A multistage production system consists of a number of production stages that are interrelated, that is the output from one stage forms input to the next stage. There are constraints associated with each stage as well as constraints imposed by the overall system. Besides, there are multiple objectives that need to be satisfied, and in numerous cases, these objectives conflict with each other. What is required is an efficient technique to allocate and schedule resources so as to provide a balance between the conflicting objectives within the system constraints. This study is concerned with the problem of scheduling multistage production systems in food processing industry. The system and products have complex structure and relationships. This makes the system difficult to be solved analytically. Therefore, the problem is solved by developing a heuristic algorithm that considers most of the constraints. The output generated by the algorithm includes a production schedule which specifies the starting and completion times of the products in each stage and the machines where the products are to be processed. In addition, a summary of system performances including throughput times, resources' utilizations, and tardy products is reported. / Graduation date: 1992

D. Tech. Industrial Engineering. / Discusses purpose of this study is to derive a new model capable of advanced diagnosis and analysis of energy usage to determine the possible energy efficiency potential through the following in a single model: Analysis of industrial historical data; Prediction of the industrial energy baseline; Computation of the industrial energy efficiency; and Optimization of the industrial energy consumption usage. In this context, the development of a new model involves: Carrying out literature survey; Carrying out Mathematical Analysis of the dynamics of energy efficiency in an industry; Critically analyzing and testing existing models; Evolve a new and novel model; Test the model using data from specific industry; Apply the model to eleven industrial sectors in South Africa. This thesis on energy efficiency potential will be a milestone for different stakeholders, policymakers and decision makers in the energy sector at national and international levels who are, or will be interested in reducing energy input and still produce the observed output levels, by becoming technically efficient. The approach adopted by the study is the integration of Index Decomposition Analysis (IDA), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) into a single model.This methodology combines modeling, which is at the core of an energy-management technique, with a wider interpretation of activity growth, structure and efficiency changes which contribute to changes in energy consumption.

This is a qualitative case study which encompasses a thick description of an organization's workplace training programme and how it relates to the National Qualifications Framework and Skills Development. The organization in question is Imana Foods (Pty) Ltd. The purpose of conducting this particular study is to take a close look at the workplace training programme of a particular organization and to see how it has embraced the implementation of new legislative acts such as the South African Qualifications Authority Act, the Skills Development Act, the Skills Development Levies Act, and the Employment Equity Act into its education and training policy . These legislative acts are interrelated in the sense that they have one very significant common goal, and that is to improve the South African economy. By implementing these acts, the government hopes to increase the amount of skilled labour, which in turn should lead to better job opportunities for those employees who already have jobs, and also to promote education and training to those people who are unemployed. The government hopes to keep a watchful eye on the labour market with the intention of providing training in the areas where there is a shortage of skills. My intention for wanting to examine the workplace training programme of a single organization is to determine whether or not the training programme under study is serving its purpose which is to provide equal opportunity for all the employees within the organization. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Cocoa has been useful in several ways, especially to countries that produce it and consumers all over the world. Its benefits range from improving economies to satisfying millions all over the world who desire one cocoa product or the other. The production of cocoa however is not without its own attendant problems. Aging tree stock, spread of diseases, and production capacity problems are, but a few of many challenges that seed gardens that produce cocoa face. This study investigated the pollination process on selected seed gardens in Ghana, the second largest world producer of cocoa. The purpose of this study was to investigate the artificial pollination process of cocoa on seed gardens in Ghana, and explore ways by which the Lean principle of Value Stream Mapping could be applied in improving the process. The process of pollination was observed on eighteen seed gardens, and a current value stream map depicting the existing process developed to give an indication of the current state of affairs. Subsequently, a future value stream map based on the current map was developed to show aspects of the process that could be improved to enhance the operations of the seed gardens. The future value stream map revealed that operational procedures relating to cleaning and preparation of trees, choosing male and female trees for pollination, harvesting of pollen, and manually pollinating practices presented various avenues for improving the pollination process and hence seed production output.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-115).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-115). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Technische Universität, Berlin. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [217]-240).

Com a busca pela praticidade e rapidez na obtenção dos resultados, torna-se cada vez mais importante a implementação de métodos que possam ponderar se os resultados quantitativos são realmente necessários. Os métodos qualitativos são utilizados como uma triagem que antecedem a quantificação e que permite uma redução tanto de tempo como de custos. Estes métodos têm cada vez mais ganhado importância e o uso instrumental proporcionou novas perspectivas e garantia de uma maior confiabilidade e aplicabilidade. O desenvolvimento de metodologias qualitativas aliando métodos instrumentais e quimiometria podem ser apropriados para autenticação de amostras. Desta forma, associado à espectroscopia na região do ultravioleta e visível (UV-Vis) o método quimiométrico de reconhecimento de padrões supervisionado de mínimos quadrados parciais com análise discriminante (PLS-DA), mostrou ser uma ferramenta capaz de autenticar amostras de óleo de soja transgênica e não transgênica, bem como, a autenticação de azeite de oliva extra virgem de acordo com os percentuais de acidez. Além disso, o método proposto permite uma análise rápida e não destrutiva da amostra. Nos estudos, a autenticação de óleos de sojas transgênicos e não transgênicos pode ser atribuída ao deslocamento batocrômico, provavelmente devido às diferenças no grupo cromóforo presente nas amostras transgênicas e não transgênicas, enquanto que nos azeites extra virgem de diferentes percentuais de acidez a autenticação pode ser atribuída a ocorrência de efeitos hipercrômico e hipocrômico. A espectroscopia na região do UV-Vis permitiu a autenticação geográfica de azeites de oliva da região do Mediterrâneo através do método quimiométrico de análise de componentes independentes (ICA). Por ser um método baseado na independência estatística, diferenças entre as amostras provenientes de diferentes países banhados pelo mar Mediterrâneo puderam ser discriminadas, bem como amostras provenientes de um mesmo país. / The search for practical and quickly results increase the importance of methodologies that can ponder if the quantitative results are really needed. The qualitative methods are used as a prior screening to quantification and allows a reduction of time and costs. These methods have increasingly its importance and the instrumental employ provided new perspectives and ensuring greater reliability and applicability. The development of qualitative methods combining instrumental and chemometric can be appropriate for authentication samples. Thus, coupled with spectroscopy in the ultraviolet and visible region (UV-Vis) the supervised pattern recognition method of partial least squares with discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), showed be a tool to authenticate transgenic and non-transgenic soybean oil samples, as well, extra virgin olive oil according to the acidity percentage. Furthermore, the proposed method promote a rapid and non-destructive analysis of the samples. Authentication studies of transgenic and non transgenic soybeans oils can be attributed to the bathochromic shift, due to differences in the chromophore group present in the transgenic and non transgenic samples, while in the extra virgin olive oils with different acidity percentages the authentication can be attributed to the occurrence of hyperchromic and hypochromic effects. UV-Vis spectroscopy allowed the geographic authentication of extra virgin olive oils from the Mediterranean region through the chemometric method of independent component analysis (ICA). Due the ICA be a method based on statistical independence, differences between samples from different countries around the Mediterranean Sea were authenticated, as well the samples from the same country.

The objective of the research reported in this dissertation is to conduct an empirical test of the hypothesis that, excluding income tax effects, the cost of capital to a firm is independent of the degree of financial leverage employed by the firm. This hypothesis, set forth by Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller in 1958, represents a challenge to the traditional view on the subject, a challenge which carries implications of considerable importance in the field of finance. The challenge has led to a lengthy controversy which can ultimately be resolved only by subjecting the hypothesis to empirical test. The basis of the test was Modigliani and Miller's Proposition II, a corollary of their fundamental hypothesis. Proposition II, in effect, states that equity investors fully discount any increase in risk due to financial leverage so that there is no possibility for the firm to reduce its cost of capital by employing financial leverage. The results of the research reported in this dissertation do not support that contention. The study indicates that, if equity investors require any increase in premium for increasing financial leverage, the premium required is significantly less than that predicted by the Modigliani-Miller Proposition II, over the range of debt-equity ratios covered by this study. The conclusion, then, is that it is possible for a firm to reduce its cost of capital by employing financial leverage. A secondary conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that earning power is an important variable to consider for inclusion in a regression model intended for use in investigating the effect of financial leverage on the cost of capital. The estimated partial regression coefficient of the earning-power variable was negative and highly significant in every cross-section year. Furthermore, earning power showed strong negative partial correlation with the debt-equity ratio. Therefore, omission of the earning-power variable from the regression model would have introduced upward bias into the estimated regression coefficient of the debt-equity ratio, making it appear that investors were reacting adversely to increasing debt-equity ratio. However, models used in previous tests of the Modigliani-Miller hypothesis have not included earning power.

Cette thèse porte sur l'étude du problème de tournées de véhicules compartimentés (Multi-Compartment Vehicle Routing Problem ou MC-VRP) dans le contexte de l'industrie de la nutrition animale. Les travaux de recherche et d'application sont concentrés sur la distribution dans le domaine agroalimentaire.En dépit d'une large application industrielle, les problèmes de MC-VRP ont été peu étudiés dans la littérature scientifique. Trois variantes du MC-VRP sont traitées dans cette thèse. D'une part, nous proposons les algorithmes "Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure" (GRASP) et "Iterated Local Search procedure" (ILS) pour résoudre le MC-VRP avec un compartiment de taille fixe dédié à chaque produit. Une extension de ce problème à des compartiments de tailles variables (Flexible Compartments Vehicle Routing Problem ou FC-VRP) est également résolue. D'autre part, nous proposons un GRASP et un Multi Start ILS pour la résolution du MC-VRP avec décisions d'affectation de chaque compartiment à un client et un produit.En dernier lieu, des travaux d'application industrielle sont présentés. Des tests d'évaluation de performances ont été réalisés dans un contexte de distribution d'aliments au bétail chez la société Nestal. Des outils d'aide à la décision ont été développés et mis en place dans cette société / This research concerns solving the Multi-Compartment Vehicle Routing Problem (MC-VRP) in the context of animal nutrition industry. Research and application work focuses on distribution in food industry.Despite its vast application in industry, little attention has been paid to the MC-VRP. We address three classes of MC-VRP in this research. Firstly, we propose two metaheuristics, "Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure" (GRASP) and "Iterated Local Search procedure" (ILS), in order to solve a MC-VRP with a fixed-sized compartment dedicated to each product. Also, an extension of this problem to variable-sized compartments which we call Flexible Compartments Vehicle Routing Problem (FC-VRP) is studied. Further, we propose a GRASP and a Multi Start ILS to solve a MC-VRP problem with assignment decisions of each compartment to one client and one product. Finally, some application work is presented. Experiments intended to measure performance in the context of food distribution to cattle were conducted for Nestal company. Decision support tools had been developed and implemented for this company