Limited asset visibility is a key problem in the management of returnable transport items (RTIs) like reusable containers, pallets and kegs. One tool to increase asset visibility is radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. However, RFID requires high investment cost and intensive efforts for implementation. In this study, we investigate the added value of using RFID technology for the management of the RTI pool in a closed-loop supply chain setting considering both costs and benefits. We have conducted a case study in a company which has recently started an RFID application in its closed-loop supply chain of RTIs. The aim of this case study is to identify and understand how an existing RTI pool is managed and the impact of using RFID technology on the management of such an RTI pool. In order to quantify the added value of RFID technology in RTI pool management, we search for the minimum cost solutions both without and with the use of RFID technology in a problem environment similar to that of our case study using the simulation optimization method. We also analyze the impact of using RFID technology on RTI pool management in terms of several performance measures, including RTI pool size, RTI lifetime, RTI trippage and the cycle time for RTIs to complete one trip in the closed-loop supply chain. In our study, we develop a number of discrete event simulation models of the identified closed-loop supply chain of RTIs operating with our predetermined decision rules for the RTI pool management using the simulation software Arena. We then develop our simulation optimization model in OptQuest for Arena in which the discrete event simulation models are embedded. The results from the simulation optimization method show that the added value of using RFID technology is mostly positive and it depends on the severity of the problematic issues in the closed-loop supply chain, as well as on the extent of improvements that RFID brings about.

For organizations such as state departments of transportation, other public agencies, or private companies, adopting a new approach to procure services for delivery of construction projects requires significant organizational changes; modifications to both their work processes and existing organizational structures may be needed. These adjustments, encompassing many different aspects of the organization's interests, must occur for the change initiative to be successfully put into practice. In this research, the adoption of integrated project delivery methods within the transportation project sector is investigated to better understand the dynamics of this change. In the context of this study, an Owner's project delivery strategy is defined as the set of project delivery methods that are adopted for delivering capital projects. This dissertation presents findings from a study of Public Owner organizations that have implemented the designbuild method for delivering highway projects. Using as a case study the new $1.3 billion SH-130 tolled expressway project in Central Texas, the author analyzed project documentation and conducted many interviews with individuals affiliated with owner, legal, engineering consultants, and contractors. Findings suggest that project representatives institutionalize practices and routines connected to the new approach by adapting to new challenges, rather than "overwriting" previously existing practices. Similarly, the institutionalization of innovative approaches to project delivery happens concurrently with a deinstitutionalization of the previous approaches. Building upon these findings, a conceptual framework is presented for helping Owner organizations implement change in their project delivery strategy. The proposed conceptual framework is based upon both existing published literature and interviews with managers involved in implementing a strategic change in project delivery strategy. This framework was further refined by making a comparative study of four transportation projects in the United States. In addition, a detailed implementation framework was validated and further developed through a Delphi study with representatives from several organizations whose major responsibilities and experiences include the management of change in procurement approach. Findings from these studies, including application to the construction industry and other industries are presented.

This thesis describes preliminary research on the application of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) to the optimisation of mine scheduling in an uncertain environment. The MDP framework is a novel approach to scheduling in a mining operation and option valuation. The task of scheduling in mining operations is dependent on the availability of models that permit the representation of some of the key stochastic properties of the environment, such as grade and price uncertainty. The tools used to model these processes are respectively sequential Gaussian simulation and Geometric Brownian motion. Three cases of increasing size are used to illustrate the results of the model and demonstrate its suitability to mine scheduling and option valuation. The computational efficiencies of solving an MDP formulation by Policy Iteration and Value Iteration are compared. The impact of the discount rate on the optimal policy is assessed. To determine the value of one or several options, an optimal policy without options is generated and valued. Then, the exercise is repeated with the relevant options to value (e.g., production rate, cut-off grade and time of mine closure). By comparing the values obtained in both cases, the financial benefit of having operational flexibility is determined, thus yielding the option value. A full size case study is conducted to validate the applicability of MDPs to real mining projects.

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The successful execution of the Physical Asset Management Strategy (PAMS) is an important value driver for organisations, whose core business is highly dependent on the service delivery of physical assets. However, contemporary research demonstrates that scheduled targets are often not met and the means to detect the constraints that can undermine the strategy execution efforts are deficient. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate Social Network Analysis (SNA) as a method to map primary constraints in Physical Asset Management Strategy Execution (PAMSE). A comprehensive literature review addresses the domains of Physical Asset Management (PAM) and SNA. The review of the literature is supported by interviews with practitioners in the field of PAM. Consequently, the challenges experienced in PAM are contextualised along with the capabilities of SNA and the most important constraints in PAMSE are identified. As an interim result, the study found that dysfunctional information flow and poor decision making are the primary constraints that could hinder the execution of a PAMS. As a consequence thereof, a SNA application methodology was developed in order to scrutinise these areas of concern. The methodology was applied at two research sites in the South African mining industry. Network data for the study was collected by surveys conducted in June and July 2012. The case studies demonstrate that a SNA application in PAM requires a number of prerequisites that are crucial to its success. Nevertheless, a successful SNA application may yield valuable results identifying the problems encountered in PAMSE. Most importantly, the SNA highlights overloaded key employees, collaborative breakdowns and excessive intradepartmental collaboration that have the potential to hinder the PAMSE process. The results were validated by means of dialogue with the individuals involved in the study. This study found that SNA can be used as a method to map the primary constraints experienced by PAMSE. It also emphasises that there are important prerequisites that have to be established for SNA to be successful. Future research could be carried out based on the results of this thesis, in order to design improvement plans for the studied research site and possibly conduct a second SNA to investigate whether the constraints, identified in the study, had been resolved. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die suksesvolle uitvoering van die Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie is ’n belangrike genereerder van waarde vir organisasies waar die kernbesigheid tot ’n groot mate afhanklik is van die dienslewering van fisiese bates. Hedendaagse navorsing wys egter dat geskeduleerde mylpale meestal nie bereik word nie en dat die metodes wat gebruik word om vas te stel watter beperkings die strategie-uitvoering ondermyn, ontoereikend is. Die doel van hierdie tesis is om die aanwending van Sosiale Netwerkanalise as ’n metode te ondersoek, om die primêre beperkings ten opsigte van die uitvoering van Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie te identifiseer. ’n Omvattende literatuuroorsig is uitgevoer wat die gebied van Fisiese Batebestuur en Sosiale Netwerkanalise aanspreek. Die literatuuroorsig is aangevul deur onderhoude met kundiges op die gebied van Fisiese Batebestuur. Sodoende kon die uitdagings van Fisiese Batebestuur bestudeer word in die konteks en vermoëns van Sosiale Netwerkanalise, en gevolglik is die belangrikste beperkings in Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie-Uitvoering geïdentifiseer. Die voorlopige resultate van die studie het bevind dat gebrekkige inligtingsvloei en swak besluitneming die hoofbeperkings is wat die uitvoering van ’n Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie kan verhinder. Gevolglik is ’n Sosiale Netwerkanalise toepassingsmetodiek ontwikkel om dié probleemareas onder die mikroskoop te plaas. Dié metodiek is dan op twee teiken-aanlegte in die Suid-Afrikaanse Mynbou Industrie toegepas. Netwerkdata vir die studie is deur middel van meningsopnames in Junie en Julie 2012 ingesamel. Die gevallestudies demonstreer dat ’n Sosiale Netwerkanalisetoepassing in Fisiese Batebestuur waardevolle resultate kan lewer met betrekking tot die probleme wat ondervind word in die uitvoer van Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie. Onder die belangrikste bevindings van die Sosiale Netwerkanalise tel die oorbelasting van sleutelposwerknemers, mislukte samewerking, asook eksessiewe interdepartementele samewerking met die potensiaal om die uitvoering van die Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie te verhinder. Die bevindings is deur dialoog met die individuele deelnemers in die ondersoek gestaaf. Die studie het bevind dat Sosiale Netwerkanalise geskik is as ’n metode om die primêre beperkings, wat ondervind word in die uitvoering van Fisiese Batebestuurstrategie, te identifiseer. Dit moet egter ook beklemtoon word dat daar belangrike voorvereistes bestaan, wat vir die suksesvolle toepassing van Sosiale Netwerkanalise in plek moet wees. Toekomstige navorsing kan gebaseer word op die uitkoms van dié tesis met die doel om ontwerpverbeteringsplanne vir die teiken-aanlegte op te stel. Daarbenewens kan ’n moontlike opvolg Sosiale Netwerkanalise uitgevoer word om te meet of die beperkings wat deur die ondersoek geidentifiseer is, oorkom is.

Competitive industries in the manufacturing sector have a holistic Life Cycle Management (LCM) view of business practices. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which forms part of the LCM approach, is increasingly used as a decision support tool in the South African manufacturing industry. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phase of the LCA tool has been standardised within the ISO 14000 family and aims to quantify the environmental impacts of economic activities. A number of LCIA methodologies have been developed in Europe, which can be applied directly when life cycle systems are assessed. The LCIA procedures that are most commonly used in the South African manufacturing industry include the CML, Ecopoints, EPS and Eco-indicators 95 and 99 procedures. The five European methods are evaluated based on the applicability of the respective classification, characterisation, normalisation and weighting elements for the South African situation. The evaluation and comparison is further based on a cradle-to-gate Screening Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) case study of the production of dyed two-fold wool yarn in South Africa. Shortcomings are identified with the European methodologies in the South African context in terms of comprehensiveness and modelling approaches. A LCIA framework and calculation procedure, termed the Resource Impact Indicator (RII) model, is subsequently proposed for South Africa, which is based on the protection of four natural resource groups: water, air, land, and mined abiotic resources. A distance-to-target approach is used for the normalisation of midpoint categories, which focuses on the ambient quality and quantity objectives for the four resource groups. The quality and quantity objectives are determined for defined South African Life Cycle Assessment (SALCA) regions and take into account endpoint or damage targets. Following the precautionary approach, RIIs are calculated for the resource groups from conventional Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs). The calculation of the RIIs ensures that all natural resources that are important from a South African perspective are duly considered in a LCIA. The results of a LCIA are consequently not reliant on detailed LCIs and the number of midpoint categories that converge on a single resource group. The proposed model is evaluated with the SLCA wool case study. The case study establishes the importance of region-specificity, for LCIs and LCIAs. The proposed LCIA model further demonstrates reasonable ease of communication of LCIA results to decision-makers or managers. Subjective weighting values for the resource groups are also proposed, based on survey results from manufacturing industry sectors in the South African automotive value chain, and the expenditure of the South African national government on environmental issues. The subjective weighting values are used to calculate overall Environmental Performance Resource Impact Indicators (EPRIIs) when comparing life cycle systems with each other. The EPRII approach is applied to a specific LCM problem in the South African context, i.e. evaluating and comparing environmental performance for supply chain management purposes in the developing country context. Thereby, RIIs are provided for key Cleaner Production process parameters in the South Africa context: water usage, energy usage, and waste produced per manufactured product. / Thesis (PhD (Engineering and Technology Management))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / unrestricted

The Recursive Multi-Threaded (RMT) software process management tool gives software developers the following capabilities: break a large project into a sequence of prototypes (or threads) track these threads individually, and estimate the progress and completion date of the project from these individual threads. The goal of this project is to provide the RMT Tool with an ability to support multi-database for collaborative software development. As a demonstration, actual data is used from several previous algorithma projects.

This project is to develop an on-line library to help software engineers who utilize design patterns for developing e-commerce applications it translates generic design patterns to concrete design patterns. The graphical user interface was developed to allow the user to develop their own design patterns by modifying or changing stored design patterns.

I en rapport finansierad av Smart Built Environment konstateras att stora möjligheter finns att höja kvaliteten på och sänka kostnader för den slutgiltiga produkten via digitala lösningar i byggbranschen. Ett område där digitaliseringen har stor inverkan är just digitala verktyg på byggarbetsplatsen (Bygg 4.0, u.å.). Digitala verktyg definieras i studien som programvara och applikationer lämpade för byggbranschen. Syftet med examensarbetet var att kartlägga vilka digitala verktyg som används inom Skanskas produktion samt jämföra användandet av digitala verktyg inom verksamhetsgrenarna Hus respektive Väg och anläggning. Studien fokuserar på hur användandet av digitala verktyg främjas genom strategier och målsättningar i Skanskas organisation. Metoden för insamling av material var inledningsvis en litteraturstudie av teori, fortsättningsvis utfördes en kvantitativ enkätundersökning och en kvalitativ intervjuundersökning. Enkätundersökningen fokuserade på användandet av digitala verktyg och intervjuerna på hur Skanskas medarbetare uppfattar att Skanska arbetar med digitaliseringen. Resultatet av studien visar på skillnader i utsträckningen som de digitala verktygen används inom verksamhetsgrenarna. Resultatet av enkätstudien visar att verksamhetsgren Hus använder de digitala verktygen i större utsträckning. Resultatet av intervjustudien visar att orsaken till detta är att verksamhetsgren Hus arbetar proaktivt genom strategier och målsättningar som Basnivå hus, Projekt i världsklass och Smarta projekt. Verksamhetsgren Hus har även digitala ledare ute i projekt som stöds av en digital coach på regionnivå. Verksamhetsgren Väg och anläggning har inte en lika etablerad grund då enbart Projekt i världsklass är utgångspunkten för digitalt arbete. Det finns inte heller några digitala ledare i projekten. Den rollen uppstår organiskt genom engagerade individer med kunskaper i digitala verktyg. Verksamhetsgren Hus har ett mer väletablerat system för arbete med digitala verktyg vilket leder till att verksamhetsgrenens arbete med digitala verktyg har kommit längre än verksamhetsgren Väg och anläggning. / In a report financed by Smart Built Environment it was stated that there are possibilities to improve quality and reduce cost in the finished product through digital solutions in the construction industry. One area where digitization has got a high impact is in the use of digital tools on the construction site (Bygg 4.0, u.å.). Digital tools are defined as software and applications suited for the construction industry. The purpose of this thesis was to map out the digital tools used in Skanska's production and to compare the use of digital tools within the business areas infrastructure and commercial building. The study focuses on how the use of digital tools is encouraged through strategies and objectives in Skanska's organization. The method for collecting material was a literature study of theory, a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews. The survey focused on the use of digital tools and the interviews on Skanska's employees perception on Skanska's work with digitization. The results of the study show differences in the extent that the digital tools are used within the business areas. The results of the quantitative study show that the business area commercial building uses the digital tools to a greater extent. The reason for this is that the business area commercial building works proactively through recommendations such as Basnivå Hus, Projekt i världsklass and Smarta projekt. The business area commercial building also has a role called digital leader in every project, who are supported by a digital coach in every region. The business area infrastructure does not have an equally established foundation, since only Projekt i världsklass is the starting point for digital work within the business area. There are also no digital leaders in projects within the business area. This role arises organically through committed individuals with good knowledge of digital tools. The business area commercial building has a well-established system for working with digital tools, which means that the business area has come further than the business area infrastructure.

No description available.

The world of engineering design finds itself at a crossroads. The technical and scientifically rooted tools that propelled humankind into the modern age are now insufficient as evidenced by a growing number of failures to meet design expectations and to deliver value for users and society in general. In the empirical world, a growing consensus among many design practitioners has emerged that engineering design efforts are becoming too unmanageable and too complex for existing design management systems and tools. One of the key difficulties of engineering design is the coordination and management of the underlying collaboration processes. Development efforts that focus on the design of complex artefacts, such as a satellite or information system, commonly require the interaction of hundreds to thousands of different disciplines. What makes these efforts and the related collaboration processes complex from the perspective of many practitioners is the strong degree of interdependency between design decision-making occurring, often concurrently, across multiple designers who commonly reside in different organizational settings. Not only must a design account for and satisfice these dependencies, but it must remain also acceptable to all design participants. Design in effect represents a coevolution between the problem definition and solution, with a finalized design approach arising not from a repeatable series of mathematical optimizations but rather through the collective socio-technical design activities of a large collaboration of designers. Despite the importance of understanding design as a socio-technical decision-making entity, many of the existing design approaches ignore socio-technical issues and often view them as either too imprecise or too difficult to consider. This research provides a performance measurement framework to explore these factors by investigating design as a socio-technical complex adaptive collaborative process between the designer, artefact, and user (DAU). The research implements this framework through an agent-based model, the Complex Adaptive Performance Evaluation Method for Collaboration Design (C2D). This approach allows a design management analyst to generate insights about potential design strategies and mechanisms as they relate to design complexity by examining the simulated performance of a design collaboration as it explores theoretical design fitness landscapes with various degrees of ruggedness. / Ph. D.