A Farmer's Dilemma: Culture Vs Cost Saving even at the expense of Quality

To save on downtime and the costs associated with it, an agricultural machinery and equipment manufacturer in Europe will merge some parts of a machine so that it is a complete unit. Making such a part available as a complete unit in as much as it has immense advantages such as time-saving, it comes at a high cost for the African farmer especially when sourcing for spare parts.?

Downtime Costs versus Spare Parts Costs

Both the European farmer and the African farmer agree that cost-saving is number one priority. Farmers in Europe value downtime. It is justified because of the climatic conditions, the minimum supply of labor and many other contributing factors. It means therefore that the manufacturer in Europe will prioritize minimizing downtime, and promoting one-man one-machine model, while manufacturing machines. In most cases this means that some parts will be manufactured as an entire assembly so that during replacement of a spare as a result of say breakdown, the one-man operator in Europe has an easy time because he requires minimum tools and hands. This however poses a challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Our argument, we have lots of labor-force, we have time, and we save on cost at every stage production, I mean who would not want to save on cost? We also have a culture. Farmers on this side embrace the easiest, most affordable and easy-fix way of life. This becomes a problem when it is at the expense of quality. Mostly we end up in Industrial area looking for a quick-fix bearing. It is killing us, it is killing the life-time of our machines. What else can we do? I ask. It is always a cry from every corner: prices for the genuine parts are out of pocket, the market is flooded with counterfeits, policies are not curbing the importation of counterfeits, or this gear works just well, “unashtuka nini ?” (“What is there to worry, even this fits perfectly just like the genuine part”)?

Most of these cries are justified, some are not. What is the way forward? Carry out due diligence before a purchasing a machine? No? A little effort to ensure the dealer has credible after-sale service is a step in the right direction. A culture to care for our machines because it is an investment just like any other could also be very helpful. Also,dear farmers learn to buy genuine parts.

Quickly let us go back to matters at hand.

What a farmer in one quarter would consider an advantage in minimizing downtime, is seen as an increase in cost in other quarters. To illustrate this well is the use of an assembly part as in the previous example. A complete part can be manufactured, assembled and sold as broken down individual parts or a complete assembly. On this side of the Sahara we have no problem with individual parts, in fact we advocate for that because it not only saves on cost but also promotes local business because the part can be machined as a copy-cat at a local parts workshop.

What options does a farmer in Sub-Saharan Africa have on such matters? Does he look elsewhere to other regions where cheap parts are available and more so, the machining of equipment and their spare parts is as per what you can afford? Where everything is possible and available? Where bending around engineering standards is almost a norm. I believe it is at this point that cost wins over quality, but at what cost?