Empirical analysis of economics of introducing IT in maintenance Department: case study of Tanzania Portland Cement Company Ltd. (Wazo-Hill), Dar es Salaam.

Tanzania industries are facing low capacity utilisation between 20%-30% (Mjema and Kundi, 1993) and this is associated with poor maintenance of production equipment which is due to various maintenance problems like lack of culture of maintenance, technology, unskilled manpower, commitment of top management etc. Poor quality products and high operational costs are other problems facing our industries. Tanzania Portland Cement Company Ltd, which was a parastatal organisation, was having similar problems mentioned above. After a feasibility study in 1983, a private company known as Scancem International formed a joint business cooperation with Tanzania Cement Company Ltd. to eliminate the underutilisation of the plant and other associated problems. Many efforts were taken as measures to improve productivity, quality of the product and reduction of high operational costs. Among such efforts are rehabilitation of production equipment that started in 1984/85 to 1990/91 company financial year and also computerisation of the preventive maintenance section with maintenance management system software known as SMS in 1990. This was replaced by new software known as MP2 in 1998 that is compatible to the year 2000. The aim of this study was to empirically analyse the economics of introducing IT in maintenance department, which are cost reduction, productivity and quality improvement. Also to see if the use of IT in maintenance department would significantly prove to be useful in cost reduction, and to find out whether or not the use of IT in maintenance department could also be useful in improvement of quality and productivity. From the data analysis it was concluded that: after introducing IT in maintenance department cost reduction in inventory, maintenance and downtime was achieved. Similarly product quality and productivity improved.