Training through Consultancy to Improve Maintenance Management

In 1981, the International Labour Office in Geneva began receiving exciting news from the National Productivity Cente (NPC) of Ethiopia about its results-oriented maintenance management programmes. NPC was achieving measurable success in helping almost 50 firms solve maintenance problems. Over 360 people from supervisors to plant managers and ministry officials had been trained to identify maintenance problems, find and carry out solutions. Hundreds of recommendations for improved maintenance were being tested and implemented, and many of these solutions were achieving measurable results in the form of increased output, reduced down-time, improved quality, fewer rejected products, fewer imported spare parts and longer machine life. Several of the factories had estimated savings of over $1.2 million in the first year of the programme. The costs of the training, consulting and implementation were much less than the first year's estimated savings. The cost benefit ratio, even by rough estimates, appeared to be at least 8 to 1.