CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. 1. Background of the Study

Maintenance is the total attention and care given to an appliance or a system in order to continue functioning well, both at its up-time and down time. It is simply the action taken to restore or keep an item in good functional order. According to Ogbuaya, (2019) it involves all the activities taken in order to prolong the service life of the item. There are basically three types of maintenance usually carried out in any system. These are predictive, preventive and corrective maintenance. The practices engage in identifying faults and remedying the faults in an appliance to prolong the service life of the appliance is contextually termed maintenance practices. One of the important maintenance practices in personal computer (PC) necessary for self-employment is the corrective maintenance, which can also be termed equipment repair maintenance or breakdown maintenance or simply repairs (Samson et al., 2018).

Repairs in the document of Bridgestone Michellin Pirelli (2017) are services that are required or necessary when something on a system is not working properly or may have worn to the point where a replacement is required to maintain the performance of the system. According to Australian Taxation Office (2015) repairs mean work to make good or remedy defects in, damage to or deterioration of the property. It involves fixing faults in an appliance or a system. Repairs or maintenance in the context of this study involves the activities taken for the restoration of a broken, damaged or failed component, device, equipment, part, or appliance to an acceptable operating or stable state. The skills involved in maintenance of digital electronic like PC appliances are commonly acquired in Nigeria through the non-formal and/or formal educational system. The non-formal education involves the apprenticeship system or practice of learning, which according to Omofonmwan (2016) is a contractual agreement undertaken by a master craftsman and an apprentice whereby the apprentice is trained in a prescribed work process through practical experiences under the supervision of the master-craftsman. Perhaps, the more acceptable and preferable educational system is the formal education approach, which is characterized as a system with fixed curriculum and a cadre of certified teachers with standard pedagogical methods for skill acquisition. One of the levels through which maintenance skills in PC can be acquired is the secondary education, of which technical colleges in Nigeria are grouped under this level. However, we propose an android based PC maintenance system where individuals can learn PC maintenance skills from their mobile devices at the comfort of their homes.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

In recent times, the use of digital electronic products such as personal computers have increased, but there seems to be relatively inadequate qualified and competent technicians to repair these products when they are in bad conditions. The relative inadequacy of technicians in maintenance repairs of PC may be traced to inadequate inclusion of such skills in the curriculum of the school system as early as necessary and the unavailability of handy maintenance manual that individuals could learn from the comfort of their choice. This may be the reason why majority of the available technicians perform maintenance repair tasks on trial-and-error basis as they were never or rarely exposed to such skills in a handy many and hence may not possess the adequate knowledge and skills needed to carry out such maintenance repairs, thus the need for an android based PC maintenance system.

1.3     Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to develop android based system for tutorial on pc maintenance system. The objectives of the study are as follows;

1. To Design an android based PC maintenance system.
2. To Implement the system in (i) using JAVA programming.
3. Deploy the system in (ii) on an android mobile device.
4. To perform functional test on the system deployed in (iii).

1.4     Significance of the Study

This study will serve as an avenue that individuals can learn basic maintenance skills by using their mobile device.

The software is also relevant in the following ways:

1. Enable easy access to learning PC maintenance aid.
2. Reduce the cost of carrying out PC maintenance apprenticeship learning cost.
3. Aid the carrying out of PC maintenance.

1.5     Scope of the Study

The research is limited to the development of an android based PC maintenance system on a mobile device.

1.6   Limitation of the Study

The researcher faced some limitations during the course of this research. Some of this limitations/constraint includes;

1. Time constraint: Time factor was the major factors as the timeframe to submit the project was too short for a rigorous research.
2. Scarce research materials: resources materials for our proposed research was in scares proportion, as a lot of searches were been made to curate related works for our proposed system.

1.7     Definition of Terms

1. Android: Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
2. Computer Maintenance: Computer maintenance is the practice of keeping computers in a good state of repair. A computer containing accumulated dust and debris may not run properly.
3. Maintenance: The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential installations.
4. Mobile App:  A mobile app or mobile application is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone-tablet or watch.
5. Repair: restore (something damaged, faulty, or worn) to a good condition.
6. Software:   It is a program and other operating information use by a computer system.
7. System: A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning. Systems are the subjects of study of systems theory.