Production equipment maintenance in Ghanaian manufacturing industries

Ghanäs manufacturing industry consists of four main sectors, namely woodworking, food processing, metal working and textiles and garments. Earlier research works report a large stock of manufacturing equipment used in the industry but indicate low maintenance culture among firms. This calls for an investigation to help gain insight into the status of maintenance engineering as well as maintenance-related challenges facing manufacturing companies in Ghana. This book explores the status of production equipment maintenance in selected companies from Kumasi, Accra and Tema registered with the Association of Ghana Industries. A questionnaire was designed and administered in a survey that involved visits to these companies. Data collected was analysed using the MS Excel and Stata 10 software packages. The findings reveal that most of the respondent firms are private consisting mainly of large and medium scale firms with the greater majority being large. In addition, majority of firms in Ghana are semi-automated. Contrary to the perception of low maintenance culture, companies undertake regular maintenance. The most preferred maintenance strategy is preventive shut down maintenance.