Lessons from Namboole floodlights failure

 

One learning from this experience is; the time it takes to restore serviceability of lights and all other facilities. The second one is compliance with and adherence to efficient maintenance regime of facilities.

 

In some circumstances, one would consider five minutes to be acceptable given that technicalities of such facilities could have complicated the completion of the football match between Uganda and Guinea. It could have forced the postponement of the game to another day. We have to thank the guys who worked hard to ensure that lights came on albeit after five minutes.

 

Away from the match and to area of service provision which requires considerable process and system improvement. Here is the situation. You have been in the queue at a bank since 9:30am. It is moving quite slowly.

 

You wait patiently and finally when it is your turn to be served, the teller/enquiry personnel behind the monitor tells you, “the network is down and you cannot get served”. You are in desperate need of financial statement printout. And cannot help but wait until network service is restored.

 

On many occasions, one has had to wait till the next day or even two days to get a financial statement. Think about having to wait for just 24 hours and deadline is hours away. You will have to forfeit any business objectives because systems are not reliable. And people have become so comfortable with it that they think it is normal practice.

 

What happened to the floodlights challenges us to work harder at ensuring that serviceability of all systems within our mandate is maintained possibly within 99% all the time. Anything but that cannot be acceptable for any organisation aspiring to achieve impeccable organisational competence.

 

A customer would be glad to walk into a cashier’s room and have their financial statements available within a minute of request. This is among the most pertinent parameters upon which organisational competence is measured.

 

Efficiency is a top criterion of competency. Work methods and outputs must be regularly subjected to a series of system and process improvement.

 

This brings me to the story of facilities maintenance. Almost all the time, we obtain and install facilities at high costs. Thereafter, we become lax about maintaining them. An example is, whether in our homes or in organisations, we let sewage ooze out of manholes, and allow fungus to develope on walls without taking initiatives to rectify such malfunctions.

 

Cracks develop on floors and start to let in water. Nobody takes action until eventually, facilities give way.

 

Lack of effective maintenance spells doom for our facility stock. Once facilities are designed, constructed and commissioned, occupants’ tendency is to think that maintaining them costs too much money. And many owners ignore maintaining their facilities. They ignore the fact that once maintenance is efficient, service lives of facilities are extended.

 

It is the main reason why our facilities, especially buildings deteriorate quicker than they should. This cause disintegration and expose us to disasters. Let us assess all our facilities to give us the basis for doing effective maintenance.

 

This responsibility rests on facility owners and users. They must make sure that potential negative impacts caused by breakdown in serviceability are eliminated.