In recent times, South Africa has been experiencing power outages, which has significant effect on businesses and economic wellbeing of the nation. To address this challenge, this study develops a maintenance framework that power generating industries in South Africa can implement. Primary data was collected from company X that is a major subsidiary of the power generating industry in South Africa to probe the root causes of power outages in recent times. The analysis of the data obtained was carried out using Pareto chart. The results obtained identified delay in maintenance operations as one of the possible causes of power outages. The rework job was observed to be tardy by 50 days. This length of days is critical enough to cause power outage. To address this, a framework was developed to assist in effective scheduling of maintenance activities. Hence, this work provides an insight into the possible causes of power outages in South Africa and how they can be mitigated to avoid load shedding.
Keywords: Maintenance framework · Load shedding · Power outage · Pareto chart
