The Wrench
A conversation between Philippe Heffinck, John Skoda, Ken Gibbs, and Rupert Talbot
Ken: I seem to recall that when young Phillipe arrived in Bangladesh fresh from Belgium, he had very little English but was posted to Khulna. That's what is known as being thrown in at the deep end!
Philippe: John was one of the best supervisors I had in UNICEF. He was always interested in experimenting new ways of doing things and he listened to anyone who had a good idea. We developed the concept of a multipurpose wrench, specifically adapted to those tube wells and suitable for the community needs.
John: Philippe Heffinck was dealing with UNICEF support for hand pump maintenance. He met some Belgian engineers who had just come from setting up a factory on metal works in South Korea - to do the same in Bangladesh. They had expertise in metallurgy and tolerances. Our plan of operations had not included much budget for supporting maintenance; however, at that time the country office was behind in meeting its annual spending targets, so the water sector was encouraged to commit more to this.
Philippe: I designed the tool and got assistance from the Belgian company FN Herstal, free of charge. They were good at identifying the right quality of steel and had the machinery to cut the tool as per specifications. With John’s support, we successfully tested the designs in villages together with UNICEF staff and government counterparts. We now had a prototype.
John: Charles Egger was visiting and as this was not a standard item, we asked him what to do. Two such wrenches were needed to dismantle a pump and the country wanted to equip 100,000 pump mechanics. We needed 200,000 wrenches. He encouraged us and supply division to go ahead.
Philippe: The successful prototype was subsequently produced in 200,000 copies by a German Company, Heyco, for about $ 1 million. Had we purchased a set of tools off-the-shelf from hardware suppliers, they would likely have cost twice that much. We made a booklet with hand drawings for the step by step maintenance of tube wells by communities who had a low literacy rate.
Ken: Several years later, Phillipe and I were both Resident Programme Officers in Pakistan. I was occasionally asked to help out with certain water-related activities in 'his' province (Sindh). I sometimes stayed with him and his wife, Penny, who cooked up a storm and I always looked forward to the visits. Phillipe kept a wonderful photographic record of the development of the spanner for the No. 6 pump, and we often talked about the Bangladesh experience. He kept good records and documented everything.
John: The wrench was one of those innovations that were sparked by UNICEF staff.
Rupert: I remember Philip’s famous combination spanner very well. Philippe was a methodical engineer with an eye for detail at a time when one could do useful things using common sense. Not so sure it could be done today with the layers of oversight and many hoops to go through. It is worth noting that when the India MK II was developed, a key criteria, influenced by the experience from Bangladesh with the New Number 6 and the combination wrench, was standardized nuts and bolts, illustrating the value of cross fertilisation of ideas between country programmes. Water wallahs were a close knit band within UNICEF who freely exchanged technical ideas and experiences. In fact, Philip joined the India programme from Bangladesh and was a forceful advocate for standardizing technology to ease drill rig maintenance on the highly complex drilling programme (the largest in the world at one point). But that is another story, though standardized technology to ease O & M provides a common thread.
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