Investigating Water Supply System Electro-Mechanical Equipment Problems: A Case Study of Ethiopia

Water is an essential element of life. The government of Ethiopia in collaboration with development allies’ attempts to increase pure water supply. Even though the coverage boosted dramatically still there is critical challenges in maximizing equipment’s reliability, improving service quality, maximizing capacity utilization, minimizing life cycle costs of water production machinery and reducing water waste. The objective of this study was to identify installation, operation, maintenance and related challenges, to evaluate the performance of pump station and to investigate the root causes so as improvements can be made deliberately. In this regard 20 town water supply stations were selected in Amhara region of Ethiopia and initially on site visit carried out and various existing situational surveys regarding the existing installation, operation and maintenance practice have been conducted. Next information collected using questionnaires, interview and focus group discussions. Then imperative performance indicating measurements taken and the data organized and important performance indicating parameters were analyzed using quantitative techniques. The study proved that all the pump stations run under the minimum performance requirements and the problems are deep enough to challenge the service quality and service cost of the pump stations. Unless the problems will be solved soon systematically the problems may be even mature to the nastiest situation that cannot handled.