The Causal Factors of Elevator Maintenance: A Perspective from Saudi Arabia Healthcare Facility Management

Maintenance is crucial for healthcare facilities in terms of both the continuity of operations and annual costs. Many maintenance issues are associated with design decisions that pave the way for added costs in later lifecycle stages. Some systems, e.g., elevators, are sources of maintenance costs; additionally, elevator outages are significant issues for multi-floor healthcare facilities. Considering the maintainability of elevators from the early design stages helps to highlight potential maintenance issues in later stages. This also assists in mitigating costs by avoiding design decisions that result in future maintenance costs. This research uses the expertise of facility managers who have experience with maintenance issues resulting from design decisions. A list of 35 elevator maintenance issues caused by design flaws is presented in this paper, based on the literature and semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of six healthcare facility management experts. Then, a questionnaire using convenience sampling was conducted with facility management professionals to evaluate and rank the maintenance issues. While 60 professionals responded, only 30 attempted the four-parameter evaluation of all listed maintenance issues. The results of the questionnaire determined elevator car jams, sudden stops, and working space conditions to be the most critical issues faced by facility managers in healthcare facilities. The output of this study can help designers of new healthcare facilities to avoid decisions that result in unwarranted maintenance issues with costly impacts.