, this chapter aims to conduct a comprehensive review, from the managerial and technical perspectives, in the relevant research areas. The findings from the managerial perspective were mainly: (1) maintainability implementation status and significant barriers and (2) critical management factors affecting DfM. Furthermore, the findings from the technical perspective involved (1) identification of maintainability considerations and criteria, (2) critical building components, (3) maintainability scoring systems, and (4) innovations and technical advancement to achieve DfM. This study also analyzed the state of the art and trends in DfM research and proposed future research directions. The findings from this study offer preliminary results of the critical review and will serve as a platform for both researchers and practitioners to retrieve the latest developments and trends in DfM.