Infrastructure Maintenance for Sustainable Development

Infrastructure management (maintenance) is a great challenge facing sustainable development of infrastructure

in Institution. Maintenance strategy is not incorporated into the whole-life-cycle costing of infrastructure
development at the planning stage in developing nations, despite infrastructure role as the basic structure on
which man depends for successful living. Adequacy of infrastructure in an environment is directly related to
adequacy of output of existing bodies, both living and non-living. Maintenance is the upkeep of infrastructures
and assets so that infrastructures and assets can continuously be in a functional state. Maintenance is a means
of renewing the milieu of an infrastructure or a way of retaining its value so that it always serves the purpose
for which it was procured. This process of keeping the constituents parts of an infrastructure intact is lacking in
Institution. Poorly maintained, un-serviced and uncompleted infrastructures are non-adequate infrastructures as
they cannot function efficiently. Physical infrastructures like buildings, roads, lifts, aircrafts,
telecommunication masts, airports, coaches, trains, rail lines and train stations are neglected to decay because
of lack of maintenance strategy. Lack of effective maintenance strategy is causing total breakdown of
infrastructure facilities and high cost of infrastructural provision. This paper adopted the metadata method of
research to document the effects of lack of maintenance culture in developing nations. It established that there
is relationship between capital value and maintenance cost and made suggestions on how infrastructure can be
effectively maintained.

Introduction

Probably, the greatest challenges facing infrastructures development in Institution today is not infrastructure
design, finance or the availability of technology for construction, but maintenance of the infrastructure after
delivery. Most infrastructures in developing countries are in states of decay, disrepair and/or abandonment.

Maintenance Strategy as “the management method used in order to achieve the maintenance activities”. It is the series of activities
undertaken to ensure that infrastructures perform to expectation through preventive and predictive maintenance.

Preventive Maintenance as maintenance carried out at predetermined intervals or according to prescribed criteria and intended to
reduce the probability of failure or the degradation of the functioning of an item”

Predictive Maintenance as “condition based maintenance (CBM) carried out following a forecast derived from repeated analysis or
known characteristics and evaluation of the significance parameters of the degradation of the item”.

maintenance is defined as “works undertaken in order to keep or restore every facility, i.e. every part of a building, site and concept
to an acceptable standard or as “works undertaken to keep, restore or improve every facility, that is, every part of the building, its
services and surroundings to agreed standards determined by the balance between need and available resources”.

Maintenance is an act of putting an infrastructure like vehicle, machine, building, road, dam, equipment, plant,
furniture or a part of these infrastructures in a good condition. There is dearth of maintenance culture in
developing countries unlike developed countries like United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany
and Australia. “Maintenance is an act of regularly keeping a machine, building or piece of equipment in good
working condition”

The Nature of Infrastructures in Institution

Infrastructure is the basic physical and organisational structures needed for the operation of a society like
housing, security, industries, buildings, roads, bridges, health services, governance and so on. It is the
enterprise or the products, services and facilities necessary for an economy to function
Infrastructure development is one of the bases of assessing the achievements of democratic leaders and it is the
foundation of good democratic governance. “Government is the system that plans, organizes, controls and
supervises the people who are resident in an area in other for all to have conducive-environment for living and
a sense of belonging to the society. Governments have the power to put in place all measures that they deem fit
will make an environment comfortable for the living of everybody.

Infrastructure development in democratic governance is more challenging because of the accessibility of

people to government and involves identifying the right project, carrying out feasibility and viability studies
and embarking on physical development of the project. The challenges are numerous and include finance,
technology for development, maintenance and design.

The numerous challenges have not been tackled as they should. institution lack of basic infrastructure to
facilitate sustainable development and trade – both regionally and globally – and to ensure competitiveness is
already known by all. In particular, for the large number of local governments, especially the rural ones, the
dwellers produce have no access to markets and are not stored, hampered by weak transport and energy
infrastructure.

The Benefits of Infrastructure Maintenance in National Development

Infrastructure maintenance helps keep the fabric of infrastructures intact. Knowing maintenance cost at the
planning stage may also help in deciding the type of design, technology, finance and materials to be used for
infrastructure construction. An effectively maintained infrastructure will save cost.

Maintenance can also help to preserve our heritages without which present generations will be in the dark.
Maintenance can be considered at any stage of the development process as shown in the Development Matrix
below.

The general maintenance objective is to keep optimum production level at lowest possible cost without
compromising.

Infrastructure maintenance is contingent to infrastructure functioning and hence, infrastructure development.

Maintenance and protection of critical infrastructure that provides a unifying framework that integrates a range
of efforts designed to enhance the safety of our nation's critical infrastructure.

However, performance in terms of infrastructure service delivery and quality continue to vary across countries.
Infrastructure is the medium of production of goods and services and forms the national asset of any nation.

infrastructure can help solve four problems: social; health and environment; development; and, economics. A
region's infrastructure network, broadly speaking, is the very socio-economic climate created by the
institutions that serve as conduits of trade and investment. Some of these institutions are public, others private.
In either case, their roles in the context of integration are transformative, helping to change resources into
outputs or to enhance trade by removing barriers. Therefore, an improvement in regional infrastructure is one
of the key factors affecting the long-term economic growth of a region.

“In the oil and gas sector, invested capital declines in value unless the machinery is being properly maintained.
This projected loss therefore emphasizes the need to develop the competence and know-how for repairing
equipment on site, while at the same time save foreign exchange and improve production figures”

Lack of maintenance can be worse than lack of production of infrastructures. Poor maintained infrastructure is
like investment down the drain. Before importing foreign machinery or plant, availability of the spares for
maintaining it must be considered in advance and not after procurement or installation.
The linkages between infrastructure and economic growth are multiple and complex. Not only does
infrastructure affect production and consumption directly, it also creates many direct and indirect externalities.
It also involves large flows of expenditure, thereby creating additional employment. Studies have shown that
infrastructure can have a significant impact on output, income, employment, international trade, and quality of
life. Infrastructure development can reduce stress and promote good health. It will also reduce crime level.

infrastructure resources generate value as inputs into a wide range of productive processes and that the outputs
from these processes are often public goods and nonmarket goods that generate positive externalities that
benefit society as a whole.”

Factors affecting lifespan of infrastructures include: quality of the infrastructure which depends on the
materials used, technology and expertise, environmental factors, usage and maintenance. A quality road will
last more than a badly constructed road. A road made of concrete will last more than a road constructed of
asphalt.

The topography and geology of the land and the weather should be considered in choice of materials for
construction. For example, glass-wall will last longer than block-wall in beach-fronted houses. The more a
road is used, the more it wears. The weights of the vehicles plying the roads also have effects on the road.
Heavy duty vehicles will cause rapid wear and tear of roads than light vehicles.

The Challenges of Infrastructure Maintenance in Nigeria

The science and art of keeping the milieu of an asset intact is maintenance. Maintenance is now becoming
more important in infrastructural project delivery (Fen et al, 2009). Maintenance process of a facility must be
given serious consideration before embarking on development if the milieu of the infrastructure has to be kept
in place and yield value for money (vfm).

Without proper maintenance, the country will lose money. The challenges of infrastructure maintenance in
Nigeria include:

- Lack of Maintenance Culture: Maintenance culture is lacked in developing countries including Nigeria.
Infrastructural facilities are left to decay after completion. It is shocking that we spend huge sums of money
building and developing infrastructures in Nigeria only for us to look back after few years and find out that
such beautiful infrastructures are decayed due to lack of maintenance.

- Demand and supply: Due to poor performances of most past leaders in the area of infrastructure provision,
the demand for infrastructural facilities overwhelms the provision. - Finance: The fund for infrastructure
maintenance is not pre-allocated and usually maintenance fund is sourced through fire-brigade approach.

- Development Matrix: Infrastructure developers are not appreciative of the four factors of infrastructural
facilities development which are: design, finance, technology and management (See Table 1 above). The
appropriate designs that will ensure easy maintenance are equally important as the technology and finance. For
example, conduit system is now being eradicated because of maintenance problems. In case of electric spark,
the conduit pipe will be difficult to remove because the structure is monolithic. Structures are first finished
before laying pipes for mechanical and electrical services. These pipes may be done surface and hide with
encasement or embedded. This system makes the structure monolithic and maintenance easier.
 - Capital Flight, Capital Sink and Capital Stagnancy: Infrastructure maintenance projects in I institution
suffer from capital flight, capital sink and capital stagnancy. A lot of materials and managerial services are
procured outside the country for infrastructure development and maintenance. This is capital flight. The
contracts are usually full of loop-holes that allow leakages of funds. In some cases, there is over-design for the
designers to earn more professional fees which are percentage of the contract sum. This is capital sink. Capital
stagnancy due to abandoned projects is also rampant. Projects also have too long gestation period because of
lack of planning.

- Project Management: The approach was introduced into United Kingdom (UK) in the early sixties.
Countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Canada and Ireland have adopted this approach, but it is still unpopular
in developing countries, especially in Nigeria. Project management approach will surely improve our
maintenance system.

- Procurement Method: The procurement methods being adopted for maintenance are prone to criticisms.

Maintenance procurement is quite a different aspect from construction because the infrastructure is already in
place, but it needs to be maintained properly and rehabilitation and/or improvements need to be provided
before any major deformation or deterioration occur that effects safe usage”.

In the past, most organizations retained in-house staff for most maintenance activities (direct labour), but now
many client (public and private) must procure these services and products from the private sector (outsourcing)
for Transparency Purpose. Earlier practices for procurement of maintenance were via yearly or multiyear
agreements, using separate contracts for each activity and with a labor rate or unit price. More recently, there
are innovative methods of procuring maintenance activities for all products and services under one contract and
for a long term (partnership and partnering).

“The more innovative types of contracts are also beginning to specify “outcome-based criteria”, which
provides the contractor with more flexibility, innovation potential, and cost savings measures for the client
organization”.

Innovative maintenance contracts can be categorized by the following:

· Traditional (3 – 5-year duration).

· Hybrid type contracts (Combination of Lump Sum and Unit Price - Schedule of Rates).
· Longer term maintenance contracts (some are for 10 years).
· Performance Specified Maintenance Contracts (PSMC – Outcome - Based Criteria)
- Corruption: Corruption does not only raise the price of infrastructure maintenance, it can also reduce the
quality of, and economic returns from, infrastructure maintenance investment.

Types of Maintenance
The concept of Asset maintenance include: planning, dedication of resources which include man, time, money,
material, methods, plant and machinery. The concept also includes post-maintenance report writing to act as
body of knowledge.

British standard 3811: (1964), classified maintenance into three parts, planned maintenance, preventive
maintenance, and running maintenance.

Types of maintenance include:

1. Breakdown maintenance: It is unplanned corrective maintenance. It means that users wait until infrastructures
fail before they repair them. This maintenance method could be used when the infrastructure failure does not
significantly affect the operation or production or generate any significant loss other than repair cost. Example
is the tyre of vehicles and bulbs in toilets
2. Preventive maintenance: It is a daily maintenance (cleaning, inspection, oiling and re-tightening), aim to retain
the working condition of infrastructure and prevent failure through the prevention of deterioration, periodic
inspection or equipment condition diagnosis, to measure deterioration. It is further divided into periodic
maintenance and predictive maintenance. Just like human life is extended by preventive medicine, the
equipment service life can be prolonged by doing preventive maintenance.

2a. Periodic maintenance: (Time based maintenance - TBM). Time based maintenance consists of periodically
inspecting, servicing and cleaning equipment and replacing parts to prevent sudden failure and process
problems. Periodic maintenance may also depend on lifespan of parts.

2b. Predictive maintenance: This is a method in which the service life of important part is predicted based on
inspection or diagnosis, in order to use the parts to the limit of their service life. Compared to periodic
maintenance, predictive maintenance is condition based maintenance. It manages trend values, by measuring
and analyzing data about deterioration and employs a surveillance system, designed to monitor conditions
through an on-line system.

3. Corrective maintenance: Corrective maintenance is when maintenance actions are carried out subsequent to an
equipment failure (Moubrey, 1997). It improves infrastructure and its components so that preventive
maintenance can be carried out reliably. Infrastructure with design weakness must be redesigned to improve
reliability or improving maintainability.

4. Maintenance prevention: Some equipment and services cannot be allowed to fail before they are replaced
because of the works they do. Examples are transformer in electricity system and the bulbs in the reception of
hotels. The lifespan of this equipment is pre-determined and they are changed even before they stopped
working. Another example is engine oil, fuel filter, oil filter etc.

Weakness of current machines are sufficiently studied (on site information leading to failure prevention, easier
maintenance and prevents of defects, safety and ease of manufacturing) and are incorporated before
commissioning a new equipment. Painting of metals in structures is maintenance prevention.

5. Reliability-centered maintenance: Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is a process to ensure that

assets continue to perform the functions that their users want hem to perform. It is generally used to achieve
improvements in fields such as the establishment of safe minimum levels of maintenance, changes to operating
procedures and strategies and the establishment of capital maintenance regime and plans. The following seven
questions must be answered in order to meet RCM: (1) What is the item supposed to do and its associated
performance standard? (2) In what ways can the item fail to provide the required functions? (3) What are the
causes of each failure? (4) What happens when each failure occur? (5) In what way does each failure matter?
(6) What systematic task can be performed proactively to prevent or to diminish to a satisfactory degree the
consequences of the item failure? (7) What must be done if a suitable preventive task cannot be found?

Maintenance can also be categorized according to needs into grades. In this category, we have Grade A to
Grade C. Aircrafts, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 star hotels, president and prime minister houses, palaces and public
properties require Grade A maintenance. Motor Vehicles, offices, pubs, houses may be maintained through
Grade B or C maintenance.

Grade A maintenance is where parts of a facility system cannot be allowed to fail or pack-up before they are
changed. It is the most expensive form of maintenance. In most cases the life-span of parts that formed the
system are known or estimated and the parts are changed before they fail or expire. Grade A maintenance is
intensive and more regular.
In Grade B or C maintenance, parts are allowed to fail before they are changed. The functions of the facility or
the situation are not strategic as to necessitate Grade A maintenance. Grade B maintenance is less intensive and
cost less than Grade A but more than C.

Figure: Maintenance

Business Strategy

Overall Maintenance Strategy

Maintenance Types

Planned Un-Planned

Preventive Corrective

Condition-Based Pre-determined
Maintenance Maintenance

On-Line Off-Line Calendar Based Age Based

Relationship between Capital Cost and Maintenance Cost of Infrastructures

Depending on the type of infrastructure, operating and maintenance cost can be estimated from capital cost and
intensity of use of infrastructure.

Operating and Maintenance costs also depend on the design and materials used for the construction of an
infrastructure. A road built of concrete will be cheaper to maintain than the one constructed of asphalt. In
infrastructure development, cost of maintenance consideration at planning stage may affect choice of materials.
For example, quality of road is determined by geology of road, climatology, topography, design, technology
and choice of materials.

This is a whopping sum and a major share of the annual budget. Financing construction projects is a great
challenge in developing countries and has left most of the infrastructures in sorry state.
it is essential to make a distinction between capital costs which is the real cost and operation and maintenance
cost. (i) Capital cost: It is the capital invested in the provision of a transport infrastructure which gives rise to a
fixed cost that bears no relationship to the actual use of the infrastructure. The capital value of the transport
infrastructure increases over time with additions made by new investments. It is important to distinguish
annual investments (expenditure) from annual capital costs: these are very different concepts and there is no
reason to make users pay annually for the investment costs that were incurred in a particular year”.

In most infrastructures, estimating cost of infrastructure cannot be done in a straight-line method. Units-of-
production depreciation methods is suitable for road and motor vehicles than straight-line or annuity, or
declining balance and sum-of-year-digits methods. Where operating and maintenance cost is greater than 25%
of the capital cost, there may be need to review choice of infrastructure.
Conclusions

Maintenance is not an exercise that happens by accident; it is part and parcel of infrastructure development.
Apart from living things that have living cells in tissues that can regenerate and re-grow, physical
infrastructures are non-living things and cannot regenerate damaged parts.

Therefore, resources must be available specifically for their maintenance if they have to continue their
functions. Performance standards for infrastructures should be established to provide a clear definition of the
standards to be achieved. Performance should be regularly measured and reviewed against the defined standard
levels. The aim of infrastructure management should be to ensure value for money and not at the lowest or
highest cost but at optimum cost.

There should be Infrastructure Maintenance Plan (IMP), a manual detailing the design, technology used, cost
of procurement of infrastructure, year of manufacture and/or procurement, name of manufacturers and/or
procurers and materials used. The manual should also have a schedule of period of maintenance and who will
be in charge.

There is an operational system now for managers of infrastructure to monitor dynamic deformations. This
system helps managers to identify the exact location for local follow-up inspection on roads, dams, levees,
dikes, railroads, bridges, storage tanks and all other assets under management. In a single view, it is possible to
determine where inspection and possibly maintenance are most urgently required. According to Murphy’s
Law, “what will be, will be”, there will always be the need for maintenance of infrastructure if they are being
used.

The maintenance finance should be considered from the development planning stage. That is, fund should be
specifically allocated for future maintenance of infrastructures. Since all physical infrastructures have
predictive life-span, their depreciation can be forecasted and pre-planned even before installation. To keep the
milieu of physical structures intact, they must be regularly maintained.

All physical infrastructures have specific lifespan. This means that they can all be depreciated and their
maintenance can be predicted and planned. Maintenance policy can therefore be made in advance.
Maintenance is a factor of the quality of the material, technology and workmanship used in the production of
any infrastructure.

The maintenance cost should be between 8% to 20% of the capital value of any infrastructure. Cost and
benefits analysis should be considered before deciding on the materials to be used for the production of
infrastructures. Maintenance culture should be developed to enhance the usability of infrastructures.
For example, asphalt is not a permanent material for road construction. It was an intervention material
discovered by MacAdam, a Scot Petroleum Engineer. Concrete paving as road material may be economic in
the long-run, especially where the roads are for heavy-duty vehicles. In the short run, asphalt is cheaper, but is
water-soluble and can easily wear in water.

Maintenance should not start after an infrastructure has failed. It should start by regular inspection (searching)
for area to maintain through cleaning, oiling, replacement and repairs. Metal-bar window and door frames will
also last longer than wooden frames and so on.

Importance of infrastructure maintenance includes economic returns, social benefits and political benefits.
Apart from ensuring value for money, good maintenance of infrastructures can boost social status of the users
of the infrastructures. A country is assessed by the quality of the infrastructures in the country.

Quality infrastructures can also boost tourism potential of a state. Good maintenance of roads, for example, can
boost commerce and reduce maintenance cost of vehicles. Also, it can reduce visit of residents to hospital due
to depression and reduce accidents and untimely deaths.