1. Product Description: The general engineering workshop envisaged in this project idea is an engineering workshop which will repair and maintain mechanical and electrical equipment not only in urban areas but also in rural areas. The main types of equipment needing such maintenance and repair services are (a) equipment used for cultivation, harvesting and processing (b) transport equipment such as trucks, motor cycles, bicycles, animal-drawn carriages (c) equipment for repairing minor roads and tracks such as picks, mattocks, shovels, wheel-barrows, mobile concrete mixers, (d) water pumping equipment for domestic use and small scale irrigation (e) taps and joints in piped water supplies (f) domestic tools and equipment- stoves, cooking utensils four mills.
2. Rationale: A general engineering workshop is a workshop which has all the necessary equipment, machinery, tools, instruments and other facilities with technically trained people. The workshop is multi- purpose, and it is managed and run on the basis of modern technical business principles. This type of modern technical business organization does not exist in the Amhara Region. There are two “engineering” workshops in Bhair Dar and Dessie but they do not meet the technical standards of a modern engineering workshop. There are many thousands of equipment, machinery, tools which need repair and maintenance. Most of these machinery and equipment are brought to Addis Ababa for minor and major repair and maintenance services. This can not and should not go on for ever. There must come a time when the Amhara Region should have its own general engineering workshop to meet its repair and maintenance needs.
3. Market Potential: The various machinery and equipment working in the economic and social sectors of the Amhara Region need repair and maintenance services that will justify the viable operations of one or two general engineering workshop.
4. Source of Raw Material: The project will be a service providing enterprise. It will need various types of spare parts for providing repair and maintenance services. The parts will be imported. Gradually, the workshop will fabricate some parts.
5. Production Process & Technology: Main stages include receiving of the machine to be repaired, cleaning, identifying defects, replacing defective parts or repairing, testing--. Machinery includes power and hand driven tools, general engineering workshop equipment, work benches, desks, stools, cupboards, etc.
6. Estimated Investment:-
Machinery, equipment & tools Birr 700,000
Building 300,000
1,000,000
7. Benefits: self- sufficiency in major repair and maintenance works, saving of financial resources, saving in transport expenses, development of repair and maintenance skills for different machinery and equipment.
8. Location: Bahir Dar and Combolcah.