The face of traditional Human Resources services in progressive organisations throughout South Africa is currently undergoing a dramatic change. The focus has moved from managing established traditional HR functions to providing guidance to implementing business strategy. As a result, professionals in Human Resources are increasingly challenged to take a more strategic perspective regarding their role in the organisation. As Human Resources professionals respond to this challenge, measuring Human Resource’s performance and its contribution to the firm’s performance consistently emerge as a key theme. At the same time more and more top-level managers are realising that HR or the people side of the business is critical to the long-term survival of the business. Human Resources functions are challenged to prove to organisations that they add value to the organisation’s performance. These functions are, however, battling to justify the reasons for their existence in organisations. Perhaps one of the reasons that HR has not been more successful in communicating the importance of what they do, is because they have tended not to express it in economic terms. The study underway aims at addressing one of the challenges that the Eskom Human Resources function is facing. In view of the reality of recognizing human limitations it makes eminently good sense to consider the experience of others. By systematically studying the best business practices, operating tactics, and winning strategies of others, an individual, team or organisation can accelerate its own progress and improvement. This study therefore, draws from the experience of others through utilising benchmarking as a method to evaluate the value that HR adds to business performance. Benchmarking is the key to proving the impact of HR function as well as providing the data for effective strategic planning. A number of international HR benchmarking studies has been undertaken. Examples are, the PWC consulting group studies, The Saratoga human capital performance benchmarking studies, the Watson Wyatt human capital index and the HR Health checks undertaken in Europe and the U.K. Each one of these studies has a unique approach. The Saratoga tool has been chosen for this study as a result of its’ uniqueness regarding its’ capability of combining disparate data from around the enterprise in a central repository allowing HR professionals to deliver quantifiable results through analysis, benchmarking, trending and forecasting. The Return on Investment (ROI) of Human Capital draws years of quantitative and qualitative international research that has provided a breakthrough methodology for measuring the bottom-line effect of employee performance. There are a vast number of HR practices that the HR function focuses on. In this context it appears that the reason why HR has not earned the respect they should earn is also because they have been slow in transforming themselves from the traditional, transactional role to the transformational leadership one that takes on the change agent status. This study therefore aimed at identifying value adding HR practices, which HR should focus on in order to add value to organisational performance. The concept of the balanced scorecard, together with he newly introduced concept of the HR scorecard was also used as guides to measuring the value of HR in Eskom. Seven categories of HR activities were chosen according to the already established Saratoga measures. These categories are: organisational effectiveness; HR staffing, costs and remuneration; remuneration/ compensation and benefits; absence and retention; recruitment; training and development; and Occupational Health and Safety. The results of the study were presented based on the key indicators for the employment cycle namely; Acquiring skills, maintenance, development and retention. These indicators were analysed in relation to the organisation’s human capital performance. An additional category was that of the HR function itself. The primary results were as follows; Eskom posted relatively good results on human capital performance. However, there are indications that this performance can be improved. Eskom is weak on acquiring. There are big opportunities for improvement. Eskom’s maintenance posted poor results. There are however interventions under way to address this situation. Eskom’s investment in the development of its employees was found to be very good, outclassing all its counterparts. The study suggests that maybe this high investment account for the reason why Eskom is able to have a high internal recruitment rate. Eskom’s retention strategies seemed to be very effective especially since there were very low levels of resignations. The findings on the HR structure and support were that the HR structure is too densely populated, yet, professionalism was slightly lower. There are opportunities for improvement in this area. The study was therefore able to achieve its objectives. The main recommendation for future research is that a qualitative approach, which is interpretative, should back-up this study so as to verify a number of supporting HR roles and functions. / Dr. Jos Coetzee

Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment; School of Electrical and Information Engineering; MSC Dissertation / In the recent past the Eskom network operated out-of-step at three occasions. Eskom questions whether the out-of-step relays responded as they should have. This is based on the fact that not all the out-of-step relays operated during these events. This dissertation shows that shunts can make the impedance locus behave nonclassically to the extent that the present practices Eskom uses for out-of-step relaying become inappropriate for application at certain busbars of the network. This is illustrated by showing that when the characteristic of the relay at Hydra, situated on the Mpumalanga side of Hydra, is set using the classical approach, the mentioned relay will not detect swings that have their electrical centre south of Hydra. A modified two generator model is used to show the effect shunts have. The phrase “improved two generator model” refers to this model. The improved two generator model is derived to represent the section of the Eskom network that links Mpumalanga to the Western Cape.

M. Comm., Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011

M.Comm. / The primary objective of this dissertation is to perform an analysis of supplier relationship management practices in Eskom. Currently, Eskom is facing pertinent challenges such as a diminished reserve margin, increased unplanned generation plant outages as well as coal supply and quality constraints coupled with ever-rising primary energy costs. Since 1994, the demand for electricity has grown significantly on the back of robust economic growth. As a result, Eskom’s power system has an inadequate reserve margin which is at an all time low of around 8% and this does not compare well with the international standard of 15%. It is therefore evident that, as a national asset Eskom cannot overcome the current challenges successfully without strong partnerships with key suppliers. Impact of global expansion in the power sector has seen increased demand for utility specific commodities, and the resultant implication is the increased pressure on utilities to secure supply. Significant energy pressures are impacting on traditional procurement systems; as supply tightens it is vital for Eskom to intensify their efforts to build and sustain long-term collaborative relationships with key suppliers. With a more strategic view of procurement, companies are increasingly finding that different types of supplier relationships should be managed differently to achieve maximum value. Supplier relationship management has become increasingly sophisticated; buyer and supplier preferences are driven by circumstances in any relationship. The relationship portfolio analysis as explained by Cox, Sanderson and Watson (2000) demonstrates that buyer and supplier relationships centre on power, interdependence, and independence and they agree that relationships can be of an arms’ length, adversarial and collaborative nature depending on the power and style of management. Electricity is an important sector in the South African (SA) economy, despite its relatively small share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Eskom has a capital expenditure budget of R800-billion for the next 20 years (Venter, 2007). An overview of the electricity industry in SA covering key highlights on the evolution of thinking on energy developments in the country and the resultant implication for supplier relationship management is discussed. Eskom supplies about 95 percent of South i Africa's electricity, and the recent power crisis had far-reaching implications for the economy. Some economists say that Eskom’s power crisis could slice two percentage points off SA’s growth rate, sending it below 3% for the first time in a decade.

Factors such as globalisation, intense competition and ever-changing rules make change a must. What used to be traditional markets have been eroded and competitors have flooded most of the markets. This brings new challenges. Organisations that seek growth and survival keep up with the changing environment. Organisations that ignore the changing environment choose to do so at the risk of failure because what works today is not guaranteed to work in future. For an organisation to achieve its objectives, everyone in that organisation needs to contribute and pull in the same direction. As such, leaders and employees are important to the change process. Management’s understanding of where the organisation must go and how it could get there is crucial to take the whole organisation through the change process. Managers have to learn new skills as operational skills are often not enough when it comes to leading people. Leaders have a critical role to play to ensure effective change management. The study is aimed at establishing how the change process is managed at Eskom. This is explored through finding out the leadership style applied at Eskom in effecting change. Quantitative research was done within Eskom by means of e-mail survey to a random sample of employees at middle management. 980 questionnaires were sent out with a response rate of 21.5%. Having identified issues affecting effective leadership and change management in the organisation certain deficiencies or areas of possible improvement will be identified. Recommendations will be made on addressing leadership and change management process to create an environment for facilitation of change efficiently given the stress, discomfort and dislocation associated with change. “Change is a very fickle mistress. No sooner has one fresh new idea swept through the business world, than other better way of doing things is hot on its heels”. Anonymous / Mr. T.F.J. Oosthuizen

Supply Chain Management (SCM) has an overwhelming impact on firms as it directly impacts on sales and costs. Therefore, it must be a core competency for any organization and thus SCM expertise is highly valued in organisations. Procurement of goods and services has a major impact on the successful execution of the project. Procurement can help the business, ensuring that all the goods and services they buy will be of the right quality, quantity and price, and they will be delivered ‘just in time’. The application of procurement policies and practices, using fair and open procedures, is crucial not only for attracting efficient contractors and suppliers, but also to safeguard the principle of accountability and the cost-effective use of funds. Before awarding a tender, there is a substantial amount of work to be undertaken by the project manager, contracts manager, end user, buyer, and authorising committees. Commitment from personnel involved in contract awarding is not adequate. Furthermore, the Eskom governance process sometimes contributes to delays in awarding a contract. before the enquiry and tender documentation is sent out to the suppliers on the tender list, the core team involved in the procurement process verifies that the enquiry is complete and correct. Should there be contractual or legal issues during the execution of the project in the form of say a contract that has been issued with unsuitable clauses, solving the problem becomes difficult. Contractors will sometimes use contract clauses to suit themselves, and take advantage of the employer, causing cost overruns due to the difficulties in managing the contract. Eskom’s commercial activities are governed by the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and Constitution of South Africa, which states that an organisation such as Eskom should have in place “an appropriate procurement and provisioning system which is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive, and cost-effective.” This can eliminate irregularities in contracts, since they can have a serious economic impact, interfere with fair competition, and destroy confidence in the integrity and functioning of public administration Such irregularities may lead to costs overruns on projects where incompetent contractors are awarded a contract. Incorrect financial forecasting is a very serious issue, and needs to be addressed in order to help strengthen the cash flow and forecasting within Eskom. This research strategy is intended for quantifying observations of human behaviour, with the emphasis on exact measurements. The primary data for this study was generated through the administration of a structured questionnaire survey conducted among engineers, project managers, contract managers, and forensics personnel. The secondary data for the present study was gathered from literature in the form of open ended questionnaire from the same personnel. Poor commitment of buyers and chain approval meetings being shifted affect the delays in awarding of contracts. Lack of training of contract managers, absence of legal representative’s advice and squad checking meetings not being represented properly contributes to contracts being awarded with unsuitable clauses. Managers specifically forcing contracts to be awarded to a specific contractor, nepotism or favoritism, politics and contractor greediness, relate to irregularities in contracts. Lack of experience, revision of scope (unclarified scope), project delays, less effort being made when forecasting and unforeseen circumstances, such as strikes, and forces of nature, relate to incorrect financial forecasting. Continuous training and commitment of all personnel involved in the project environment is important, therefore Eskom personnel in the project environment should work as a team in an integrated way. Adequate time should be spent, and thorough checks made, to ensure that documents sent out for tendering conform to requirements. Involvement of all the supporting functions must be maximised. Code of ethics training and application is very crucial in the project environment, and the current governance policies should be adhered to by all stakeholders in the project.

M.A. (Business Administration) / The government is busy with the privatisation of all the parastatals. This is done in stages with the intention to better the lives of all South Africans through the exposure to global competitors, technology, economic markets and strategic alliances. This report looks at privatisation in general, the different definitions and the different models of privatisation that can be applied by South Africa. It then looks at Eskom as it undergoes privatisation and tries to establish if there are benefits that ensue from that and how do the stakeholders feel about privatisation. The Eskom method and policies supporting Black Economic Enterprises are visited. The questionnaire is circulated to stakeholders in Eskom to gauge attitude towards privatisation. The results are then statistically analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science II to arrive at the conclusive deduction. The researcher tries to see the positive things about privatization to encourage stakeholders to take advantage of the process and thereby securing all the possible benefits from privatization. The psychological perspective is that the government is going to implement privatisation to conform to the requirements of the international communities anyway, they are not asking for concerns to influence the decision whether to privatize or not to. The questionnaire circulated indicated that stakeholders think alike when it comes to different issues surrounding privatization. What is good is that there is a fair balance between those who are positive about privatization and those who are negative. The final recommendation of the report is that Eskom should privatize for pragmatic reasons using the French Model of Privatising whereby the total control of the enterprise still rest with the trusted members of the community.

M.Comm. / South Africa's demand for electricity is expected to outstrip the industry's generation capacity by 2010. If the government wants to avoid this situation, the construction of new plants must commence. At the moment this task has been delayed because the Government is at loggerheads with COSAU and Eskom about restructuring the electricity supply industry. This debate will remain unsolved unless the government can substantiate why exposing the industry to competition will improve its performance. Unfortunately this task is not as simple as it seems. Even though competition is one of the most widely used terms in economics, it still remains an elusive concept. The ambiguity regarding tl1e meaning of competition arises from the failure to divorce the concept of competition from a market structure; as a consequence an operational meaning of what it means to compete \n terms of contemporary business behaviour does not exist. As a result activities associated with industrialisation, such as a changing production function, the development of new products and t~chniqu'::s and business structures are not related to the concept of competition. In order to develop n clear understanding of "what it means to compete", this dissertadon uses a behavioural definition of competition to determine why exposing firms to. competitive pressure improves their performance, reflected in superior static and dynamic efficiency levels. Based on this conceptual framework, Schumpeter' s approach to competition, which emphasises innovation, profits and the entrepreneur as the agent of improvement combined with the idea that it is the uneven development of knowledge that matters in the process of creative destruction", is accepted (Metcalfe & Ramlogan &Uyarra: 2001). Based on the above notion of competition, competitive pressure positively influences firms' performance, improving their static and dynamic efficiency levels. A micro-economic analysis of a C!)IDp.etitive electricity industry is conducted in order to test the abov~ assumption. This case study demonstrates that the competitive process ultimately improves thr: integration of knowledge throughout the supply chain, which is used an input to stimulate innovation within firms and exploit new technologies (Murphy, 2002:21). As a result, firms facing competition will try to retaii1 their market position 2 by exploiting all knowledge and exploring all avenues of technological invention, before selecting the best method (Khan: 1998). In addition, this case study illustrates that stimulating dynamic efficiency goes beyond developing and implementing "hardware" (computers, CCGT plants, fuel cells etc). Although technology plays an important role in shaping industrial organisation, it is not the catalyst that drives innovation and change. Rather organisational innovation changes market participants' schemas, breeding new ideas that become the input to create technology. Therefore organisational innovation has profound efficiency consequences (Williamson, 1994: 183). If technological and organisational inncvation is intertwined, then innovation is a complex evolutionary process, which occurs over time. Furthermore innovation cannot occur in a vacuum, but is interconnected, interwoven and interdependent with an industry's physical and institutional context (Perez, 2000). Based on the stylised facts a competitive market provides the institutional context that stimulates innovation, and therefore it might be worth incurring the transactions costs and short-term losses in order to create these opportunities.

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / The turbo-generator unit is very important equipment for electric power production, which has a high rate of failure. As the capacity increases, condition monitoring and fault diagnostic play a crucial role to guarantee safe operation and cost efficiency. The Eskom generator fleet is fast approaching the end of the original designed life. Also in view of the recent constrained reserve margin, outage downtime, maintenance costs, resource management, and maintenance inherent problems, a systematic approach is required to optimise scheduled time-based maintenance to improve reliability and availability. The subject of turbo machine condition monitoring requires the development of new technologies to diagnose the turbo-generator problems. Condition is an underlying factor in the performance of machines. It is also an important predictor of future performance that the machine is in a good condition and will be reliable and perform better. It provides a reference for maintenance engineers on the current condition of the turbo-generator. Trends in condition monitoring can be used to determine whether turbo-generators are being maintained and that are meeting their expected service lives or whether their performance is deterioration faster than expected. In the industry, traditional maintenance philosophies have taken two approaches; the first approach is to perform fixed time interval maintenance, where the system engineers take advantage of relaxed production cycles to fully inspect all aspects of the turbo-generator. The second route is for engineers to simply react to the generator failure as and when it happens. All too many utilities operate largely in the reactive run-to-failure mode. The old phrase, “if it aren’t broken don’t fix” is perennial run to failure argument. Nonetheless, making use of today’s technology, a new scientific methodology is becoming popular to maintenance management. For the purpose of investigating the management of condition-based monitoring and diagnostic technology to optimise timed-based maintenance of large turbo-generators, Eskom Units installed with condition monitoring techniques were considered. The minidissertation culminated in the compilation of case histories based on Eskom turbo-generator fleet where the technology is being rolled out. The literature survey looked at current industry practices in areas such as total productive maintenance (TPM), technology management and support systems, return on investment (ROI) and maintenance management to compare what Eskom is doing to what in others in the field are doing. There is no research work currently that has been done that links maintenance to maintenance technology deployment enablers. The research incorporates a number of operational experiences where some Eskom turbo-generator units continue to operate with a known fault. Regular maintenance interventions introduce faults into the machine due to human error, the opening of units and the handling of components. Attention is given to the impact of two-shifting or cyclic operation on turbo-generators that were originally designed for base load condition. The time–based maintenance of these units is not taking advantage of condition monitoring information. Also, the installed condition monitoring techniques fall short of addressing twoshifting monitoring requirements. A number of lessons were learnt from the implementation of the condition-based maintenance technology on Eskom generator fleet. The theory of maintenance management underscores establishment of a good relationship between system engineers, maintenance personnel and the technology provider which is key to success of the technology. It further indicates that this relationship must go deeper than the mere technology provider and the end user of the technology service agreement. The maintenance engineers are taking key business decision for the well-being of machines and maintenance technology needs to demonstrate that it is creating value for the business. From the people perspective attention is required to staff motivation and providing balanced job satisfaction, whilst ensuring that employees feel part of an integrated organisation maintenance strategy rather than of being under thread of disempowered by the technology. A myriad of considerations have been identified to affect the effective execution of conditionbase maintenance strategy on Eskom generator fleet. There are multiple dashboards or standards indicators that can be used for maintenance management improvement. It has been established that the success of the implementation of condition-based maintenance rests in the concept of total productive maintenance approach. Within the ambit of TPM, the entire process of maintenance must be managed on the basis of maintenance programmes plan, which will have function of connecting the various maintenance programmes.

M.Phil. (Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract