International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 15 Number 3 – Sep 2014
The Challenges of Maintaining Consumer
Electronic Goods in the Era of Digital Divide
by Repair Technicians in Ekiti State of
Nigeria.
Temitope John Alake
Electrical and Electronic Engineering Dept.,
The Federal Polytechnic, Ado- Ekiti.Nigeria
Abstract
Digital divide expresses the gulf or dichotomy
between the haves and haves not technologically
which poses serious practical challenges to good
maintainability of electrical and electronic equipment
within the purview of electronic wastes reduction.
The technological gulf is making the comprehension
of new products difficult to tackle by repair
technicians for effective maintenance. The paper
examines challenges being faced by repair
technicians in maintaining consumer electronic goods
in the face of proliferation of such domestic
appliances. The methodology employed was the use
of structured questionnaires, interview and direct
survey on the research population consisting of
randomly sampled consumer electronics repair
technicians in Ekiti state. Findings revealed that most
repair technicians lack the required competencies and
appropriate diagnostic tools for effective servicing
and maintenance of domestic appliances culminating
to accumulation of large volume of consumer
electronic
equipment
wastes.
However
recommendations are based on the need to have
professionally certified repaired technicians with
requisite skills and competencies which can only be
achieved with the state of the art skill acquisition
centre that would match world class through the
support of manufacturers. Also, the need for policies
against importation of substandard consumer
electronics into the country and its enforcement
would reduce consumer electronic wastes drastically.
Key words: Consumer Electronics, Digital Divide,
E-Wastes, Maintenance, Technicians.
Introduction
The concept of digital divide is a complex one that
manifests itself in different ways in different
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countries. It is clear that there are growing disparities
between the ‘haves’ and ‘haves not’ and to conclude
that the potential impact on society will be
exasperated by technology. The divide poses both
practical and policy challenges. It is also evident that
solutions that work in developed countries cannot
simply be transplanted to a developing country’s
environment. Solution must be based on an
understanding of local needs and conditions of end
users (Alake,1999). The proliferation of consumer
electronic gadgets continue to increase because of the
digital revolution created through improved
technology and ICT that has changed the way the
world works, learn, communicates and transact
business[4].
Menace of consumer electronic wastes cannot be
overemphasized in the way and manner by which
designs are made with reduced life span [9]. When
most of these equipment are considered, the amount
of wastes emanating from them in this century has
attended a remarkable growth and much anxiety and
concern is being generated.[9],[10],[7] established
through various studies that waste in electrical and
electronic equipment(WEEE) is becoming more
tedious because the life span of most electronic goods
is becoming shorter and the quantity of broken or
obsolete equipment being thrown away is increasing.
The fundamental reason is as a result of the evolution
of modern industrialization. Table2 is a reflection of
waste in electrical and electronic equipment accruing
from cathode ray tube television receivers imported
to Nigeria and their consequent end of life options.
The categorization as presented in Table I, is
achieved using the percentage distribution of end of
life cathode ray tube television receivers according to
Besel convention of 2007.
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 15 Number 3 – Sep 2014
Table I. End of Life Distribution of Television
Wastes
Source: Bessel,2007
TableII. The distribution of end of life Cathode Ray
Tube Television Receivers Imported to
Nigeria between 1990 and 2000 AD
Source: [8] Categorization of end of life option for
cathode ray tube television receivers
It is axiomatic that all electronic goods have useful
life span which can be shortened or prolonged from
the way they are serviced and maintained. In the
same manner roles played by proper maintenance
through the efforts of competent repair technicians
cannot be neglected. It is the opinion of the writer
that most of the electronic wastes by way of
impairment, obsoleteness, unserviceability or
abandonment can still be put into active use via the
efforts of competent repair technicians.
Maintenance is a combination of actions carried out
to retain an item in or restore it to normal operational
standard, when effectively done benefits include
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availability of equipment for use, cum operational
readiness and safety of lives. Maintenance of
equipment can takes the form of preventive or
corrective as planned or unplanned. Corrective
maintenance is usually carried out to restore an
equipment which has ceased to meet an acceptable
working/performance conditions but its currently
operational inform of minor repair, overhaul and
replacement of parts when it is planned. In this wise
action is usually anticipated and well prepared ahead
of breakdown while unplanned corrective
maintenance usually take the form of an emergency
with the equipment failure without prior notice like
ruptured protective supply fuse link to an equipment,
which normally requires the attention of skilled
personnel to handled it [2].Preventive maintenance is
usually carried out at predetermined hours to keep the
equipment in good operational conditions by means
of systematic inspection detection and prevention of
incident failure, it makes the mean time between
failure to be very high.
[4] using the EU directive of 2006 classified
consumer electronics into the group of domestic
appliances for social, recreational or entertaining
purposes as radio sets ,television receivers, video
players, compact disc players, musical instruments,
hi-fi recorders and any other product or equipment
for the purpose of recording or reproducing sound or
images including signals or other technologies for the
distribution of sound and image other than
telecommunications. Technology through ICT has
created higher level of returns on investment by
increasing productivity and growth substantially and
this is evident in the array of designs we have in
consumer electronic goods these days [12] .Although
economic development is much more concentrated
in developed countries with little gains to the
developing countries. At the international level new
technologies is re-enforcing the disparities between
the developed societies and the developing societies.
This further strengthens the assertion that while new
technologies are appreciated the vastly available
consumer electronics are alien to repair technicians in
this part of the world and this has made maintenance
of such products very difficult. [13] inferred that
affluent nations are having cutting edge technological
advantage for the reinforcement of the economic
lead over other less privileged states especially in
countries where there are no strict regulations on
importation of electronics goods making them to
become dumping grounds for all manners of sub
standard products[4]. [11], alluded to the fact that
lack of skills ,resources and infrastructures to match
with developed nations in terms of maintenance and
repairs increases the gulf between them
technologically and makes the poor nations more
vulnerable to electronic- wastes dumping .It is
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 15 Number 3 – Sep 2014
axiomatic that all goods have useful life span which
can be shortened or prolonged from the way they are
maintained , the amount of wastes emanating from
them in this century has attended a remarkable
growth and much anxiety and concern is being
generated.
The fundamental reason for this increase is as result
of the evolution of modern industrialization and when
wastes emanate from the house hold items above the
dire consequence of these waste include effective
destruction of the environment .Investigations
revealed that most consumer goods that were
abandoned was as a result of many factors including
inability to get parts replacement, unavailability of
diagnostic tools for effective repair among others.
who are experts in the field of Electrical Engineering
so as to ascertain its face and content validity for use
in data collection. The reliability coefficient was
found to be
0.83. Each questionnaire was
accompanied with a letter of introduction . The
instrument was administered through personal
contacts and with the help of research assistants. Fifty
six (56) repair technicians were contacted across the
five selected areas in an uneven manner based on
population density. Ado Ekiti being the state capital
has the highest number of technicians out which
sixteen were sampled.TableIII reflects the
distribution. In all forty eight completed
questionnaires were returned representing 85.7 %
response.
Population of study
The target population for the study comprised all
electronic repair technicians in Ekiti State of Nigeria
because they are directly involved in maintenance
and servicing of electrical and electronic consumer
goods. There are sixteen local government areas in
Ekiti state ,five of them were carefully selected after
partitioning them in terms of population density and
social amenities status. In this wise the local
government headquarters with tertiary institution
were adjudged to have better human facilities for
electronic products maintenance than those without,
whereas most repair technicians from the surburbs
always visit the selected places for their service parts
purchases. In this wise, Ikole,Oye,Ado ,Ijero and
Ikere were selected for the pilot study.
The questionnaires were administered in each of the
listed five local government areas above with focus
on the institution based towns e.g Ado-Ekiti local
government area is a single town municipal where
two Universities and Federal Government second
generation Polytechnic along side with School of
Nursing are located, Ikere- Ekiti has a University
affiliate and a College of Education located in it,
Oye- Ekiti has the Federal Government owned
University located while the Annex Engineering
Faculty is located in Ikole- Ekiti along side with
Federal Government Unity school, finally Ijero Ekiti
is an ancient town that houses the Ekiti State College
of Health Sciences . In this wise the social amenities
in each of the listed areas for the study cannot be
compared to other areas as they are ranked as urban
areas with access to most socio economic facilities.
Table III. Distribution of questionnaires.
Methodology
Questinnaires containing items for the repair
technicians was developed for this study and
validation was by experts who are COREN(Council
for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria)
registered technicians and some chief technologists
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Statement of problem
It is axiomatic that wastes from consumer electronic
goods like compact disc players, television receivers
(cathode ray tube, flat screens, liquid crystal displays,
plasma and the likes), radio receivers, etc abounds
here and there in workshops of most repair
technicians leading to accumulation of wastes.
However the investigation is to knowing the tools or
resources that are available for the repair technicians
to meet the present challenges in order to be able to
tackle
wastes
reduction
through
effective
maintenance with focus on the theme of repair
,refurbish, reuse and recycle on the green side of life.
Electronics today is essentially in the micro/nano
technology domain. Many discrete systems are
increasingly being replaced with monolithic
technologies as CMOS(complementary metal oxide
semiconductor) continue to miniaturized the printed
circuit board(PCB) skill.
Results and discussions
Table IV shows the true state of available resources
for fault diagnosis as applicable to sampled
technicians population in Ekiti State.
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 15 Number 3 – Sep 2014
Table IV. Analysis of available tools for fault
diagnosis
electronic circuits moved from discrete to
integrated circuits(I.Cs), with the present
level at the nano technology level.
Integrated circuit testers and digital testers
are lacking primarily due to cost of
procurement and unavailability and this has
restricted them to the exclusive use of old
and inefficient methods of fault diagnosis
with multi testers.
In a similar vein Table V, reflects the approach that is
prevalent among repair technicians for fault
rectification.
Table V. Assessment of fault clearing techniques
Findings show that :
a. Inability to access up to date manufacturer’s
data book has been preventing technicians
from carrying out effective maintenance and
repairs. This major challenge of non
accessibility and non availability of up to
date manufacturers’ book with almost all the
repair service technicians might not be
unconnected with manufacturers grip on the
products. More so the slogan in the
marketing and packaging business is “use
and replace” the ardent need for flooding the
markets with such books will not be there.
And this is part of the problems of digital
divide .
b. Electronic fault tracing equipment are
lacking and most of the technicians do not
have access to such equipment except in
situations where faulty electronics are
referred to the producer’s office annex in the
recipient country. And this is a way of
hampering the acquisition of the expertise
skill in repairs because the producer will
restrict work to her
trained personnel.
Comprehension of such equipment will be
difficult to local repairers.
c. Another challenge facing the repair / service
technicians is their inability to keep abreast
of technologically developments because
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In line with reflected findings in Table V, the
following can be deduced:
a. There is very high correlation between the
ability of the repair technician to use and
interpret manufacturer specifications and
their educational level. Many of the
technicians who had no formal training were
found to always use the traditional method
of fault diagnosis visual observation of
obvious faulty devices on printed circuit
boards (PCB) and blind search while the
technique of modular fault tracing is
difficult for them to actualize.
b. Repair technicians with appreciable level of
formal training in Electrical/Electronic
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 15 Number 3 – Sep 2014
Engineering Technology at foreman level
had better approach to fault diagnosis and
repairs.
c. Most training received in the pre
millennium era do not match with the
current development in the electronic
industry, on- line fault detection is
lacking.
Conclusion
Real disparities exist both in access to and use of
modern technique in fault tracing and correction are
traceable to digital divide. Thus there is need for a
structured training in electronic repairs for
technicians that will match and enhance their
comprehension new digital fabrications of the present
time for enhanced service delivery.
Many of the technicians agreed to the fact that most
of the consumer electronics are substandard both in
terms of durability
because of unregulated
importation
of
second
hand
electronic
products(popularly called ‘Tokunbos’) usually at the
end of their working life should be checked by the
appropriate agencies in the country.
There is an increase in the volume of e-wastes in the
form of abandonments because of inability to carry
out effective fault diagnosis for repairs and when
faulty components are detected and isolated genuine
service parts are lacking in the market as observed
through direct survey.
Recommendations
In view of increasing volumes of electrical and
electronic equipment wastes in the various
workshops a viable policy on its management must
be evolved to ensure that most wastes are well
handled because of the heinous toxics that are
associated with them. There is an urgent need by the
engineering based institutions to organize refresher
courses for most repair men, this must be contiguous
with development in the various electronics
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producing industries so that technicians will not be
alien to new technologies.
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