Development and Internal Validation of a Maintenance Management System for Enhancing Workplace Safety Compliance in Public-Sector Buildings: A Case Study of the OSHA Building, Dodoma, Tanzania

Public-sector buildings in Tanzania frequently operate under reactive, fragmented, and poorly documented maintenance regimes that fall short of occupational safety and health requirements. This study developed and provisionally validated a Maintenance Management System (MMS) to enhance workplace safety compliance in public-sector buildings, using the Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) Building in Dodoma as a single case. The study adopted a mixed-methods case-study design, with the building as the unit of inference. Of 111 instruments distributed (Yamane minimum 106), 98 were returned usable (88.3%). Data were collected through five-point Likert questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, an objective safety-compliance checklist aligned with the OSH Act No. 5 of 2003, the Fire and Rescue Force Act 2007 and ISO 45001:2018, and document review; quantitative data were analysed in SPSS v26 using descriptive statistics, the Relative Importance Index (RII), Pearson's correlation and multiple linear regression, and qualitative data were analysed thematically. Maintenance planning, preventive maintenance, maintenance resources and maintenance monitoring emerged as the dominant factors. The objective building-level Workplace Safety Compliance Index was 51.6%, below the study's 80% audit benchmark (a researcher-defined target). Within the sample, the four factors were positively and significantly associated with respondent-level compliance and jointly explained a substantial share of its variance (R² = 0.687). The developed MMS is organised around the Plan–Do–Check–Act cycle, with a multiple-regression relationship serving as an analytical component. We provisionally validated it within the case through internal hold-out testing (MAE = 1.52; RMSE = 2.08; MAPE = 3.18%), computed on the Safety Compliance Index expressed on a 0–100 scale, expert content validation (CVI = 0.90), a focus-group discussion, and a two-week pilot (51.6%→56.4%). Because the design is cross-sectional and single-case, these are associations and within-sample predictions rather than causal effects, and external multi-building validation remains necessary. Because all 98 respondents come from the single OSHA Building, the regression describes within-case (within-building) associations rather than independent building-level effects, and the internal hold-out test demonstrates predictive stability within the case only. Practically, the MMS offers facility managers an auditable, evidence-based way to integrate building maintenance with statutory safety compliance.