Diploma thesis is about business process reengineering (BPR) and its business processes in student organization ESN VSE Prague -- Buddy System. Main goal is business process reengineering and their support by information system BuddyIS, which helps to meet stu-dent's requirements. First chapter debates about processes theirs modelling and reengineer-ing. It discusses methodologies of BPR in general and then it chooses own methodology for this thesis. Next part is practical and starts with characteristic and analysis of student organization ESN VSE Prague -- Buddy System. It describes cultural environment, current status of IS/ICT and global process model. Global process model is core for next chapter, which identifies processes in organization and chooses those ones for reengineering. Those chosen processes are analysed more in detailed in detailed process diagram based on BPMN. Next part is considering process redesign based on awareness and understanding their workflow. According to redesign, proposed changes are implemented to information system BuddyIS based on principles of OpenUP. Last chapter analyses aftereffects caused by business process reengineering according to process audit made by M. Hammer (PEMM) and chosen factor measuring process performance. Fact that, chosen business processes are supported by information system BuddyIS is main benefit of this thesis.

This diploma thesis focuses on the process improvements and selection of appropriate ERP system in terms of small companies. In the theoretical part it explains the concept of process and methods of its analysis, management and business process improvements. There are also characterized the basic types of ERP systems and their potential acquisition process. The practical part is divided into two functional units, where the first one is the analysis of processes and proposals for their improvement in a specific company. The second part deals with the analysis and selection methods of specific ERP system for the specific company.

This paper concerns about key business process in the production companies, namely, the new product development. The object of this thesis has been to create a tool to estimate the risk of the new product development. To reach this goal, current tools used to deciding the risk must have been explored. As the best tool, appropriate for assessing the risk of new product development has proved the Bayesian Network. This paper explains the construction of the Bayesian network and shows the way how to generate the probabilities in the network to be accurate for the risk estimation. Based on this theoretical knowledge has been built an information system, which estimates the risk of the new products and administer the risks.

The primary argument and area of interest within this explorative study lies within the domain of copyright law enforcement of the creative industries and argues the deleterious impact that the infringement of copyright has on national and individual balance sheets and the opportunity to re-engineer the copyright dividend. Globally, creative industries are estimated to account for more than 7% of the world’s gross domestic product and are predicted to grow, on average, 10% per year. Digitization and the internet have seen to it that copyright, through inter alia the unlimted reproduction capacity of copyrights, brought by digitization and the internet, has seen its importance in the intellectual property bouquet soar. This study endevours to establish the beginning of a discourse on copyright in which the very survival of the creative industries, galvanized, for more than a century by technology and changes in technology and the security of its consumers, depends on the adopting of improved, farsighted, equitable, inclusive and stricter measures in order to protect such from both internal and external threats. From a global perspective most copyright owners and nations with few exceptions rich in copyrights, compounded by the presence of unsubstantial collaboration, suffer losses because the protection of their respective intellectual property rights such as copyright, trademarks and patents are not adequately aligned with what may be referred as the technology conversation. It is imperative that the collaborative copyright alliances develop a strategic agenda that is relevant to the technology conversation in order to re-engineer the copyright dividend where new copyright enforcement mechanisms will be deployed. In as much as this study placed greater emphasis on online infringement, physical piracy is still pervasive and it intensely contributed to the explorative conversation. Piracy effectively relieves copyright authors and the State of the royalty flows that arise from legal and transparent use of copyright. It is these royalty flows that give rise to term “copyright dividend” literally meaning the income arising from the underlying copyright assets. Seeing what is stolen by piracy as the “theft”, whether direct or indirect, of copyright dividends, the challenge to address, avert and amend such outcomes is akin to re-engineering the copyright dividend and this meant the examining of the copyright law structures influencing and regulating the trade in copyrights. In this study the focus was initially on understanding the copyright law regimes and the real challenges that influenced their respective implementations that generated a copyright dividend. Understanding exactly how well such were actually working rested on exploring the lived experiences and perceptions of ten copyright experts across the world from two primary copyright law regimes. Such an exploration was necessary as such provided the requisite insight into inter alia the legal framework wherein both the illegal market and the legal market for copyright operated, to the threats faced the copyright dividend. Five research questions were used in this study. Such served as the discussion points used in the interviews with the ten research participants.These five research questions emerged from the problematization within current , literature and supported by the research data. The obtained data were grouped in relation to the five research questions and filtered to identify commonalities amongst the ten participants. The obtained data were grouped in relation to the five research questions and filtered through a lamination process,which emerged to identify commonalities amongst the ten participants.The global copyright law system and stakeholdership presently lack the necessary strategies, capacities, will and common thought to effectively address infringement. This is the major impediment of technological advancement and thus reengineering the copyright dividend was critical. To a demonstratable extend it is independent of the progress of governments and other relevant parties affected by infringement. The data also showed that infringement is an eroding threat to intellectual property and that critical knowledge is an urgent necessity to re-install the copyright value in its global ecosystem, which is essentially achieved by diverting the copyright dividends stolen by the illegal copyright market and re-engineering the copyright dividend. The outcome is that copyright law enforcement promotes the returns of dividends and fair trade to the rightful owners in an accountable and sustainable manner, as was and is intended by the global copyright law regimes. / PhD (Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The strategic alignment and reengineering of business processes is critical for institutions across sectors worldwide to achieve performance improvement and subsequently, competitive advantage. Competition within higher education forces higher education institutions, such as TUT, towards management approaches such as business process reengineering to improve effectiveness and efficiency. This research was triggered by an observation of a lack of a framework, within TUT, to guide the manner in which business processes could be strategically reengineered in a uniform, coordinated, and focused fashion. The main focus of the research was to identify core elements which could be included in a comprehensive framework to assist higher education institutions, specifically TUT, to strategically align and reengineer their core business processes in order to achieve performance improvement, which is a prerequisite for higher education institutions across sectors to achieve competitive advantage. The findings of the research were based on the triangulation of data from a robust literature survey to uncover the theoretical underpinnings and to pinpoint core elements of business process reengineering and strategic planning, prescripts from legislation and the regulatory framework governing higher education in South Africa, an analysis of relevant strategic documents within TUT, and opinions and perceptions of sampled respondents within TUT to compare and contrast the data gathered. The findings of the empirical exploration confirmed the problem that triggered the research, namely, that TUT lacks a framework to guide the manner in which it could strategically align and reengineer business processes. An analysis of documents within TUT and consistent with the results of the empirical exploration revealed that although various strategic documents allude to the strategic alignment and reengineering of business processes, lack of a standardised methodology hampers the uniform, coordinated, and focused operationalisation of this noble intent which is critical for the enhancement of strategic planning across sectors worldwide. Consequently, the main contribution of the research was to develop a comprehensive framework to guide the manner in which TUT and other similar higher education institutions could strategically reengineer business processes. The proposed framework advocates an incremental approach to business process reengineering to allow for the continuous improvement of reengineered business processes. At the core of the proposed business process reengineering framework is strategy alignment and stakeholder focus. The framework suggests that when higher education institutions, such as TUT, embark on business process reengineering, they should realise that they are engaging in a strategic endeavour and that business processes targeted for reengineering should be of critical importance to the enhancement of a strategic orientation. It is imperative that higher education institutions, such as TUT, should prioritise the strategic alignment and reengineering of business processes that provide stakeholder satisfaction to create competitive advantage and survival. Considering that TUT and other similar higher education institutions operate as an open system, the proposed framework is based on the systems approach to management. Given the dynamic nature of the South African higher education sector, the proposed framework promotes a business process reengineering methodology which, amongst others, involves the reengineering of business processes with due consideration of the national higher education imperatives and legislative requirements. Consideration of the external environment should cover an analysis of critical developments within higher education, including changes to national legislation and other national strategic imperatives. TUT and other similar higher education institutions should continuously monitor changes that might have an impact on their business processes to ensure timeous and strategic alignment and reengineering of core business processes in accordance with the changing environment. Due cognisance of the internal factors and acknowledgement of a need for internal interaction of various departments and operational units within higher education institutions, such as TUT, should also form the basis of all business process reengineering efforts. Given the theoretical underpinning that business process reengineering is a strategic endeavour and that the strategic alignment of business processes is critical for institutions across sectors to improve institutional performance so as to achieve competitive advantage and survival, proposing a comprehensive business process reengineering framework and advocating the strategic reengineering of business processes within a South African public higher education institution constitute an advancement of knowledge within the Public Administration field of study. / PhD (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The primary argument and area of interest within this explorative study lies within the domain of copyright law enforcement of the creative industries and argues the deleterious impact that the infringement of copyright has on national and individual balance sheets and the opportunity to re-engineer the copyright dividend. Globally, creative industries are estimated to account for more than 7% of the world’s gross domestic product and are predicted to grow, on average, 10% per year. Digitization and the internet have seen to it that copyright, through inter alia the unlimted reproduction capacity of copyrights, brought by digitization and the internet, has seen its importance in the intellectual property bouquet soar. This study endevours to establish the beginning of a discourse on copyright in which the very survival of the creative industries, galvanized, for more than a century by technology and changes in technology and the security of its consumers, depends on the adopting of improved, farsighted, equitable, inclusive and stricter measures in order to protect such from both internal and external threats. From a global perspective most copyright owners and nations with few exceptions rich in copyrights, compounded by the presence of unsubstantial collaboration, suffer losses because the protection of their respective intellectual property rights such as copyright, trademarks and patents are not adequately aligned with what may be referred as the technology conversation. It is imperative that the collaborative copyright alliances develop a strategic agenda that is relevant to the technology conversation in order to re-engineer the copyright dividend where new copyright enforcement mechanisms will be deployed. In as much as this study placed greater emphasis on online infringement, physical piracy is still pervasive and it intensely contributed to the explorative conversation. Piracy effectively relieves copyright authors and the State of the royalty flows that arise from legal and transparent use of copyright. It is these royalty flows that give rise to term “copyright dividend” literally meaning the income arising from the underlying copyright assets. Seeing what is stolen by piracy as the “theft”, whether direct or indirect, of copyright dividends, the challenge to address, avert and amend such outcomes is akin to re-engineering the copyright dividend and this meant the examining of the copyright law structures influencing and regulating the trade in copyrights. In this study the focus was initially on understanding the copyright law regimes and the real challenges that influenced their respective implementations that generated a copyright dividend. Understanding exactly how well such were actually working rested on exploring the lived experiences and perceptions of ten copyright experts across the world from two primary copyright law regimes. Such an exploration was necessary as such provided the requisite insight into inter alia the legal framework wherein both the illegal market and the legal market for copyright operated, to the threats faced the copyright dividend. Five research questions were used in this study. Such served as the discussion points used in the interviews with the ten research participants.These five research questions emerged from the problematization within current , literature and supported by the research data. The obtained data were grouped in relation to the five research questions and filtered to identify commonalities amongst the ten participants. The obtained data were grouped in relation to the five research questions and filtered through a lamination process,which emerged to identify commonalities amongst the ten participants.The global copyright law system and stakeholdership presently lack the necessary strategies, capacities, will and common thought to effectively address infringement. This is the major impediment of technological advancement and thus reengineering the copyright dividend was critical. To a demonstratable extend it is independent of the progress of governments and other relevant parties affected by infringement. The data also showed that infringement is an eroding threat to intellectual property and that critical knowledge is an urgent necessity to re-install the copyright value in its global ecosystem, which is essentially achieved by diverting the copyright dividends stolen by the illegal copyright market and re-engineering the copyright dividend. The outcome is that copyright law enforcement promotes the returns of dividends and fair trade to the rightful owners in an accountable and sustainable manner, as was and is intended by the global copyright law regimes. / PhD (Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The strategic alignment and reengineering of business processes is critical for institutions across sectors worldwide to achieve performance improvement and subsequently, competitive advantage. Competition within higher education forces higher education institutions, such as TUT, towards management approaches such as business process reengineering to improve effectiveness and efficiency. This research was triggered by an observation of a lack of a framework, within TUT, to guide the manner in which business processes could be strategically reengineered in a uniform, coordinated, and focused fashion. The main focus of the research was to identify core elements which could be included in a comprehensive framework to assist higher education institutions, specifically TUT, to strategically align and reengineer their core business processes in order to achieve performance improvement, which is a prerequisite for higher education institutions across sectors to achieve competitive advantage. The findings of the research were based on the triangulation of data from a robust literature survey to uncover the theoretical underpinnings and to pinpoint core elements of business process reengineering and strategic planning, prescripts from legislation and the regulatory framework governing higher education in South Africa, an analysis of relevant strategic documents within TUT, and opinions and perceptions of sampled respondents within TUT to compare and contrast the data gathered. The findings of the empirical exploration confirmed the problem that triggered the research, namely, that TUT lacks a framework to guide the manner in which it could strategically align and reengineer business processes. An analysis of documents within TUT and consistent with the results of the empirical exploration revealed that although various strategic documents allude to the strategic alignment and reengineering of business processes, lack of a standardised methodology hampers the uniform, coordinated, and focused operationalisation of this noble intent which is critical for the enhancement of strategic planning across sectors worldwide. Consequently, the main contribution of the research was to develop a comprehensive framework to guide the manner in which TUT and other similar higher education institutions could strategically reengineer business processes. The proposed framework advocates an incremental approach to business process reengineering to allow for the continuous improvement of reengineered business processes. At the core of the proposed business process reengineering framework is strategy alignment and stakeholder focus. The framework suggests that when higher education institutions, such as TUT, embark on business process reengineering, they should realise that they are engaging in a strategic endeavour and that business processes targeted for reengineering should be of critical importance to the enhancement of a strategic orientation. It is imperative that higher education institutions, such as TUT, should prioritise the strategic alignment and reengineering of business processes that provide stakeholder satisfaction to create competitive advantage and survival. Considering that TUT and other similar higher education institutions operate as an open system, the proposed framework is based on the systems approach to management. Given the dynamic nature of the South African higher education sector, the proposed framework promotes a business process reengineering methodology which, amongst others, involves the reengineering of business processes with due consideration of the national higher education imperatives and legislative requirements. Consideration of the external environment should cover an analysis of critical developments within higher education, including changes to national legislation and other national strategic imperatives. TUT and other similar higher education institutions should continuously monitor changes that might have an impact on their business processes to ensure timeous and strategic alignment and reengineering of core business processes in accordance with the changing environment. Due cognisance of the internal factors and acknowledgement of a need for internal interaction of various departments and operational units within higher education institutions, such as TUT, should also form the basis of all business process reengineering efforts. Given the theoretical underpinning that business process reengineering is a strategic endeavour and that the strategic alignment of business processes is critical for institutions across sectors to improve institutional performance so as to achieve competitive advantage and survival, proposing a comprehensive business process reengineering framework and advocating the strategic reengineering of business processes within a South African public higher education institution constitute an advancement of knowledge within the Public Administration field of study. / PhD (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

M. Tech. Business Information Systems / Legacy systems are standalone computer applications mostly based on old technologies used in many organizations notwithstanding the availability of more streamlined systems and newer applications. The systems are in place due to the fact that it is costly to replace them, and or they respond adequately to users' requests towards the function they are designed to do. Legacy systems play an important role in today's business because they consist of application programs that may not be upgraded and old data which may not be reformatted to suit new systems. Further, these systems are still alive because of their good pedigree and distinct characteristics. If used in silos, the Legacy systems as part of information systems make the sharing of information, security and management controls, a nightmare. As a result, this affects the process of decision making at the operation and top management levels. Synchronization of reports from the different business units becomes a problem and in the long run the whole business is rendered ineffective and inefficient. This study is calling for the need to integrate legacy systems into enterprise resource planning system. Much as this is so, there is still limited understanding of the factors that contribute to the users' acceptance of the integration of these Legacy systems into an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP SYSTEM). This study therefore sought to determine factors influencing users' acceptance of Legacy systems' integration into an ERP System by taking a case of the National Department of Human Settlements.

Mini-study project (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) has been undertaken by many organisations with the hope of dramatically improving their competitive position. In most cases however, this undertaking has been a failure. For the success of the BPR, organisational and people issues are of critical importance and cannot be overlooked, as often is the case. Many organisations have not recognised the fundamental need of fully addressing the "soft people issues" during their re-engineering exercises. The ability of the Management team and Management Consultants to filter through these soft issues is of critical importance to the success of the BPR. This study discusses leadership as the first topical issue. Within the parenthesis of LNDC, it then explores the leadership skills required by management of this institution. Leadership is intensely studied from the traits models, situational, consistency models to the transformational leadership styles. Change leadership forms an important basis of the discussions. Organisational culture is one important aspect that has to be considered during change initiative. Crafting and creating appropriate organisational culture forms the centrepiece of leaders' consideration during organisational change. The ability of a leader to create shared values within the organisation leads to building a strong corporate culture that distinguishes between organisations. The McKinsey's seven S model provides a firm framework for most changing organisations. This model illustrates how the soft, yet important issues powerfully impact the BPR process. All of these namely, strategy, structure, systems, style, skills, staff and shared values, are equally important and if any one of them is not properly aligned with the rest, the whole change process may become a failure. This model impacts all seven S's of the organisational dimension and is driven by strategy. Communication on the other hand forms another important element of the discussions. This study shows that without proper communication during organisational change, the whole change process can become a complete failure. The ability of a leader to disseminate intended information appropriately to the employees requires one to have skills and communication methods that are applicable to that particular organisational setting. After undertaking a survey at the LNDC, the researcher concluded that management, at this corporation lacks leadership skills necessary for managing change in an organisation. Recommendations have been made suggesting that the either the CEO be replaced or trained in leadership skills. This would help the organisation to successfully implement the intended change process. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: geen opsomming

Deoiling of petroleum wastewater is a major concern in petroleum process engineering. The conventional design procedure for deoiling systems consists of nine consecutive stages involving different people or groups. This thesis considers reengineering the conventional procedure, with the aim of increasing the efficiency of the process and productivity of people involved. The thesis then investigates the development of the appropriate computer support tools for the new procedure. The reengineering of the procedure is based on concepts proposed by Hammer (1990). The resulting procedure consists of four stages, where parallelism of the different tasks in the conventional procedure is explicitly considered. A model of the new procedure is described in UML (Unified Modelling Language). The advantage of using UML instead of using just natural language description is that UML uses graphical representation that is easy to use and less prone to ambiguity. Based on the new procedure, a decision support system called CODES (Conceptual DEsign of deoiling Systems) was designed and implemented. CODES supports the stages of wastewater assessment, equipment options at different locations, treatment disposal options and recommendations for final process configuration. Two Case Studies using operating field data are reported. The Case Studies using CODES proved to be straightforward to use and produced appropriate comments on the performance of the existing designs and proposed alternatives to satisfy the design requirements. CODES results agreed with knowledge from previous plant trials. The contribution of this thesis to the deoiling design process is twofold. Firstly, a critical review of the conventional procedure has resulted in a new one, which has potential benefits of improving a company's efficiency by reducing the number of people and activities involved, and shortening the design time. Secondly, the feasibility of applying the new procedure and CODES is successfully demonstrated through the case studies. Limitations and areas of extensions are also identified.