Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

Center of Biomedical Engineering
Master Thesis Proposal on
Management of Laboratory Equipments with Maintenance database
application and their Cost Effective Preventive Maintenance Strategy
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in
Biomedical Engineering
by: Sakata Abera Mengesha, (GSR/0994/08)
Advisor: Dr. Mengistu Kifle

Abstract
Properly functioning laboratory equipment is a critical component for strengthening healthcare delivery
systems. Management of laboratory equipment such as Celldyn 1800, Mindray Chemistry analyzer and
FACSCount (Fluorescent Activated Cell Sorter Counter) with maintenance application database and
better cost effective preventive maintenance strategy rather than relying on curative maintenance that will
cost more money, plays an important role in giving better healthcare delivery. Specifically, management
of laboratory equipment is important within each facility and the equipment will be managed within
scheduled time frame. If equipment is managed, the required preventive, curative and predictive
maintenance will be done successfully. To do so, there must be a tool that will help in keeping equipment
life history by recording the immediate life history, specification, spares, manuals, warranty management
and arranging the required preventive maintenance within specified time frame for the recorded
equipments. As a solution the current problem of laboratory equipment can be solved by management of
laboratory equipments with maintenance database and maximizing the use of well scheduled preventive
maintenance. All laboratories should have a well-organized equipment management program. The
program should address equipment selection, preventive maintenance, and procedures for troubleshooting
and repair. The main current problems facing laboratory is that there are different brands of equipments
bought from different companies that work the same tests so that the lab cannot manage to have adequate
training on those different equipments. Proper management of laboratory with scheduled preventive
maintenance will decrease service interruption by minimizing frequent equipment failure.

Key words: maintenance database application, Preventive maintenance, Curative maintenance

antiretroviral therapy equipments, invasive and non-invasive

Table of Contents

page
Abstract.................................................................................................................. i
1.

Introduction................................................................................................... 1

2.

Background.................................................................................................... 1

3.

General Objective.......................................................................................... 2

3.1.

Specific Objective....................................................................................... 3

4.

Literature Review........................................................................................... 3

5.

Problem statement........................................................................................ 3

6.

Research questions........................................................................................ 4

6.1. Laboratory Equipment Management................................................................4

7.

Materials and Methods...................................................................................5

8.

Methodology.................................................................................................. 6

9.

Project work plan........................................................................................... 7

10. Budget Estimation......................................................................................... 8

Reference.............................................................................................................. 9

1. Introduction
Laboratory equipments are tools or devices that help for disease diagnosis and screening process
in the laboratory or tools and equipment used by scientists working in a laboratory (Wikipedia,
2015). The current problem that resides in Ethiopia concerning laboratory equipment is there is
no adequate laboratory equipment management from other medical device in hospitals
separately. Identification of laboratory equipment from other hospital equipments that directly
interact with patient (in-vivo) can be possible with the use of equipment maintenance database.
Laboratory equipments require proper management with full history and proper scheduled
preventive maintenance to ignore service interruption and also to enhance equipment life span.
Equipments will deploy at the health facility without any prior information about the operation
status and warranty management. Laboratory equipment management is one of the essential parts
of quality management system as it helps to maintain high level of laboratory performance and
lengthens instruments life span. Equipment immediate history filing was not still adopted so that
after installation the device will not have on time planned maintenance strategy and no
management of warranty at all. To curb the problem of lab equipment management and to foster
well scheduled preventive maintenance there must be reliable centralized or institutionalized
laboratory equipment management system that everyone can get up-to-date information from
their customized database. Properly functioning laboratory equipment is a critical component for
strengthening health systems in Ethiopia, particularly from hospital to health post. According to
EPHI regional laboratory capacity building, besides capacity building for regional health
hospitals, laboratory equipment will be an entry point to improve population health and care of
individuals for targeted diseases - prevention, care, and treatment of TB, HIV/AIDS, malaria and
other disease outbreak as diagnostic tools throughout the country. A public health approach
promotes the most-efficient and cost-effective use of limited resources to serve the majority of
the population. A public health approach to disease management require effective keeping of
laboratory and preparing guidelines to ensure therapeutically effective and economically efficient
disease management. To enhance this effective way of laboratory equipment management, cost
effective way of laboratory equipment maintenance strategy is the case solution for laboratory
equipment management.

2. Background
Laboratory equipment management and creating a solid cost effective preventive maintenance
strategy with optimized laboratory equipment maintenance (Labwell, 2012) is essential element
of quality healthcare delivery system. Proper management of equipments in the laboratory is
necessary to ensure accurate, reliable and timely testing. To have such a profile system it is better
to have proper cost effective preventive maintenance strategy that leads to better disease
diagnosis and screening. Management and maintenance of laboratory equipment (Cox, 2014)
here in a sense starts from the date of purchase or donation to end life span of the equipment. In
Page 1 | 9

this case it is helpful to select the best instrument for the laboratory and immediate record of
equipment profile. Specifically, management of laboratory equipment is important within each
facility and the equipment will be managed within scheduled time frame. If equipment is
managed, the required preventive, curative and predictive maintenance will be done successfully.
In Ethiopia there are many laboratory equipments with different brands with different spares,
reagents and operating principles. To manage such diversified laboratory equipments with its
respective spares and reagents proper management is important. For countries like Ethiopia it is
impossible to buy different spare parts and to give service training for these different brands of
equipments. Equipments in each facility will stop working due to lack of proper training on
equipment operation, preventive maintenance, spare part, reagents and service manual. Those
laboratory equipments are known by the general name of ART (Antiretroviral therapy) machine
and have great impact on the health of Ethiopian population at large. Keeping and recording the
up-to-date information about these equipments has ample advantage in giving immediate service
delivery to the community at large. Rather than paper based document and maintenance log sheet
it is important to have a system that will automate the history of those equipments. Maintenance
database application will be a solution to this problem so that anyone could maintain from the
data base and history file recording will be recorded in the data base for the reporting of
equipment information. Many laboratory tests are needed to provide the comprehensive package
of testing required for public health programs. All these tests require commodities, functioning
equipment, trained personnel, and infrastructure. Strategies to standardize and streamline the
provision of testing services can help to simplify and fundamentally improve the efficiency,
quality, and affordability of testing for both the service provider and the patient so that it is
important in strengthening laboratory services and systems in limited resource settings.
(PROJECT, 2010, pp. 1-30).

3. General Objective
The main purpose of this paper focuses specifically on management of laboratory equipments by
creating equipment management database with better cost effective preventive maintenance
strategy rather than relying on curative maintenance that will cost much money. As a solution the
current problem of laboratory equipment can be solved by maximizing the use of well scheduled
preventive maintenance. Largely, the paper deals with management of laboratory equipment such
as Hematology analyzer (Celldyn 1800), FACSCount (CD4 Machine) and Chemistry Analyzer
(HS80 and BS 2000- Mindray Machine) with maintenance database application for the proper
care and to manage their spare parts and to keep them on safe and optimum condition that
enhance the life span for longer duration. All laboratories should have a well-organized
equipment management program. The program should address equipment selection, preventive
maintenance, and procedures for troubleshooting and repair. It is essential (Ratliff, 2003) that
good documents and records be maintained that will include a complete and accurate inventory
of all laboratory equipment, documents provided by the manufacturer on operation, maintenance,
and troubleshooting, and records of all preventive maintenance and repair activities. Categorize
Page 2 | 9

equipments bought by government fund and donated equipments; there by helps to limit and
identify the number of equipment in each facility.

3.1. Specific Objective

Management of specific laboratory equipment with equipment database

Undertake immediate record of equipment on purchase due date
Monitor the daily status of equipment at facility through database intervention
Do online preventive and curative maintenance
Monitor their spares with their respective reagents in stock
Manage the equipment warranty date

4. Literature Review
In Ethiopian context there is no more formal and institutionalized data base that will keep the
record of laboratory equipment specifically. There is paper based equipment recording system
that will generalize equipments ranging from invasive (therapeutic) to non-invasive (diagnostic)
equipment. This is very general and not suitable to manage with its diverse brand of equipment
dealers. In this context the work will consider only specific laboratory equipments and keeping
the daily record of equipment information in the created database.

5. Problem statement
The main problems of health institutions and hospitals regarding laboratory equipments is when
they buy equipment or get them by donation, there will no immediate registration of the new
equipment on the modern database, so that they will forget whereabouts of the lab equipment
after sometimes later. They do not even manage the number and type of spare part, manuals and
other accessories. They may not able to manage equipment spares and reagents in stock as there
is no modern laboratory equipment management system and lack of proper handling which leads
to loss of asset at the national level. In the context of Ethiopian hospitals and health institutions,
the main bottleneck of equipment failure is lack of dedicated management, proper pre-service
and in service training and preventive maintenance. The main current problems facing laboratory
is that there are different brands of equipments bought from different companies that work the
same tests so that the lab cannot manage to have adequate training on those different equipments.
Lack of maintenance policy at centralized level will hinder not to work on effective laboratory
equipment management (Collins, 2006). In context of these issues, equipments simply deployed
in each facility due to lack of proper management and on time installation and equipments finish
their warranty without giving service. This mismanagement resides from lack of proper
management. For the installed equipment, the lab personnel will not do preventive maintenance
in their due date due to lack of proper training and this leads to equipment failure. Avoiding
preventive maintenance leads to curative maintenance, but the country cant afford to buy
tremendous amounts of spare parts for many different types of equipment by allocating money
Page 3 | 9

for individual equipments. A great deal of thought and planning should go into laboratory
equipment management in context of Ethiopian economic standard; otherwise it leads to serious
issue in economic area. As the country cant afford to buy different types of spare parts for
different types of equipments, there must be well organized system of cost effective preventive
maintenance method at country level and strong country leadership and commitment are needed
to assure development and sustained implementation of policies and strategies for this type of
management of laboratory equipment, and regulation of its procurement, donation, disposal, and
replacement. It is believed to be better policy to have a central repair establishment in the
country to which delicate laboratory equipment can be sent for repairs, so EPHI has standing in
front in doing so but still something more to do for the establishment of electronic databases for
specific laboratory equipment inventory management, which permit efficient analysis of device
performance and rapid retrieval of risk management information. (Peter N. Fonjungo, Laboratory
equipment maintenance: A critical bottleneck for strengthening health, 2012).
In all hospitals in Ethiopia, there is an SOP standard on how to do preventive maintenance by
laboratorians, but more than written documents no action was taken seriously on daily, weekly
and monthly preventive maintenance. Those tasks will be taken place on the date the lab will
going to be accredited by external body. This type of task will lead equipment to serious damage
that will not even be curable by corrective maintenance.

6. Research questions
1. How will laboratory equipments be managed?
2. What are the advantages of managing specific laboratory equipment together with spare
part management in preventing service interruption?
3. How will cost effective preventive maintenance be legalized at country level? How to
manage in-service training for the Engineers/technicians

6.1. Laboratory Equipment Management

The maintenance database application is also very important in keeping the record of the
equipment. The application database piloted in EPHI will be one indicator. This system is a tool
to manage equipment status, calibration, failures history, consumed spare parts, and the
configuration setup. Besides this the institute have to work in future on how to schedule
equipment preventive maintenance more frequently with regions so that regions communicate
directly with EPHI engineers on daily basis about the daily work of the equipment and this will
enhance the equipment functionality care in hand and boosts healthcare service delivery. More
than 60% of instrument failure is caused not by functional breakdown, but lack of preventive
maintenance. That is why equipment management and well organized and scheduled preventive
maintenance strategy is important in reducing investment through planning. Preventive
maintenance can prolong the useful life of equipment and generate significant savings.
Responses to repair requests are delayed or never happen, due perhaps to inattention from
facility staff, or lack of training for routine preventive maintenance. Even in facilities where
Page 4 | 9

preventive maintenance is carried out, there is often no documentation of how or when. Each
facility needs to develop a reliable system for routine preventive maintenance to ensure
reliability of results and prolong the life of equipment. Equipment management can be achieved
for any particular equipment or system by considering its management over its operational life a
beginning, middle, and an end phase. The adoption of clinical engineering department at each
facility level will keep and ensure the equipment safe standard. (Justin P. McCarthy*, 2014).
Some other reasons for why this paper conceived was it should be considerable that laboratory
equipments management is used for:
Accurate results
The result of a clinical test or laboratory experiment might vary when the machines and
equipment involved are damaged or spoiled due to consistent use. It might put the health of
patients at risk.
High level performance
Though every test and trial demand the precision in procedure to conclude result, when it comes
to medical applications, the need of accuracy becomes even more intense.
Low repair costs
When equipments or machines are handled with care and at regular intervals of time, chances for
high cost damage become low. It would save you from spending on sudden and unexpected high
maintenance expenses.
Lifespan Increases
Equipment care and management should be the topmost priority in order to reap long term
benefits.
Customer satisfaction
There is no doubt with every big or small investment; customer satisfaction is required so that
results associated with them would determine your proficiency.

Page 5 | 9

Increased Safety
Safety is a critical issue in order to conduct safe practices and deliver safe results. (Laboratory
Management, 2016)

7. Materials and Methods

The study used in this report will be descriptive study section quantitative and qualitative
methods that will employ in the data collection. The two approaches will tend to complement
each other for the intention of this study and triangulate qualitative and quantitative methods of
gathering data. The data will be collected from various sources observed during the work time in
each facility, on job exposure and of different recorded documentations, some interviews with
the end-user, technical team and procurement agency of medical equipment, and various
professionals. The sources of information are data collection instruments, including
questionnaire, checklists, and observation and discussions are used. EPHI is the most suitable to
investigate the status of laboratory equipments and their information. To do the tasks, I will
develop database for the immediate register of equipment with their model, serial number,
company of manufacturing, availability of all the spare parts and warranty management, the
down time management decide the equipment life span. Laboratory equipments will be managed,
stored in maintenance application data base with full history including manuals, country of
manufacturer, spare parts, warranty system, all the individual equipment specification and
reagents in stock.
Materials required to design the database will be selected according to their importance
from the following
MSQL
Visual studio

Page 6 | 9

8. Methodology
This paper will intend on how the laboratory equipment management and maintenance
database application will be designed to keep the immediate registering of newly
arriving equipments and the old one in one box to have up-to-date information about
the equipment history. Data base will be created that has all the information about the
equipment so that any user can get the equipment information that lasts for many years
if not removed by the administrator.

A. Source of information
Laboratory managers, laboratory technologist, end users are the most source of
information to tell the status and progress of laboratory equipments and are solution
seekers

B. Study conditions
The study area will contain observation at each lab facility, questionnaires for the
laboratory technologist and managers, reading log sheets in each lab facility, and
checking data completeness and consistency.
Generally, investigating the way laboratory equipments are exposed in health
institutions and hospitals and finding the way solution can be adopted for the best
analysis.
So the proper management of lab equipment will enhance service delivery through

standardized equipment maintenance. According to this the proposed method is the use
of computerized method of equipment management from the date of purchase/donation
to disposal level, on time and legalized method of preventive maintenance rather than
depending on curative maintenance, online identification of equipment in facility with
their respective spare parts and reagents in stock, standardized training for performing
and documenting routine cleaning and preventive maintenance helps prolong the life of
the equipment. In-service training could constitute part of preventive maintenance, but
biomedical engineers also need pre-service training to attend to minor instrument
problems and triage equipment malfunction. Laboratory equipment standardization
will include the software to manage equipment inventory and equipment identification
and equipment information management system. This assures compliance with set
standards and continuing compliance with regulatory requirements for all quality
management systems, including laboratory equipment maintenance. It reviews
calibration and validation of equipment performance after installation and periodically
testing and investigation equipment function progress. This will be an input for

laboratory accreditation (Peter N. Fonjungo, Laboratory equipment maintenance: A critical

bottleneck for strengthening health, 2012).

9. Project work plan

Months

Activitie
s

Proposal
submission
and
defense
Submit
protocol
forms and
any tested
survey
tools to
supervisor
and
advisor
Conclude
primary
source
research
and
present
working
outline to
advisors
Submit
first draft
to the
supervisor
and
conduct
any
additional
recommen
dation

S
e
p
t
e
m
b
e
r

N
o
v
e
m
b
e
r

Ju

Complete
revision
from the
supervisor
and edit
my work
for further
approval
Thesis
compilatio
n and
submission
of draft
Setup
defense
date after
draft
approval
Thesis
defense
completion

10.

Budget Estimation

Materials
required

U
n
i
t
p
r
i
c
e

Qua
ntity

Tot
al
cost

Photo copying

100.0
0

100.
00

Memory Hard disk

1
.
0
0
1

1,50

Re
mar
k

Flash disk

Paper for printing

Travel

Questionnaires

Printing

Pen, marker and

pencil

Database and other

software configuring

Unforeseen

Total

9,38

5
0
0
.
0
0
5
0
0
.
0
0
8
0
.
0
0
1
5
0
.
0
0
0
.
0
0
3
.
0
0
5
.
0
0
3
0
0
.
0
0
5
0
0
0
.
0
0

0.00

500.
00

400.
00

10

1,50
0.00

0.00

10

30.0
0

10

50.0
0

300.
00

5,00
0.00

0.00

Reference
Collins, L. (2006, February 7). Managing laboratory maintenance. Retrieved
June 8, 2016, from American Laboratory: www.americanlaboratory.com/914Application-Note/18808-Managing-Laboratory-Maintenance/
Cox, T. (2014, June 4). Labmate-Online. Retrieved June 8, 2016, from
Laboratory Products: www.labmate-online.com/articles/laboratoryproducts/3/amit_pratap_rathore/laboratory_equipment_maintenance
Justin P. McCarthy*, R. S. (2014). Health Technology Management. In A.
TAKTAK, A Handbook for Clinical and Biomedical engineers (pp. 45-48). UK:
Elsevier.

 Laboratory Management. (2016, January 20). Retrieved April 28, 2016, from
Management of laboratory equipment:
https://laboratoryequipmentonline.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/laboratoryequipments-management/
Labwell. (2012, July 9). Lab Manager. Retrieved June 8, 2016, from
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fw1pk=2#.V1giFeSjDIU
Peter N. Fonjungo, Y. K. (2012). Laboratory equipment maintenance: A
critical bottleneck for strengthening health. Journal of Public Health Policy ,
33, 35-40.
Peter N. Fonjungo, Y. K. (2012). Laboratory equipment maintenance: A
critical bottleneck for strengthening health. Journal of Public Health Policy ,
33, 34-45.
PROJECT, U. |. (2010). Laboratory standirdization. Arlington-USA: U.S.
Agency for International Development.
Ratliff, T. A. (2003). Laboratory Quality Assurance System. In T. A. Ratliff,
Preventive Maintenance (pp. 16-18). Canada: Wiley.
Wikipedia. (2015, May 25). Encyclopaedia. Retrieved June 2, 2016, from
Laboratory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory#Laboratory_equipment