By
Malaysian Government
Asset and Facilities
Management Practices
Ir. Dr Ahmad Firdauz Bin Abdul Mutalib
Senior Civil Engineer
Integrated Asset Planning Branch
JKR Malaysia
I
n 2006, the Government’s asset maintenance
management in Malaysia was based on reactive
maintenance via ad hoc planning without a
systematic and regular maintenance approach.
Reactive maintenance has many disadvantages,
such as no asset maintenance management plan,
it reduces the life expectancy of assets, it creates
uneconomical long term costs, it slows down
the repair process and it increases the agency’s
burden. In combating this, the Government
has undertaken initiatives which are not solely
responsible for maintenance management but
also include Total Asset Management (TAM) as a
whole.
BACKGROUND
The first Malaysia Plan started in 1966. Currently,
we are in the 11 th Malaysia Plan. On average, the
development budget has allocated about RM 50
billion annually to cover development expenditure
in the Economic, Social and Security Sectors.
Since the 1990s, there has been a significant
increase in the development budget to cope with
the demands of a rapidly expanding economy. On
average, the allocation for physical development
for each Malaysia Plan is around 60% to 70%.
The 11 th Malaysia Plan 2016-2020 is a five-year
development plan with a mission to achieve Vision
2020. The plan reinforces the Government's
commitment to achieving the aim of growth and
prosperity of the people's welfare.
However, the physical development pace has
now been reduced in proportion, and more funds
are required to manage and maintain existing
assets. Most of these assets are already in their
middle life expectancy period, although there are
some heritage buildings more than100 years old.
Some of the old ones now need to be rehabilitated
or reinstated to their former life. Bigger funds
are required when the old buildings need to be
rehabilitated or replaced with new ones.
Currently, the objectives for maintenance tend
to be related to minimising costs in the short term
rather than assessing and enhancing the added
value of an asset to the organisation. So, it is a
very common phenomenon that agencies tend
to focus on breakdown maintenance. Typically,
maintenance or repair is only carried out after
the damage has occurred or a failure has been
reported. These run to failure, ad-hoc fire-fighting
actions are reactive in nature and are not cost
effective, especially when they involve assets of
high value and affect service delivery.
The Annual Audit reports have over the years,
contained unpleasant stories about how inefficient
or ineffective the way in which public assets are
acquired, managed, maintained and disposed of.
The reports also implied that so much money has
been wasted. The public image of the Government
suffers every time a disaster happens, as these
are widely publicised in the media. As a result, the
public perception of public governance is negative.
The real challenge in implementing a good
asset management system depends on several
factors. There are no standards and guidelines
in existence for asset management that can be
used to measure quality and performance levels.
Another drawback is a lack of local expertise to
55