PROPUESTA DE MEJORA

Despite the huge investments from the government of the country to develop infrastructure and other types of physical assets, attention to developing managerial practices was nearly absent. In addition, academic studies were also rare. However, the following attempts to capture what is written about AM in Saudi Arabia.

One of the few studies in this area was conducted by Daghistani (1991), whereby the researcher assessed the planning structure of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs. Daghistani (1991) indicated several attributes of planning activities at the ministry of municipalities among which long, medium and short term planning activities are developed. However, he also found various shortcomings. One of these

Create/Acquire establish Utlize/Maintain/ Perforamnce in use/Operation/ /Exploit Divest/Dispose

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shortcomings is the shortage of experienced staff for planning formulation. The next is insufficient communication between ministries has been carried out especially in case of developmental plans. Therefore, Daghistani (1991) demanded that explicit and delegated authority to certain department is necessary for successful developmental plans.

However, there are various issues in Daghistni’s (1991) study. First, the study has not shown what does planning formulation mean. Second, the study also was very limited in its scope, where the focus was only on one city in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah. Third, the study also focused on one branch of one ministry in the SPS. Therefore,the study does not only explain what the current AM practices in the SPS but also ignored variation between ministries.

Later, Almohawis and Al-sultan (1994) explored how the public sector in Saudi Arabia develops construction contract durations. This study was conducted by administering a survey across the public agencies. The researchers found that the public agencies rely on three entities in developing their contract duration; top management, engineering departments and external consultants. In addition, all these agencies have no systematic approach, procedures or formal approach to developing contract durations.

Assaf et al. (1995) investigated the effect of 35 faulty construction works on building maintenance. The defects were grouped into six categories; construction inspection, civil construction, contractor administration, construction materials, construction equipment and construction drawings. The Assaf et al. (1995) conducted their survey on three groups; owners, contractors and architect/engineers. Their intention was to rank the six groups based on their importance. The study found that contractors and architects/engineers are most similar in their ranking of the importance of defects, while owners have a different stance. The most important factor for contractors and architects/engineers is the construction inspection with least importance on construction materials and equipment. On the other hand, the most important group for owners was contractor administration and the least important group was construction equipment. Assaf et al. (1995) pointed out that most of these problems should be taken into consideration before the implementation phase of the intended plan which in turn reduce life cycle cost of the buildings.

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Al-Musallami and Assaf (1996) investigated public sector satisfaction regarding services received from architectural and engineering consultants. A fairly moderate relationship between the two groups is found. However, an improvement actions were suggested, especially in case of the cost effectiveness of the design and change orders originating from design errors. In addition, communication between both parties can be improved by increasing the number of meetings.

Al-Hammad et al. (1996a) explored eight types of public maintenance contracts; fixed price, cost plus a percentage fee, cost plus a fixed fee, cost plus fixed fee with a guaranteed maximum, unit price, term, schedule and purchased labour contracts. The findings were that the fixed price, term and purchased labour contracts were the top used contracts while unit price and cost plus a percentage fee were the second choice. The remaining contracts were found inappropriate for the public sector.

After two decades of rapid growth in Saudi Arabia, Al-Hammad et al. (1996b) explored problems facing the maintenance industry in both public and private sectors. The study identified 24 factors related to maintenance problems. The factors were distributed across six major categories; technical problems, management and administrative problems, financial problems, spare parts and tool problems, human related problems and lack of institutions and training facilities. The study showed that the most important problems were financial, while management and administrative problems came at the lowest rank. However, the study were not clear about what types of financial problems were referred to, and whether these were from miscalculation of cash flow before public sector tender projects.

Al-Hammad et al. (1996b) concluded the following two points. First, due to the lack of paying enough attention to the maintainability of new assets, several problems are found in maintaining assets in the future. Therefore, the study recommended the public sector to take into consideration practices related to maintenance in the planning practices stage, and also the researchers urge the public sector to take into consideration others practices in the planning practices stages. Next, the need for operation and maintenance manual for the public sector is vital for successful maintenance practices.

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Al-Khalil and Al-Ghafly (1999) investigated 60 causes of delay in public utility, water and sewage projects. The sample explored three entities; contractors, consultants and owners. The study found that the most important causes of delay were; cash flow problems and financial difficulties of contractors, difficulties in obtaining permits, and the requirement to select the lowest bidder without regard to prequalification. In addition, the contractor blamed owner administration as one of the most important cause of delay, due to the following; delay in the settlement of claims, slow decision making, delay in making progress payments and excessive bureaucracy. According to Al-Khalil and Al-Ghafly (1999) the study conclude that the need for taking into consideration these causes upfront in the process of physical assets development practices is evident.

Alhazmi and McCaffer (2000) developed a project procurement system selection model to assist people working in the construction industry to find the most suitable procurement system for their projects. The study conducted a survey in the Saudi public sector to find the most suitable procurement for their projects. The researcher found design and built procurement system to be the most suitable approach for the public sector.

Bubshait (2001) studied factors behind the deterioration of road performance quality in Saudi Arabia. The factors were ranked according to their severity and later classified into three major categories; managerial, design and specifications and construction factors. Apparently, departments of physical asset management in the SPS are responsible for most of these factors.

Bubshait and Al-Juwairah (2002) studied factors affecting construction costs in Saudi Arabia and then ranked these factors according to their severity to contractors, consultants/engineers and owners. The most severe factors that lead to high construction cost are; material cost, incorrect planning, previous experience of the contract, contract management, and poor financial control on site. Apparently, these scattered factors belong to different areas of managerial practices of AM practices.

Al-Arjani (2002) studied the orientation of contractors toward operation and maintenance of public contracts. The study found that contractor numbers in biomedical, water and waste water projects are greater than for contractors working in

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building and electromechnical maintenance and operation projects. In addition, the study also found that in the previous decade, the increase in public expenditure on maintenance and operation projects was more than on new projects.

Assaf and Al-Hejji (2006) investigated 73 causes of construction projects delay. The sample consisted of 23 contractors, 19 consultants and 15 owners. The researchers do not articulate whether the participating owners are public or private. The study finds that the average time overrun is between 10 % and 30 %. In addition, the greatest cause of delay is awarding contracts to the lowest bidder, as reported by both owners and consultants. However, contractors blamed projects’ owners as the main cause of delay. Moreover, only one common cause was found between all the study participants; change orders by the owner during construction.

Al-Kharashi and Skitmore (2009) investigated causes of delays in public construction projects. The study classified the causes of delays into seven main categories; client related, contractor related, consultant related, materials related, labour related, contract related and, finally, contractual relationship related causes.

Bageis and Fortune (2009) investigated how bid/no bid decisions are influenced by different characteristics of contractors. The collected sample was 91 contractors with the purpose to achieve the aim of the study Bageis and Fortune (2009) foundthat one of the main factors to influence contractors’ decisions is client type. Further, this result is important when considering that the public sector was the main client of 77% of the contractors. In addition, 44 out of 87 factors that influence bidding decisions are related to public sector management practices.

Assaf et al. (2010) found six main categories affecting outsourcing of maintenance services at Saudi universities; strategic, economic, management, technological, functional characteristics and quality. Although Assaf et al. (2010) did not use statistical analysis to show the significance of their findings, the most important factor for outsourcing was to obtain better quality.

To sum up, previous research has found various shortcomings and deficiencies at different phases of the physical asset life cycle stages. However, most of the research conducted was regarding either certain practices such as procurement or generic

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deficiencies such as the need for planning formulation practices. In addition, most researchers indirectly indicate the need for better management in the SPS. For instance, the SPS lacks planning formulation practices (Daghistani, 1991), shows a lack of method, procedures and formal approach (Almohawis and Al-sultan, 1994), road performance quality is deteriorating (Bubshait, 2001), and increases in construction costs occur due partially to incorrect planning (Bubshait and Al-Juwairah, 2002). These research studies indirectly indicate deficiencies in SPS management because they, one way or another, affect different parts of the physical asset life cycle stages. However, the following questions about the current AM practices of the SPS need to be addressed in order to fill the current knowledge gap and draw a complete picture of the current AM practices in the SPS. These questions are:

 What are the current SPS AM practices against the leading international AM practices? This question implies the need first to uncover the characteristics of the current leading international AM practices in order to specify what characteristics are looking for.

 What are the variations of the AM practices between the SPS ministries?

 What is the proposed action plan to improve the current AM practices situation in the SPS?

Based on these enquiries, the following argument is devoted to discuss the leading international AM standards and guidelines.