End user design and implementation of a fleet maintenance management system for Uganda National Forestry Authority.

Abstract

Lack of timely information on the condition of fleet coupled with an inefficient process for maintenance planning and poor control of fleet that need maintenance, contribute to increased fleet downtime thereby increasing maintenance costs and reducing fleet productivity. The prevailing manual fleet maintenance management system at the National Forestry Authority uses checklist administration through a manual laborious paperwork process, which is prone to human errors and omissions, process delays, and labour-intensive handling. The aim of the study was to develop a prototype computerized fleet maintenance management system for the National Forestry Authority. A comprehensive review of information systems development eras and system development life cycle models was done in order to give the researcher a clear perspective and criteria for the choice of model to use during system design for the project. Data was also collected from existing documents of the manual fleet maintenance management system and prospective end users who included drivers, suppliers/service providers and management staff. System implementation was done using the waterfall model. The developed computerized system operates on Oracle database while the programming was done using Java, XML and Visual Basic programming languages. System testing was performed using the structured query language to run queries to the database and compare the results with feedback expectations. The system was found to be successful at resolving the most pertinent issues in the transport unit at the National Forestry Authority. It is concluded that while the waterfall model runs successfully on computers with high memory, it may be prone to updating inability since each phase must be frozen before moving to the next phase. The study recommends further refinement to improve system efficiency to a commercialised version. Further research is recommended using agile SDLCs like XP and RUP which are user driven, architecture-centric, iterative and incremental.