Development Of Maintenance Organizational Structure For Construction Machinery

Construction industry is one of the leading sectors towards modernization and industrialization in Ethiopia and many other developing countries.It is one of the three sectors of the country identified by the government for special consideration to foster the country's economic development.However,the general state of both governmental and private owned construction industry is characterized by;low levels of equipment availability,low level utilization,deficiency in technical skill,managerial skill and ineffective maintenance technology[44].Construction industry relies heavily on the high utilization of construction equipment.Cost of construction equipment in a project varies from 10%to 30%of the total cost of the project,depending upon the extent of mechanization.The parts need continuous replacement or follow up to keep up the function of operation[35].With high owning cost and the depreciating nature of construction equipment,it is very clear that construction industry need effective resource management and maintenance practice to retain their profitability and still be competitive.Maintenance has been associated with costs and a stoppage,because of this reason maintenance is considered as the necessary evil.Nowadays,availability,reliability and safety in the industry are more emphasized.An increasing number of companies replace the current,fire-fighting,maintenance strategy with proactive strategies such as preventive maintenance and also with aggressive strategies such as Total Productive Maintenance(TPM)in order to achieve world-class performance.[16]The main objective of this master thesis is to develop a structure of maintenance organization and redesign its business process flow to improve the current maintenance performance.Moreover the paper covers important studies about maintenance strategy and modern scientific maintenance methods.The research methodology used in this project particularly aims to get basic knowledge about development of maintenance organization,maintenance strategy,maintenance business process flow,in order to understand and analyse the current maintenance process and overall performance.The principle of business process reengineering is used to identify and redesign the gaps of the maintenance process.The data and information of maintenance performance is obtained from a maintenance organization based in Ethiopia.It is used for discussion and study of the overall activity in the company with respect to scientific views of maintenance.As a result from this research,the maintenance business process has been redesigned by clearly identifying the gaps.Finally an organizational layout is designed in a manner where the identified gaps can be filled.The research concluded that maintenance should be conducted with timely inspection,regular preventive maintenance;proper maintenance planning and organization to handle this should be established with in the house.