| dc.description.abstract | This study examines the time utilization by direct
labour in the maintenance of public buildings. It aims
at identifying the proportions of the effective (productive)
and ineffective (unproductive) times in maintenance
operations. It is restricted to performance of maintenance
labour in two public institutions - the Ministry of Public
Works and the Kenya Posts and Telecommunication Corporation.
The study is only concerned with the effect of low effective
times on maintenance operations and not with the
efficiency of effective times. Increases in effective
times for all the artisans would have an effect on the
overall maintenance workload ane costs.
The study recognizes that most of the maintenance
works are small in nature and thus taking very short
durations. The major works are few and concentrated
within few sites. This necessitates effective and
efficient planning, programming, coordination and control
of all the available necessary supporting services like
transport, materials etc.
The Ministry of Public Works was chosen since it
is chargedwith the duties of maintaining and executing
(erecting) all public buildings works - rented, pool"
and institutional houses. Similarly, the Kenya Posts
and Telecommunication Corporation maintenance department
maintains all the Corporation's ov ned and rented buildings.
It was decided to restrict the study area to only Nairobi
due to the limitations in time and resources. After
all, Nairobi is the core of the two institutions.
The study has been organized into five chapters
broken into three parts. The first part comprises the
first 'chapter which introduces the problem identified in
the study area, the study objectives, scope of the study
and the organization of the study. The chapter ends with
a discussion on how the research was carried out in the
field and how the data was ana lysed and presented in
the fourth chapter.
The second part covers the second chapter which
attempts to discuss various concepts and theoretical
framework relating to the productivity of labour,
organization of labour and finally measuring labour
productivity In construction/maintenance works, selected
from various references. In reviewing the literature
for this study it was found that measurement of maintenance
works is both difficult and costly. This is due to the
variety of jobs, varying work content, inadequate
definition, unpredictable work and low direct supervision
due to the dispersal of 'sites. The chapter concludes
tha'twithin the available resources and time,' the' best
suitable method would be the determination of the effective
time.
The third part comprises the third, fourth and
fifth chapter. The third chapter deals with the case
studies. It covers the organizational structure, the
volume of work, nature and size of labour and finally the
supporting services which include transport, finances etc.
The study identified several factors negatively affecting the
effective staff operations. The basic being lack of supporting
services and poor coordination and control. The managements
are equally partly to blame.
The fourth chapter tabulates and analyses the data
collected from the field and official records. The data
indicated that poor performance is due to poor supervision and
lack of coordination. This reflects poor management, which,
coupled with lack of in adequate transport, materials and
finance would result into very low maintenance standards.
The fifth chapter is a summary of the findings of the
study and recommendations for further research into the
problems affecting labour productivity. It is concluded
that there are several problems which require solutions if
labour producitivity is to be raised. It is recommended that
effective coordination within the department be emphasized,
supervisory staff be sufficient, materials and funds be availed,
provision of the necessary tools, plants and equipment to the
artisans would enhance their efficiency. This calls for
efficient and effective utilization of the available time,
effort and resources. Therefore the study has mainly explored
the state of time utilization and emphasizes that the less the
time taken on a task does not pecessarily mean efficiency. | en |
