Our Services include the Supply and Installation of Equipment, Commissioning and Training, Warranty, Repair, and Maintenance of Equipment including after-sales service.
DESIGN, SUPPLY AND INSTALLATION OF EQUIPMENT
Taking the stress out of the hospital including surgery planning, design, and installation, our highly-skilled team, which is customer-facing has many years of experience and the capability to recommend new equipment or offer quotations and designs for the customer. Installations of the equipment supplied is done in a manner that will last and also guarantee the equipment warranty.
WARRANTY, REPAIR, MAINTENANCE AND EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY
While the equipment supplied is of very high quality, very robust, and reliable, nevertheless, long-term warranties of three to five years from defects in materials and workmanship are guaranteed to provide further assurances of equipment quality and also peace of mind. The warranty period involves free maintenance services and the guarantee of high equipment availability, including repair or replacement of equipment within short periods of being notified of equipment non-functionality for faults or defects that prevent the equipment from being used.Repairs and maintenance are responded to according to their level of priority, such as whether they are emergency repairs, routine repairs or planned maintenance:
involve faults or defects that prevent the equipment from being used. They are responded to within 48 hours or thereabouts from the time of reporting, with the work completed within this period to minimize equipment downtime.
involve all faults or defects including condition-based that do not prevent the equipment from being used. They are responded to within 7 days or thereabouts from the time of reporting with the work completed within this period. This also ensures that the fault or defect does not degenerate into a major problem.
maintenance is carried out according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Weekends are usually utilized for such work to avoid interruptions to the hospital’s operations.
SPARE PARTS MANAGEMENT
Spare parts play an important role in realizing the desired availability of equipment at a minimum economic cost. Therefore, a spare parts management system (i.e. a set of principles, policies, procedures, guidelines, and tools that enable the identification, procurement, control, accounting for, and disposal of spare parts) is employed via computer software to support the high equipment availability to further reduce to the barest minimum the effects of equipment downtime. This is implemented through a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) programme, also known as continuous replenishment or supplier-managed inventory. VMI offers a competitive advantage in that it results in higher equipment availability and service level as well as lower inventory monitoring and ordering cost. Stocking and storing surplus inventory at the customer’s require space and resources that could otherwise be used for different projects and tasks. The VMI programme allows the customer to stock only what it needs (such as ‘fast-moving’ parts like filters and handpieces cartridges) while Quality X Limited takes on the task of storing and maintaining the inventory off-site. Thus, the VMI programme does not only reduce the customer’s inventory stocks, but also ensure that the customer does not have to wait for parts to arrive from the manufacturer (outside Ghana), so their operation can run more fluidly with steady and reliable output. In addition, the VMI programme helps to integrate Quality X Limited’s operational decisions and spare parts replenishment so as to attain economies of scale and flexibility.
ENHANCING EQUIPMENT OWNERSHIP VIA TPM
An important aspect of our Service is emphasis on equipment ownership by the customer, i.e. the Users of the equipment. This is because developing countries, in particular public facilities in developing countries, usually have a cyclical culture where the users of the equipment mishandle and ran down the equipment and then turn round to ask Government to repair them. In addition, a culture of reacting to breakdowns and dealing with production losses is unfortunately still a daily routine for most asset-intensive organizations including health facilities in developing countries. Ownership responsibility by the users ensures medical and dental equipment are properly managed to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and longevity of the equipment. The implementation of a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) programme helps in this direction. This programme combines preventive maintenance with total quality control and total employee involvement to create a culture where the users of the equipment develop ownership of their equipment, and become full partners with maintenance and management to assure that the equipment operates properly every day.
A good way to look at TPM is ‘asset deterioration prevention’ and ‘maintenance prevention’, and not fixing or repairing equipment in a constant reactive environment. Most importantly, basic operator care can have a significant positive effect on asset availability coupled with reductions in operations and maintenance expenditures through the achievement of increased asset reliability. The following TPM operators’ principles are useful:
Keep it clean
Keep it lubricated
Monitor for degradation
Maintain it before production is affected
Simplify and improve it
Through training the customer’s staff together with bi-annual inspections and monitoring of the equipment at the customer’s by our Engineers and Technicians, TPM is relied upon as a proactive approach that essentially aims to prevent any kind of losses before occurrence, with motto as “zero error, zero work-related accident and zero loss” and thereby simultaneously enhances equipment ownership.
Training & Consultancy
Training, an important tool for achieving competence, is always an important aspect of our Projects. User training on the proper use of the equipment supplied is provided to bring all staff including Doctors, Nurses and Technicians to a high standard of competency to properly and efficiently operate and take good care of the equipment according to the manufacturers’ instructions. This improves performance and efficiency, increases productivity and also enhances safety in the use of the equipment. In addition, the Training takes care of the problem of the equipment being left to rot in health facilities in developing countries from minor faults because of inadequate knowledge of their maintenance. Furthermore, it goes a long way to avoid abuse and misuse of the equipment, in order not to void the warranty.
After-sales service after the Warranty Period
While the equipment we deal in is of very high quality, and are robust and reliable, there is just one issue that has been the bane of developing countries, i.e. allowing the system or the equipment to fall into a state of disrepair by the lack of a reliable maintenance program. Beyond the warranty period therefore, we suggest a comprehensive maintenance and service contract with the customer to ensure a continued cost-effective solution to avoid equipment failure, and also provide peace of mind to enjoy the use of the high-quality equipment supplied for many years.
MANAGEMENT CAPABILITY
Our Projects depend on project management experience, skilled Engineers, Technicians, and also Administrative support staff. In this regard, both Directors of the company are intimately involved in our projects. Extensive project management capability is brought to bear on the projects by the Directors, who have extensive project management experience. They are directly responsible for the overall supervision of the implementation of projects including ensuring the successful coordination of the procurement, supply, installation, maintenance, and repair as well as the high equipment availability expected. Experts from our foreign Partners, and our very competent Engineers and Technicians as well as Administrative staff ensure great teamwork.