An exploration study of maintain and repair of vehicles by Sri Lanka electrical and mechanical engineers in Sri Lanka Army

Abstract

The Sri Lanka Army’s (SLA) current strategy for the maintenance and repair of its vehicle fleet is a hybrid mixed strategy. Under this strategy, some vehicle maintenance and repair related work is carried out in-house by the Sri Lanka Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (SLEME) of the SLA and the rest is outsourced to external companies. This study was conducted with the objectives of identifying the current issues and limitations faced by SLEME when conducting in-house maintenance and repair operations, identifying the benefits and issues to SLEME caused by the outsourcing of maintenance and repair operations, and to suggest a suitable maintenance and repair operations strategy for SLEME. Finding from the study revealed that the main issue with SLEME in-house vehicle maintenance and repair operations is high dissatisfaction with these operations. The main causes for this high dissatisfaction with SLEME vehicle maintenance and repair operations are the lack of adequate workshop facilities to repair and maintenance of modern vehicle, high frequency of vehicle repairs, shortage of qualified tradesmen, non-technical tasks of the SLA. The findings from study indicate that the main benefits to the SLEME from the outsourcing of these Operations are high quality of work, excellent service standards, short turnaround time for vehicle maintenance and repairs, and cost benefits, while the main issues are poor quality of work, long time taken for repairs, high costs, and poor quality of repairs/maintenance work. Based on these findings, the recommended strategy Jor SLA vehicle fleet maintenance and repairs is a hybrid strategy comprising both in-house and outsourcing of vehicle maintenance and repair.