Critical reliability issues for building services systems

Wu, S. M. and Clements-Croome, D. (2005) Critical reliability issues for building services systems. In: Cui, L. and Tsang, A. H. C. (eds.) Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Quality & Reliability. Beijing Inst Technology Pr, Beijing, pp. 559-565. ISBN 781045742X

Abstract/Summary

This paper addresses two critical issues associated with reliability and maintenance of building services systems. The first is the ratio of operating and/or maintenance costs to initial costs for building services systems. It is an important parameter for life cycle costing and maintenance policy development. The second is the proportion of items among building services systems that need preventive maintenance. In this paper, we estimate the ratios based on a cost dataset. It suggests that correctly estimating the ratio be important but using a constant ratio in life cycle costing may result in wrong decisions. It also estimates the proportion of preventive maintenance for building services systems on the basis of the distribution of failure patterns.