An Analytical Study of the Maintainability of Academic Building Air Conditioning System

Maintainability is an inherent characteristic of system or product design. It pertains to the
ease, accuracy, safety, and economy in the performance of maintenance actions. A system should
be designed such that it can be maintained without large investments of time, at the least cost,
with a minimum impact on the environment, and with a minimum expenditure of resources. One
goal is to maintain a system effectively and efficiently in its intended environment, without
adversely affecting the mission of that system. Maintainability is the ability of an item to be
maintained, whereas maintenance constitutes a series of actions necessary to restore or retain an
item in an effective operational state. Maintainability is a design parameter. Maintenance is
required as a consequence of design.
Air conditioning system is often operated and maintained inefficiently due to the
knowledge gap between design guidelines and maintenance practices aided with fault detection
techniques. To address this issue and to develop a guideline for good practices, this study
examined the maintainability parameters for air conditioning system of academic building.