Many companies are questioning the value created from logistics outsourcing. This is especially evident in contract logistics (specialised warehousing), given the increased commoditisation of transportation and distribution today. A clear need emerged to understand the value creation characteristics at play between third party logistics (3PL) providers and clients, and this formed the basis for this research. More specifically, the research sought to identify the elements driving the quality and functionality of value creation. The research focused on the South African automotive industry limited to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s) that had outsourced, were currently outsourcing or were planning to outsource their specialised warehousing. The research consisted of a phased approach in which key industry players (clients and 3PL’s) were interviewed to understand and expand on the nature of the problem. A questionnaire was then sent out to the OEM’s and quantitative analysis was undertaken on the data collected to answer the stated research propositions It was found that client satisfaction was achieved through long term strategic relationships with 3PL’s rather than a short term transactional approach. The value creation that was driving client satisfaction was being achieved through behaviour that sought stronger relationships, cooperation and strategic partnering with each other. Although there was a clear understanding on what the value creation characteristics were, the execution was unclear. Overall, the majority of OEM’s that took part in this study indicated satisfaction with their 3PL providers. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

No description available.

The Western Canadian Trucking Industry has been undergoing much acquisition activity since 1950. Because of the growing importance of this, it is essential that the effects on the performance of trucking firms be fully understood. This study is meant to be an initial inquiry to document, and to identify the factors that have been conducive to this activity in the Western Canadian Trucking Industry principally for the time period 1950-1968. This investigation was principally conducted through the interview technique. The sample of firms used in this study, although not all inclusive, was generally agreed among those interviewed to consist of all the major trucking firms active in acquisition activity in the Western Canadian Trucking Industry. Many factors are isolated as being conducive to this activity. These factors were identified principally from current literature on the merger field generally. The relative importance of these factors is discussed. This study found that many of the acquisitions that have taken place since 1950 were principally to extend the route authority and commodity base of operations. These are of a market-oriented type generally typified by end-to-end acquisitions designed to offer better services. Most consist of larger firms acquiring smaller trucking firms, usually ones in financial difficulty. In almost all cases, the most valuable asset of the acquired firm has been the route authority. In practical terms, it was found that the only expedient way for a trucking firm to expand was to purchase additional existing route authorities, since an applicant for a new route authority must prove public convenience and necessity to the regulators. The environmental factors isolated in this study have been conducive to acquisition activity. This activity occurred during periods of economic expansion when business expectations were generally high and many firms were available for sale after incurring operating difficulty during the preceeding recession. The legal factor was also found to be strongly conducive to this activity. This was attributed to the regulatory practices of restricting entry and relatively easy approval of route authority transfers. Much of the acquisition activity was attributed to the exploitable situations that prevailed after World War II, the fortuitous railway strike of 1950 and completion of the Trans-Canada Highway. It was also found that many industry factors were conducive to the acquisition activity. The technological factor suggests that larger firms have been desirable to provide the managerial and capital base necessary to keep a firm competitive. The diversification factor suggests that many trucking firms diversified their geographic and commodity base to stabilize earnings, balance head and back hauls, and offer better service in hopes of gaining more traffic. The industry is still in the early stage of the industry life cycle with a few larger, financially more stable firms surviving the forces of competition. This factor suggests that acquisition activity should tend to slow down as the opportunities for expansion and acquisition become less. Many small trucking firms, with limited management ability, either went bankrupt or recognized the need for the many specialized abilities necessary for survival and have tended to be acquired as a result. The financial factor tended to be conducive to the acquisition activity as well. Many small trucking firms have run into a squeeze where they have not been able to properly finance equipment and expansion and have tended to be acquired or go bankrupt. The sympathetic factor, where one carrier sees another expand services through route authority acquisition and hastens to do likewise, can also be viewed as being conducive to this activity. Economies of scale were found to have little effect on the acquisition activity. Although evidence shows that there are no economies of scale of firm size, it was suggested in the discussion that there may be economies of density, management, accounting, advertising and finance that tend to be conducive to acquisition activity. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Existing methods of joining automotive aluminium alloys are either expensive (Self Pierce Rivets) or di cult to implement (Resistance Spot Welding). Ultrasonic spot welding (USW) is a new alternative method using ~2% of the energy of resistance spot welding. USW is a solid state welding process that combines vibration and pressure at the interface of a joint to produce a weld. Much of the existing research focuses testing under laboratory conditions, using simple coupon sample geometry, and has proven to be an extremely robust process. This thesis shows a detailed investigation into the implementation of USW on automotive body panels, in collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover. Weld performance, bonding mechanisms and temperature gradients found in AA5754 align well with other research conducted using 6XXX series aluminium alloys. A laboratory trial was completed to verify all joints could be achieved on a Jaguar XJ dash panel, followed by installation of a USW machine in a production cell. A detailed statistical analysis was performed on strength and sticking data gathered from 60 Jaguar XJ dash panels that were welded in the trial. Results showed difficulty to apply USW in certain areas of the panel, although previous trials had suggested it was possible. A collaboration with Ford Motor Company allowed research to be conducted at the Ford Research and Innovation Center. Experiments were designed to discover which elements of the USW equipment had the most profound effect on weld strength, and a full factorial Design of Experiments was produced to and the most effective method of reducing variation in weld strength. Results showed that the vibrational response of complex geometry parts makes USW very difficult to predict, making it difficult to successfully implement in the automotive industry.

<p> Vehicular communications systems may one day save lives, reduce fuel consumption, and advance connectivity, but they may also transmit information which could be deanonymized to obtain personal information. Vehicle location data are of special concern because they could be used maliciously. This dissertation presents a systematic study resulting in novel definitions, metrics and methods for evaluating and applying location privacy preserving protocols specifically in vehicular settings.</p><p> Previous work in vehicular network privacy has not thoroughly considered vehicular mobility patterns. Previous work in vehicular network privacy has not solved the problem of collusion between MAC layer and application layer attackers. As defenses against location privacy attacks, previous work has favored the privacy methods of anonymization and obfuscation, but these methods have weaknesses. Spatial-temporal cloaking, for example, requires overhead of trusted third parties, and provides little protection in low vehicle densities especially when applications require frequent precise location data. Little published work has addressed the "location" part of location privacy, the geographical distance of location privacy, focusing instead on the size of the anonymity set. The need for new metrics is indicated.</p><p> The present research addresses these issues. In addition to new definitions and metrics, this study develops privacy methods which would (1) accommodate vehicular mobility patterns, (2) defend against collusion by MAC and application layer attackers, (3) produce privacy solutions which depend on cooperation neither by large numbers of other motorists nor by trusted third parties, and (4) function in low vehicle densities, notably during the transition period between system initialization and full saturation, (5) provide protection even when applications require frequent and precise location queries, and (6) provide protection over a geographical range beyond a vehicle's wireless communications range and provide protection over measurable and lengthy spans of time. Finally, it presents a new metric for measuring privacy (KDT), an equation to estimate the safety impact of privacy protocols (SSTE), and three new privacy models, Endpoint Protection Zones (EPZ), Privacy by Decoy (PBD) and Random Rotation of Vehicular Trajectory (RRVT).</p>

CO, propylene, and propane are common components in automotive exhaust. These pollutants are converted to CO$\sb2$ and H$\sb2$O by three-way catalysts contained in the catalytic converter of your automobile. These catalysts (Pt, Rh, CeO$\sb2$) are very effective in converting the pollutants under varying exhaust conditions; however, the method by which these catalysts achieve their high activity is not fully understood. The activities and kinetics for the oxidation of carbon monoxide, propylene, and propane oxidations were compared over Pt/Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$ and Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalysts in an attempt to correlate catalyst activity with the chemistry of the reactants. Additional experiments involving CO, H$\sb2$ and O$\sb2$ chemisorption, the extent of reduction and oxidation of CeO$\sb2$ and CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$, spillover studies, and the activity of Pt/Nd$\rm\sb2O\sb3/Al\sb2$O catalysts were performed in order to correlate catalyst activity with the strength of adsorption of the reactants and the mobility of lattice oxygen in CeO$\sb2$. Experiments were also performed for methanol oxidation over Pt/Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$, Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$, and Pt/K$\rm\sb2O/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalysts in order to further understand the effects of ceria on the complete oxidation of alternate fuels. The Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalyst was more active than the PT/Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$ catalyst for CO and propylene oxidation but less active for propane oxidation. It appears that an Eley-Rideal mechanism whereby gaseous oxygen reacts with CO adsorbed on Pt is consistent with the kinetic results for CO oxidation on Pt/Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$. Based on the kinetic results and studies reported in the literature, it was suggested that CO and propylene adsorbed on Pt reacted with adsorbed oxygen species (O$\sb2\sp-$ and O$\sp-$) at low temperatures ($<$170$\sp\circ$C) and lattice oxide ions (O$\sp{-2}$) at higher temperatures ($>$200$\sp\circ$C) over Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalysts. The adsorption experiments showed that CO adsorbed only on the Pt sites, whereas O$\sb2$ adsorption was enhanced on the ceria phase of a Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalyst. Therefore, a Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalyst can accommodate a large amount of CO and O$\sb2$. On the other hand, it was shown by the activity and kinetic results that oxygen inhibited the adsorption of propane on Pt sites thereby rendering the Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalyst less effective for propane oxidation. The presence of ceria reduced the partial oxidation product, CO, for both propylene and propane oxidations. The additional experiments suggest that H$\sb2$ and CO adsorbed only on the Pt sites, O$\sb2$ adsorption is enhanced on Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalysts, Ce$\rm\sb2O\sb3$ and Ce$\rm\sb2O\sb3/Al\sb2O\sb3$ were not produced by H$\sb2$ reduction at 800$\sp\circ$C, Pt/Nd$\rm\sb2O\sb3/Al\sb2O\sb3$ was more active than Pt/Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$, and H$\sb2$ spillover with Pt present may be responsible for the activation of ceria. The Pt/Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$ and Al$\rm\sb2O\sb3$ catalysts produced dimethyl ether as the main reaction product for methanol oxidation. However, the dimethyl ether yield was reduced over Pt/CeO$\rm\sb2/Al\sb2O\sb3$ and Pt/K$\rm\sb2O/Al\sb2O\sb3$ catalysts.

Flash boiling may be defined as the finite-rate mechanism that governs phase change in a high temperature liquid that is depressurized below its vapor pressure. This is a transient and complicated phenomenon which has applications in many industries. The main focus of the current work is on modeling flash boiling in injectors used in engines operating on the principle of gasoline direct injection (GDI). These engines are prone to flash boiling due to the transfer of thermal energy to the fuel, combined with the sub-atmospheric pressures present in the cylinder during injection. Unlike cavitation, there is little tendency for the fuel vapor to condense as it moves downstream because the fuel vapor pressure exceeds the downstream cylinder pressure, especially in the homogeneous charge mode. In the current work, a pseudo-fluid approach is employed to model the flow, and the non-equilibrium nature of flash boiling is captured through the use of an empirical time scale. This time scale represents the deviation from thermal equilibrium conditions. The fuel composition plays an important role in flash boiling and hence, any modeling of this phenomenon must account for the type of fuel being used. In the current work, standard, NIST codes are used to model single component fluids like n-octane, n-hexane, and water, and a multi-component surrogate for JP8. Additionally, gasoline-ethanol blends are also considered. These mixtures are azeotropic in nature, generating vapor pressures that are higher than those of either pure component. To obtain the properties of these fuels, two mixing models are proposed that capture this non-ideal behavior. Flash boiling simulations in a number of two and three dimensional nozzles are presented, and the flow behavior and phase change inside the nozzles is analyzed in detail. Comparison with experimental data is performed in cases where data are available. The results of these studies indicate that flash boiling significantly affects the characteristics of the nozzle spray, like the spray cone angle and liquid penetration into the cylinder. A parametric study is also presented that can help understand how the two different time scales, namely the residence time in the nozzle and the vaporization time scale, interact and affect the phenomenon of flash boiling.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.