Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate factors affecting the delivery of military vehicles
during depot level maintenance and repair by contractors. The military vehicles were
manufactured 35 years ago when South Africa was still engaged in war. However, since the
country is no longer at war, the government has decided that no more new military vehicles
(Samil) will be manufactured. The current fleet therefore needs to be maintained and repaired
more effectively and cost-efficiently so that it can be available for deployment at anytime,
anywhere in the country. Armscor have dealer networks (contractors) in the nine provinces of
South Africa to conduct depot level maintenance and repair of the military vehicles. About 91
military vehicles are sent to contractors each year for depot level maintenance and repair; the
time allocated to complete each vehicle is 30 days. The research question focuses on the
employees who are directly involved in the depot level maintenance and repair of military
vehicles: the contractors (project managers and skilled personnel), the Armscor project
managers, the Armscor quality specialists and the SA army product systems managers.
The research shows that four factors affect the delivery of military vehicles during depot level
maintenance and repair by the contractors. These are:
· Ordering and receiving spares and components from the original equipment
manufacturer (contractors project managers are not ordering spares and components on
time from the original equipment manufacturer as per the bill of material which affects
the delivery of the military vehicles from the depot);
· Quality control inspection and acceptance (when Armscor quality specialists arrive for
inspection, the vehicles are not ready for inspection);
· Reporting and communication (Armscor process flow & project plan to conduct depot
level maintenance and repair is not effective and Armscor project plans are not executed
at depot level); and
· Productivity of personnel (both male and female personnel are not motivated to be
productive in executing depot level maintenance and repair of the military vehicles which
affects the timeous delivery of the military vehicles).
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)