<p>  </p> <p>Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a well-known strategy used to improve business and manufacturing operations. Even with the attractive benefits it can provide, many companies struggle to successfully implement PLM solutions. This study proposes that this is due to a lack of knowledge on the critical barriers that affect the implementation of PLM solutions, and that reliance on the opinions of PLM professionals alone are not enough to create a successful implementation plan. This study addresses these issues with following research questions, what are the barriers to PLM implementation and is there a difference between those identified in literature and those confirmed by professionals, is there a difference between barrier impact rankings, based on professional opinion and those determined utilizing the DEMATEL method, and what are the critical barriers determined using the DEMATEL method supplemented by the MMDE algorithm? To answer these questions a series of two surveys were sent out to professionals in the PLM space with experience working on PLM implementation projects. The first of the two surveys was used to confirm the barriers that exist within the PLM implementation process. The second of the two surveys was used to gather information on the perceived impact of barriers and the causal relationships between barriers in the form of relationship matrices. To analyze these matrices the DEMATEL method supplemented by the MMDE algorithm was used.</p> <p>This study did not intend to provide absolute solutions to the critical barriers identified in this study, rather it intended to increase the success rate of PLM implementations by, confirming the barriers identified in the literature, providing information on the relationships between the barriers to PLM solution implementation and determine which of the barriers can be considered critical. Following these results of this study, the DEMATEL analysis method may supplement existing PLM implementation frameworks allowing companies to identify the critical barriers to implementation, allowing for better allocation of resources and ultimately a more successful PLM implementation. </p>

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the recently introduced qualification for New Zealand senior secondary school students. Based on a mix of internal and external assessment against achievement standards, it represents a complete break away from previous norm-reference based qualifications. NCEA was first introduced in 2002 starting at Level 1, involving Year 11 students in their first year in senior secondary school education. The implementation of Level 1 NCEA related assessment changes involved a considerable mind shift in assessment practice for teachers, especially for those with no previous standards-based assessment experience. The use of achievement standards impacted not only on how teachers gathered evidence and made judgements in relation to student work, but also on the ways in which they conducted recording and reporting, and managed procedures such as reassessment and moderation. Change of this nature by necessity, at least short term, was always bound to give rise to implementation concerns and challenges. The focus of this research is on investigating geography teachers' perceptions regarding the implementation of the Level 1 NCEA related geography achievement standards. It aims to identify the factors perceived as supporting or hindering the implementation process, the likely implications of achievement standards-based assessment for teaching and learning, and the types of strategies being developed to ensure the future manageability of NCEA related assessment change.

In recent years projects have increasingly used Last Planner System (LPS) in building construction. However project managers still struggle with figuring out how the LPS could be applied on their specific projects. One main reason for this struggle is that explicit instructions for systematically applying LPS are not available. This thesis offers practitioners and researchers an account of LPS implementation challenges and an indication of how LPS can be applied. The thesis qualitatively aggregates the results of 26 test case projects of LPS applications to show researchers and practitioners reasons why LPS was applied, what benefits were realized and what challenges were found during the implementation. Senior and mid-level managers in AEC industry were surveyed to assess the implementation challenges that they encountered. The main findings of this analysis are; (1) that practitioners have used LPS for the purpose of making plans more reliable, (2) get smooth work flow (3) improve productivity. The survey findings imply that improvements in LPS implementation strategies can be made which will facilitate LPS adoption by the industry. The findings of this thesis suggest that further research on the integration of LPS into work and business processes of project teams is needed to further the widespread use of LPS throughout the building industry.

In 2001 the first Human Resource Development Strategy of South Africa (HRDSA) was implemented. The lack of institutional arrangements, structures, procedures, processes and capacity and the location of the HRDSA, 2001, at both the then Departments of Education and Labour, severely hampered the implementation and effective functioning of the Strategy. This study aims to find solutions to the main implementation difficulties experienced with the HRDSA, 2001, in order to ensure increased performance regarding the strategic priorities of the revised HRDSA, 2010 – 2030. An empirical study was conducted to determine potential challenges pertaining to the implementation of the revised HRDSA. Interviews were conducted with senior officials and experts at relevant national departments and with the Gauteng Provincial Government and social partners and relevant stakeholders, including organised labour and organised business. Questionnaires distributed among human resource development (HRD) practitioners addressed matters pertaining to possible solutions with regard to the appropriate location of the HRDSA, challenges in implementing the HRDSA, capacity needs, appropriate governance structures, political support and budgetary constraints. Best practice for the implementation of a national HRD strategy in a number of countries is outlined and discussed with a view to benchmarking the HRDSA and learning from the mistakes made by them in the implementation of their national HRD strategies. Based on these lessons learnt by those countries, and valuable information gathered through the results obtained from the questionnaires and interviews, recommendations are made to support the successful implementation of the revised HRDSA. The recommendations are focused on the effective, efficient, economic and sustainable implementation of the revised HRDSA commitments, strategic priorities, strategic objectives, programmes and projects to improve social and economic growth, as well as HRD, human development (HD) and accelerated quality service delivery in South Africa. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

In 2001 the first Human Resource Development Strategy of South Africa (HRDSA) was implemented. The lack of institutional arrangements, structures, procedures, processes and capacity and the location of the HRDSA, 2001, at both the then Departments of Education and Labour, severely hampered the implementation and effective functioning of the Strategy. This study aims to find solutions to the main implementation difficulties experienced with the HRDSA, 2001, in order to ensure increased performance regarding the strategic priorities of the revised HRDSA, 2010 – 2030. An empirical study was conducted to determine potential challenges pertaining to the implementation of the revised HRDSA. Interviews were conducted with senior officials and experts at relevant national departments and with the Gauteng Provincial Government and social partners and relevant stakeholders, including organised labour and organised business. Questionnaires distributed among human resource development (HRD) practitioners addressed matters pertaining to possible solutions with regard to the appropriate location of the HRDSA, challenges in implementing the HRDSA, capacity needs, appropriate governance structures, political support and budgetary constraints. Best practice for the implementation of a national HRD strategy in a number of countries is outlined and discussed with a view to benchmarking the HRDSA and learning from the mistakes made by them in the implementation of their national HRD strategies. Based on these lessons learnt by those countries, and valuable information gathered through the results obtained from the questionnaires and interviews, recommendations are made to support the successful implementation of the revised HRDSA. The recommendations are focused on the effective, efficient, economic and sustainable implementation of the revised HRDSA commitments, strategic priorities, strategic objectives, programmes and projects to improve social and economic growth, as well as HRD, human development (HD) and accelerated quality service delivery in South Africa. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

During the growth of a competitive global enviroment, there is considerable pressure on most organisations to make their operational, tactical, and strategic process more efficient and effective. An information system (IS) is a group of components which can increase the competitiveness and gain better information for decision making.Consequently, many organisations decide to implement IS in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their organisations. However, a lack of awareness of numerous and varied challenging issues surrounding the implemenation process could be problematic for the whole process. Furthermore, the problem of a lack of key success issues seems to be a serious obstacle for the management information system (MIS) implementation process. Additionally, MIS implementation has effects on an organisation and these effects are related to the consequences of the business processes. Consequently, this issue is critical and crucial for an organisation to consider when they implement a new MIS. The main purpose of this thesis is to present the MIS implementation challenges or problems together with identifying the key issues to successfully achieve implementation. Such challenges and success factors are conducted based on a research framework. In addition, this research accesses descriptions of implementation effects and consequences which impact the organisation and its processes.This thesis has been conducted by studying the theory divided into three parts including:general background literature of information systems, implementation aspects, and organisational impacts literature. The methods that were used to successfullly accomplish this study were a case study of Fenix System, collecting data by personal interviews with respondents who were involved in Fenix along with internal documents.The analysis of the research framework and empirical findings has contributed to adescription of the main challenges and key success issues regarding MIS implementation, together with an identification of important effects and consequences when implementing MIS. This thesis’s main results show that MIS implementation issurrounded with challenges which mainly concern management, adminsitration, and people issues involved in MIS implementation process. Additionally, it was concluded that the key issues which the MIS implementation project should be presented with primarily focused on the project team and their team work. The last main finding is concentrated on effects and consequences and it found out that MIS implementation mainly affects business process which lead to change, for instance jobs, routines, and so forth.

Organizations have always tried and pushed themselves to bring changes in how they conduct business. They do this to reach the market quickly and achieve customer satisfaction. This master thesis was conducted at a global leader transportation company, Alstom, to investigate Scaled Agile Frameworks (SAFe) adoption in their Sweden Development Centre, identifying SAFe implementation challenges in a safety-related development as a single-case study. For the thesis, two research questions were formulated to identify the implementation challenges and find their reasons. For the data collection of the thesis, semi-structured interviews, self-completion surveys, and relevant research papers were used to serve the purpose of both primary data and secondary data sources. The researchers acted as ethnographers by participating in the company’s daily events and taking notes. The analysis of the collected data was done using the triangulation approach to get reliable results. In addition, researchers also used SAFe core competency assessment to evaluate the business agility of the case organization.The analysis from the collected data resulted in five implementation challenges. The data suggested that the major challenge was insufficient training and lack of agile mindset among the team members. The case organization had invested in training and support for going through the transformation, but the agile training was interrupted in 2019. Since then, the knowledge about SAFe and the agile way of working was acquired based on learning by doing. Based on the data, the researchers concluded that lack of continuous training has resulted in the development over time of other implementation challenges like insufficient self-organization, nonoptimal team size, and lack of clarity when defining role responsibilities. The data also suggested that transparent communication between different levels may still be a challenge. The SAFe assessment that has been conducted resulted in confirm previous result that in some places complemented the identified implementation challenges.  Key Words: Scaling Agile Framework, Implementation challenges, Lean, Waterfall, Self-organization, Continuous learning culture, Safety related development, Business agility, Ethnography.

Att vara konkurrenskraftig är varför företag och organisationer idag i allt större utsträckning står inför förändringar för att vara relevant på marknaden. I stort sett alla företag och organisationer använder sig av och är helt beroende av sina affärssystem, vilket också redogör relevansen av funktionaliteten och acceptans av användarna. Affärssystem i sig och införandet av dem är komplexa och påverkar hela organisationen inklusive dess anställda och målsättningen är ofta att effektivisera befintliga affärsprocesser. Användarmotstånd är en faktor som bidrar till att affärssystemsinföranden i så stor utsträckning inte genomförs framgångsrikt och de förväntade effekterna affärssystemet ska medföra aldrig inträffar. Syftet med denna kandidatuppsats i informatik är att identifiera och beskriva påverkandefaktorer för att minska användarmotstånd under införande av ett nytt affärssystem i en organisation ur ett internt relationsperspektiv. I studien har fallstudiemetoden tillämpats, till följd av att fallföretagets interna relationer varit den valda analysenheten. Den primära empiriska data har samlats in genom kvalitativa intervjuer. Fem stycken personer har intervjuats, som arbetar vid fallföretaget, beträffande deras inställning och uppfattning om faktorer som bidrar till minskat användarmotstånd under ett affärssystemsinförande. De viktigaste slutsatserna från studiens analys är: tidpunkten för införandeprocessen bör analyseras noggrant, betydelsen av välbekant kommunikationshantering, involveringen av användarna har en betydande relevans, förmedling av förväntningar underlättar förändringsprocessen och förstå olika typer av användare och deras behov. Tidpunkten för affärssystemsinförandet är högst relevant för att användarna ska känna både stöd och en lyhördhet från ledningen. Användarna behöver veta vad ett nytt affärssystem innebär genom att de involveras i processen eftersom det är de ute i verksamheten som ska använda det. Kommunikationen under ett affärssystemsinförande bör ske på ett sätt som är sedan tidigare inarbetat för att det på bästa sätt ska flöda genom organisationen och mellan alla intressenter.

In the fluctuating and competitive business world, the significance of Product Lifecycle Management is on the rise. It's becoming a pivotal strategy for organizations keen on preserving their market competitiveness. However, the practical execution of PLM often poses tangible difficulties. Even though businesses recognize the potential benefits of PLM, the challenges in its effective deployment tend to create hurdles, making the implementation process complex and formidable. This study centered on Tetra Pak applying a distinct framework and a statistical approach to assess the level of PLM maturity. Utilizing a quantitative research methodology, a survey tool that was specifically designed to be in line with this framework was adopted. The research carefully examined the PLM-related business dimensions and components, and the results ultimately revealed Tetra Pak’s overall PLM maturity levels. This method produced a thorough understanding of the company's PLM framework and uncovered potential areas that could use improvement. The findings from this study contribute to a wider comprehension of PLM's role in bolstering sustainability and competitiveness in the contemporary business landscape. The maturity framework, developed as part of this research specific to Tetra Pak, serves as a versatile instrument to steer PLM implementation. This framework assists businesses in adapting to shifting strategies, thereby helping them to maintain a competitive advantage in an ever-changing market.

Manually grading essays and providing comprehensive feedback pose significant challenges for writing instructors, requiring subjective assessments of various writing elements. Automated essay scoring (AES) systems have emerged as a potential solution, offering improved grading consistency and time efficiency, along with insightful analytics. However, the use of AES in English as a Second Language (ESL) remains rare. This dissertation aims to explore the implementation of AES in ESL education to enhance teaching and learning. The dissertation presents a study involving ESL teachers who learned to use a specific AES system called LightSide, a free and open text mining tool, to enhance writing instruction. The study involved observations, interviews, and a workshop where teachers learned to build their own AES using LightSide. The study aimed to address questions related to teacher interest in using AES, challenges faced by teachers, and the influence of the workshop on teachers' perceptions of AES. By exploring the use of AES in ESL education, this research provides valuable insights to inform the integration of technology and enhance the teaching and learning of writing skills for English language learners.