Determining the essential criteria for choosing appropriate methods for maintenance and repair of Iraqi healthcare building facilities

Abstract

Today, building maintenance and repair (M&R) is a neglected aspect of the construction business throughout a building’s entire life cycle. Selecting appropriate M&R strategies is crucial, particularly for emerging economies like Iraq with severely constrained resources. This study seeks to identify the primary selection criteria for M&R methods of healthcare building facilities (HBFs) in Iraq. A comprehensive desktop literature analysis was undertaken to extract and determine the essential selection criteria for the most suited M&R approaches to buildings in general. Then, two rounds of the Delphi survey were conducted to consolidate the specific selection criteria to suit the circumstances of Iraq and HBFs. A total of 21 sub-criteria were identified and divided into six main groups. The main criteria and the associated sub-criteria were then analyzed and ranked using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) technique. The ranking of the various main criteria revealed that the “cost” criterion was ranked first in terms of importance, followed by the “human resources” and “quality” criteria. The fourth, fifth, and sixth main criteria are “reliability/flexibility”, “safety/risk/environment”, and “facilities/technology”, respectively. The overall ranking of the sub-criteria placed “optimization and cost reduction” in the first position and “extending the life of the equipment and preserving their initial quality” in the bottom place. It is anticipated that the key findings and effective recommendations of this study will considerably contribute to the improvement of building maintenance and repair management practices in developing nations while enhancing different stakeholders’ understanding of the most important selection criteria for M&R methods, particularly with regard to healthcare building facilities in Iraq.