Productivity improvement and developing framework for roads maintenance: A case study of Johannesburg Roads Agency and Ethekwini Metropolitan Municipality

Abstract

Municipalities in South Africa (SA) are battling to maintain their roads infrastructure utilising internal maintenance teams. The greatest concern among municipal staff seems to be a perceived lack of longterm performance and maintenance data (R. Lukes & C. Kloss, 2008). Several municipalities are struggling to operate and maintain their infrastructure in a cost-effective manner (IMESA, 2012). These municipalities are not providing enough maintenance budget for operations and maintenance which leads to poor infrastructure maintenance and resulting into ever ending infrastructure backlogs. There is a long turnaround time in attending to service requests in these municipalities and this might lead to potential accidents when repair work takes longer. There is also lack of efficiency and effectiveness to improving productivity by municipal maintenance internal teams. The developed framework standards for operation and maintenance of roads infrastructure for municipal teams will reduce turnaround time in attending to service requests, improve productivity and assist government allocation of resources per maintenance work activity. This will lead to systematic way of attending to maintenance work ensuring over 80% utilization of resources (plant, labour and material) and reduced wastage and idling time.