The need to set funds aside for maintenance was recognised as far back as 395 AD. Eusebius, who was the equivalent of Treasurer to Emperor Arcadius, sent out a memo to all Provincial Administrators to the effect that, “In order that the splendid cities and towns may not fall into ruins through age, we assign a third part of the income from the farms belonging to a municipality to be used for the repair of public works and the heating of baths.”

Maintenance practitioners would instinctively applaud this approach, but upon reflection, we should question the logic of allocating a specific fraction of income to carrying out maintenance. Is it enough? Too much? Is the cost of maintenance really linked to income? What happens in good-harvest years, and bad?  

Sixteen hundred years later, we may still not be asking the right questions, nor backing our fund allocations with a logical approach.  

In this Master Class, we’ll combine some engineering methods with a few business management principles and add a dash of common sense that will put us on a path that is better than “Last year’s costs plus CPI plus 15%, because we know the boss will tell us to cut by 10%”.

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