SAIIE26 Proceedings, 14 th – 16 th of July 2014, Muldersdrift, South Africa © 2014 SAIIE 1173-1 DEVELOPMENT OF A CONDITION BASED MAINTENANCE SYSTEM FOR A SUGAR PRODUCING COMPANY B. Chindondondo 1 , L. Nyanga 2 , A. Van der Merwe 2 , T. Mupinga 3 and S Mhlanga 4 1 Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe 1 bchindondondo@gmail.com 3 tapiwampinga@gmail.com 2 Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Stellenbosch, inyanga@sun.ac.za 4 Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Johannesburg, South Africa smhlanga126@gmail.com ABSTRACT With globalisation taking centre stage in almost every market; traditionally monopolistic manufacturing companies in Zimbabwe are struggling to compete with international companies whose operations are optimised. This paper focuses on maintenance practises of a Zimbabwean sugar manufacturer with an aim to improve the company’s asset care plans. The company’s current maintenance philosophy and its shortcomings on certain equipment in the plant were identified together with the associated annual maintenance costs. A Pareto analysis on the equipment’s breakdown history was used to determine the conditions that can be monitored using Condition Based Maintenance (CBM); and experiments to establish the feasibility of monitoring these conditions were done. The paper then recommends and proposes a CBM system replete with its three main elements of data acquisition, data processing and maintenance decision making to reduce breakdowns on the subject equipment by at most 76%. * Corresponding Author