Code No: P023 Price: 900 Category: Electronics & Instrumentation, Control, Automation, Communication Information: Instrumentation

Assessment of Demand for Services Relating to Repair & Maintenance of Instruments

The main objective of this report was to review and analyse the present and past arrangements on country-wide basis for service and maintenance of instruments, their effectiveness and the difficulties in achieving maximum uptime. In the light of growing installation base of instruments of conventional as well as more advanced and sophisticated types, it was felt necessary to analyse the adequacy and effectiveness of such services in the country to minimize down time of instruments for maximizing productivity. A field survey of 265 users, manufacturers, service providers and experts led to meaningful productivity. A field survey of 265 users, manufacturers, service providers and experts led to meaningful suggestions of ways and means for achieving stated objective. Recommendations are made for viable “National Program On Instrumentations” to meet present & future requirements of such services by restructuring existing facilities and through adoption of new management methodologies.

Range of Service

Services generally required by instrumentation users are installation/erection, repair and maintenance, calibration, reconditioning and warranty services. Practices employed during implementing these services at various stages of installation and operation have a considerable bearing on efficient and effective running of the plant. Moreover with increasing automation and sophistication which is penetrating in all sectors of the economy, it has now, become even more important to improve on these services to make them more effective and productive. The scarcity of equipment and high cost of capital makes it mandatory to ensure adequacy of services to keep instruments in top working condition and fully utilized.

Installation/ erection is generally the responsibility of instrument supplier. In over 55% cases this service is entrusted on the supplier to ensure servicing in case of instrument malfunction after installation. In about 40% cases, it is undertaken by user himself while in 5% cases outside help is taken. Warranty services are invariably procured by the user almost exclusively from the instrument supplier or his agent.

The urgency of the need of provide repair and maintenance services in a competent manner on a country wide basis is brought out by large quantum of instruments lying in a state of dis-use in various areas of instrumentation usage. The cost wise proportion of dis-used instruments as related to the total cost of existing instrumentation in various user categories ranges from minimum of 2.55% in process industry to the maximum of 5.1% in service sector (mostly hospitals). A total value of disused instruments covered during the survey. It means that if ways and means are devised to enable repairs at reasonable costs, a large proportion of instrumentation could be put into productive use.

R&M services are needed by all users for all categories of instruments. A wide variety of arrangements are also noted to have been made by various instrument users to obtain such services. On an aggregate basis over 50% of users rely on in-house maintenance of their instruments, 42% users take help of instrument suppliers/agents and the remaining 8% sub-contract these services to independent parties/organizations. The level of satisfaction for these services is not that high and there is a dare need for services as about 75% of respondents have shown ‘willing ness’ to subcontract these services.

Another activity closely allied to R&M services is overhaul or reconditioning of outdated equipments. Undertaking of such services require in-depth expertise and technical knowledge about the respective areas of instrumentation. Techno-commercial out-look will be an important aspect in deciding the success in this area. Substantial additional resources in terms of facilities and manpower are required for this activity. It is also necessary to keep in mind a comparatively required for this activity. It is also necessary to instrumentation (in contract with other capital goods). Any attempt at reconditioning of instrumentation must aim at a higher echelon of product technology of course, at reasonable cost.

Another facility found to be in good demand was the facilities for regular calibration and recalibration of existing instruments. For all except the very large instrumentation users, an in-house facility for the calibration or recalibration of their instruments is too expensive to install or maintain. In many cases such periodic recalibration of equipment should be a contractual or legal requirement. In any case, it is always advisable for users of critical instruments to get their key instruments regularly checked and up-dated                                                                                                                                  

Demand for Services

Extent of usage of instrumentation among different users & industries varies considerably in the Indian context. With growing competitive pressure, increasing automation & precision of measurements and controls are now being sought by users. In the existing scenario, investment in instrumentation related to the plant investment in a given use or industry varies considerably ranging from 0.1% to 6%. The low figure is for older plants which the high figure is for modern, green-fields project. There is also variation according to the using industry. Thus modernization of other plants to enhance instrumentation content will provide additional demand for services.

The existing population of instrumentation is in use of an extent of about 85% on weighted average basis. Since the Indian economy is getting ready to absorb more modern instrumentation, utilization must further improve & therefore, will need modern management of maintenance & repairs. Improvement in service & maintenance will not only further increase the usage level of existing instrumentation but also pave the way for better use of the more sophisticated and expensive instruments of future. Actions begun now can have considerable effect on the utilization of sophisticated instruments of the future.

This study has, alt all points, been conservative in estimating & quantifying the overall problem relating to instrumentation. Nevertheless, we foresee as detailed- out in the report, the present instrumentation annual demand or Rs. 13 billion in 1993 expanding to Rs. 29 Billion by the end of the century, postulating an average use- life of 7 years; it is seen that the present population of instruments would be (at original value) Rs. 70 Billion. This would, by the end of century rise to a population valued at over Rs. 155 Billion.

Based on the kind of maintenance estimates indicated by the respondents, the above population will call for annual outside maintenance business exceeding Rs. 2.5 Billion currently &rising to Rs. 5.5 Billion at end century. With increasing sophistication of instrumentation and inflating costs, one could look forward to a larger requirement than that. Study also indicates the value of population of disused equipments which could need repairs and reinstallation to rise from Rs. 2.2 Billion currently to over Rs. 5.0 Billion by end of century. Some of these instruments would need total overhaul, refurbishments & upgradation.

When we realize that instrumentation is only one area of sophisticated electronics equipments and note that there are other areas like Industrial Electronics, Office Automation, Data Processing, Telecom and so on, the magnitude of the S, R&M problem can be appreciated. It is clear that even a partial solution will call for active participation and co-operation from a number of entities towards a common goal                                                                                                                 

Effectiveness of Arrangements

There are quite a few alternatives which are found to exist for maintaining instrumentation – in-house staff, instrument suppliers, specialized Government Centres and Private parties. The choice regarding use of any of these options depends on location of user, competence level, cost effectiveness, complexity of fault, etc.

Predominantly, use of in-house facility is extensively made for common & simple card level faults. These simple faults though occurring frequently are not the measure of importance of the fault to uptime. A large percentage of users were found to be satisfied with this kind of in-house services. Since the maintenance is mainly at first & second levels and since between 40% to 50% were doing it in-house, the satisfaction expressed by their maintenance staff could be blased. However, this is not an indicator regards complex break-downs.

Next to in-house maintenance, many of the users (40%) are also dependent on suppliers for maintenance especially for critical types of instruments. The users perception of suppliers services is not entirely satisfactory; especially where locations away from metropolis is concerned. While large manufacturers of major brands have branches or agents from where technicians can be sent to the site, small & medium manufacturers resist or delay such actions.

Independent services to carry out maintenance are now emerging as a small business. These independent service providers possess adequate expertise to maintain a variety of instruments. Being small outfits, they contain their service territory to the zone around their location. Further, they confine their services to a limited class of products where they have past experience. Thus, to the limited clientele, they ar perceived as giving satisfactory service.

It was found that the approach by parastatal institutions for providing servicing & maintenance support to a wide variety of instruments has been erratic and inconsistent. At present, there are 2 Government agencies namely CSIO and DOE who have set-up full-fledged facilities for providing R&M services to industry. There were originally nine such centres set-up by CSIO (which have now been paved down to three) and about 13 centres by DOE operated through State Electronics Corporation.

These centres appear to be operating in an unviable fashion and there is a question as to their continuance in the new atmosphere of undertaking only self-sustaining activities. It is to be noted that only 3% of respondents admitted to having used services from these centres. These respondents were mainly from non-industrial user category.

Qualitative discussions with a wide spectrum of industrial respondents indicated the following points:

•   neturally skeptical of government services

•  UniUnaware of the existence of such service
•  Were not approached to know of their requirements
•  Gempressed by the lengthy procedure
•  Recipients were critical of delays in servicing

Thus government service centres need to improve their operations considerably to find wider clientele on a commercial basis.

In addition to above mentioned centres, several educational institutions like IIT’s, Major Engineering Colleges, even Physics Dept. of Major Universities and Laboratories under Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) specialized in certain areas of expertise have been helping from time to time with R&M of instrumentation when they are approached and pursued. Since these institutions do their own in-house maintenance in any case, they have the wherewithal and expertise to tackle at least some of the R&M problems. However, since they have other objectives to fulfill, they do not volunteer nor seek other maintenance tasks. Naturally, they do not equip themselves with spares other than standard components. It may be possible to make use of these facilities and expertise with proper coordination, augmentation, for wider coverage of providing R&M services.   

Magnitude of Problems

Maintenance & repair activities were not given adequate importance during the past in almost all sectors of the economy. Many users have not instituted regular maintenance & servicing practices. These are undertaken on “as & when required” basis when there is a problem in the instrument. This has resulted in downtime, high cost of servicing and even dis-use of instrument in some cases. It will, therefore, be a major task to educate, discipline & motivate users for adopting and adhering to a proper maintenance practices.

While undertaking maintenance and repair services one will have to keep in mind the large variety of instruments of different ages, different makes, different technologies and level of sophistication. If one has to cater to all these, a proper & efficient management for spares inventory and documentation will be most essential.

The user industries are spread all over the country and many are located at remoter places. Servicing of such a wide-based instrument population will require and efficient and well co-ordinated organized approach.

Onset of software in instrumentation brings along various issues to the fore. Prime being the non-availability of trained manpower with manufacturers, their representatives and users for operational training as well as trouble shooting & maintenance. Usage of software in any field always require proper documentation back-up.

Availability at service centres of trained manpower & continuous up-dating of their knowledge are of utmost importance. Formal diploma or graduate education generally restricts to training to the basics of the subject. However, special raining programmes of various depths during the service can help a person to achieve finesse in maintenance. This is all the more true for more complex break-downs. Our survey reveals that his fact has been underestimated or perhaps neglected by the users, manufacturers and service centres alike.

Ways & Means

Constraints that face the Centres which are handling the above task are partly physical & partly management. These will have to be tackled for creating an efficient operating mechanism for alleviating S, R & M difficulties. First among them is creating awareness & gaining confidence of users & manufacturers. One should not underestimate the marketing task & public relation exercise which will e necessary to build the right kind of image.

To reach up to the challenging task of meeting the requirements of S, R&M and to gather viable orders, ground level contacting will be necessary to all types of users all over the country wherever the users are. Policies, procedures, pricing & operations will have to be geared to steady turnover of business from canvassing orders to quoting to attending calls to repairing & reinstalling the equipment. Only then is there a chance of neutralizing the overheads burden of the centres.

Identification, acquisition, classification, storage retrieval, and dissemination of essential information will be a substantial managerial task. The information would include catalogs, manuals, maintenance documents, spares inventory, expertise, location and feedbacks from the field.

Users training program to bring them to a point of competence to undertake certain basic repairs will be essential. This can be accomplished in a number of ways as detailed out in the report. Maintenance problems can be further contained by motivating and energizing the local manufacturers of instrument to invest in and set-up for increasingly effective servicing & maintenance. Steps of “arming the users” and “energizing the suppliers” can, if properly implemented, take care of a substantial routine load at the point of use for process instrumentation and routine Test & Measurement.

On the other hand, the gap in requirements of advanced T&M, Analytical & Medial Instrumentation is and will continue to be large. Instrumentation for Special Application is also an area where the advanced skills of the maintenance providers can face a challenge. The role of S&M bodies would be important in such cases since the user would generally have to rely on outside help. The proposed program would do well to focus its efforts in these areas of need.

Foe effectiveness o service & wider acceptance, it is essential that providers of a service should be located as close to users and possible. A ‘Three Tier Structure’ has been suggested for this purpose. The Ground Level Centres will have territorial role in that they are to develop and handle S&M business in their assigned area. Such centres can include properly selected ETDC’s. IIT’s, Engineering Colleges, existing S&M Centres,. Etc.

As they stand, these organizations are doing casual repair work without clear mandate or organization.

While the above S&M cells would each tackle and execute the general business in its won territory, there will be some occasions when specialized knowledge and hands-on experience of an advanced kind would be needed. Depending should be formed as a next layer of the proposed three-layer structure. Their particular expertise could then be referred from anywhere in India.

It may not be feasible to establish & maintain such a wide network without co-working with various other agencies. In this proposed organization, “National Program on Instrumentation” (NPI) or its designated body should function as the Apex Body. The major role of such a body will be more of administration, co-ordination, policy making, technical * managerial support, etc. as detailed out in the report. A formal structure of centres & sub-centres will need to be created.

To ensure that the proposed network is self-sustaining and capable of financing future growth, a market oriented approach on the part of various constituents of the organization would be necessary. This may involve a re-orientation in outlook and a radically different approach as compared to the current pattern of operation of S&M activities. Motivation of staff, up-dating knowledge base, periodic training for staff on technical as well as managerial subjects, etc. will bring benefits in the form of continually improving performance and confidence.

For ensuring a market-oriented approach and a self-supporting organization, it would be wise to set-up an ’Autonomous Society’. The Society would be responsible to muster the fixed & working capitals as planned for the scheme. By targeting sustainability at each cell, giving it reasonable leeway to manage local affairs insisting on clear management reporting each quarter and then holding each Cell responsible, it should be possible to establish a reasonably efficient and growing network of S, R&M Cells which can play their part and contribute to the growing efficiency of the Indian economy.