ix, 99 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Design briefs outline the business objectives, corresponding design strategies and target markets for a product development project. Research has demonstrated that a variety of attributes influence consumer impressions of a product, less attention has been given to the within-firm mechanisms that determine the optimal mix of attributes which to embed in an offering. The first essay of this dissertation examines the role of design briefs as knowledge-based assets that function as artifacts of this process within new product development (NPD). In a second essay, this dissertation examines design briefs as knowledge-based artifacts of cross-functional collaboration during NPD. NPD is often characterized as the process by which firms transform knowledge embedded in cross-functional teams into new products. However functional areas often differ in their evaluations of information and knowledge needed to successfully complete an NPD project. Based on an expert rating and survey questionnaire procedure, results provide a framework of eight factors of cross-functional knowledge present in design briefs and empirically describes differences in evaluation within each factor across functional area. / Committee in charge: Dennis Howard, Chairperson, Marketing; Lynn Kahle, Member, Marketing; Joan Giese, Member, Marketing; Keven Malkewitz, Member, Not from U of O; Gary Klug, Outside Member, Human Physiology

This research addresses the need for efficient and effective management of water during any part of a crisis lifecycle, which is paramount if the negative impact on human health and quality of life is to be minimised. The unique contribution to knowledge is expressed through the creation of a framework for application of four key elements: Crisis Management, Knowledge Management, Public Health and Human Security within the realms of water resource utilisation during humanitarian crises. Through secondary data collection, the four key elements were identified. Primary data was subsequently gathered from subject experts in the form of semi-structure interviews that utilised a questionnaire to guide participants through the identified problem domain. This resulted in the creation of a draft framework that was critiqued by domain experts through both questionnaire and interview. A final framework was then constructed that took into consideration the needs expressed by all participants. The final framework was then tested against the historic crisis of Hurricane Katrina, for which a plethora of data and information was readily available, to ascertain its validity and applicability. Further work was identified as being the creation of an interactive toolbox of resources, which could be utilised in times of crisis based on need and applicability.

M.A. (Business Information Technology) / Knowledge management has developed greatly over the last few decades, particularly in striving for economic and commercial effectiveness. With the growth of technology-based knowledge management systems and an increase in the number of organisations implementing them, there is concern as to how these systems are being accepted by knowledge workers. The systems are currently a pertinent issue on business agendas, and organisations across all sectors are recognising the critical role that effective ~ ones will play in their future success (Malhotra, 2000:56). This creates a concern where these systems are expected to bring success in organisations or to improve return on investments without a deeper understanding of their utilisation by knowledge workers. The goal of this dissertation is to understand the way in which technology-based knowledge management systems are being utilised and accepted by knowledge workers, and furthermore to establish if knowledge workers have full understanding of the systems they use. The focus of this research is therefore on the human dimensions in relation to the systems, and on how they support organisational intellectual capital. The history of interactive computlnq shows repeatedly that it is the human issues which make or break new methods and tools at work. What are technology-based knowledge' management systems? How are they managed? Moreover, how can managers harness the potential of the knowledge workers to expand the knowledge base of the organisation? In order to answer these questions, this research determines how knowledge workers utilise the systems and their level of acceptance of this technology. It considers the importance of organisations that want their employees to use the systems effectively by contributing ideas and knowledge out of their own goodwill. Employees will do so if the concept of trust (of any technology system) has been imparted to them fully.

There is a growing interest in the development of computer systems that are actively involved in the tasks of the users and serve to augment the users' creativity. Cooperative computing is a major contribution to this research field. A survey of current developments in knowledge based systems led to the conclusion that there has hitherto been an absence of a formal definition of the mechanisms of cooperative computer systems based on theories of cooperation. The work in this thesis seeks to provide a full definition of cooperation derived from the behaviours of living cooperative systems. Studies on human cooperation and cooperation in the animal kingdom, established that cooperation is a dynamic behaviour; in that the interaction processes between the cooperative partners serve to facilitate the achievement of a common goal, or a set of goals that are mutually desired by the partners. Partners in cooperation are interdependent: one member's actions are contingent on another. Therefore, the underlying processes which induce and maintain cooperation were identified. These are: communication between the partners; emergence of norms and roles governing the behaviour of the cooperating members; resolution of conflicts; distributed and coordinated activities. These factors were further elucidated within the context of small problem solving groups. A model of cooperationw hich encapsulatedth esef actors was produced. From the discussionso f the advantageso f cooperationw ithin different contexts, the potential for synergy was found to be the main benefit of cooperation. The potential for achieving this synergy between a human and a computer is the main motivation for the work undertaken in this research. From the theoretical analysis of cooperation, the underlying mechanisms of a cooperative computer were successfully defined. A conceptual model of human-computer cooperation was presented. It was established that the quality of cooperation is closely associated with the nature of the task. Therefore, it is not practicable to produce a general purpose cooperative system. A specific task must be used. Creative tasks of a problem identifying and solving nature, were found to be more suitable to cooperative behaviour than others. Typical of these, and the one selected, was computer screen design. Current screen design practice was analysed, and the functional requirements and knowledge base needs of the systems were established. The underlying mechanisms of cooperation were formalised and successfully implemented within a software exemplar, named COSY. COSY exhibits the behavioural characteristics of cooperation, and utilises the knowledge of screen design to support users in the task of formatting computer screens. COSY successfully demonstrated the synergistic relationship in its cooperation with the users. It is concluded that the approach undertaken in this thesis has lead to a successful definition and implementation of the formal mechanisms of cooperation in a computer system, one which potentially enhances the innovative and creative aspects of design work.

Abstract For the past few years, electronics manufacturing may have been the victim of its own success. Unlike in heavier industries, rationalization is a concept that was unknown in the sector until only a few years ago and even now, many companies are struggling with cost-cutting measures. Production systems in electronics manufacturing need to be highly flexible because of a varying and evolving environment. Therefore real-time process control and, possibly as a result, production optimization are extremely challenging areas. Traditional approaches often do not work due to a lack of robustness or reliability. For this reason, a new generation of decision support systems is needed in response to some specific problems. The thesis addresses topics such as design of intelligent interfaces for knowledge acquisition and elicitation, use of that knowledge for improved data analysis and diagnostics, real-time feedback control, self-tuning capabilities, and evaluation of optimization methods in discrete processes. Topics covered therefore include the whole scope of a decision support system, from its design through to the evaluation of its performance as well as interaction capabilities as a vehicle for sharing information. The aim of this research is to streamline the development of a new generation of decision support systems by providing tools and methods for a better integration of knowledge in an evolving environment. The main interest lies not only in improved data analysis, but also in better formalization and use of diagnosis. Case studies presented in this thesis demonstrate the practical feasibility of such an approach.

Knowledge refinement tools seek to correct faulty rule-based systems by identifying and repairing faults indicated by training examples that provide evidence of faults. This thesis proposes mechanisms that improve the effectiveness and efficiency of refinement tools by the best use and selection of training examples. The refinement task is sufficiently complex that the space of possible refinements demands a heuristic search. Refinement tools typically use hill-climbing search to identify suitable repairs but run the risk of getting caught in local optima. A novel contribution of this thesis is solving the local optima problem by converting the hill-climbing search into a best-first search that can backtrack to previous refinement states. The thesis explores how different backtracking heuristics and training example ordering heuristics affect refinement effectiveness and efficiency. Refinement tools rely on a representative set of training examples to identify faults and influence repair choices. In real environments it is often difficult to obtain a large set of training examples, since each problem-solving task must be labelled with the expert's solution. Another novel aspect introduced in this thesis is informed selection of examples for knowledge refinement, where suitable examples are selected from a set of unlabelled examples, so that only the subset requires to be labelled. Conversely, if a large set of labelled examples is available, it still makes sense to have mechanisms that can select a representative set of examples beneficial for the refinement task, thereby avoiding unnecessary example processing costs. Finally, an experimental evaluation of example utilisation and selection strategies on two artificial domains and one real application are presented. Informed backtracking is able to effectively deal with local optima by moving search to more promising areas, while informed ordering of training examples reduces search effort by ensuring that more pressing faults are dealt with early on in the search. Additionally, example selection methods achieve similar refinement accuracy with significantly fewer examples.

Since agriculture is a large source of emissions today, changes in our food production and consumption are required to reach EU climate goals. This study aims to find out if nudging combined with knowledge-based system can be used to influence customers’ choice towards more sustainable food. To investigate how the knowledge-based system should be created a quasi-field experiment was performed to measure the effect of re-ordering a menu (with vegetarian options on top). Previous studies have shown that nudging yields result, but without reporting how customers feel about being nudged. To investigate this, a selection of participants with different demographics (age, sex etc.) were presented digital lunch menus and their feelings and thoughts were observed through qualitative research in the shape of think aloud sessions. The participants were presented with three menus that used different nudging tactics. The results were used to create a conceptual model of a digital menu system based which builds upon knowledge-based systems. The system integrated social, label and order nudges as well as profit margin to create a system that is sustainable in the perspective of climate, as well as economy. / Eftersom lantbruket är en stor källa till utsläpp idag så krävs det förändringar i vår produktion såväl som konsumtion om vi ska nå EU klimat mål. Den här studien siktar på att ta reda på om nudging i kombination med knowledge-based systems kan användas för att påverka kunders val mot hållbar mat. För att undersöka hur ett knowledge-based system ska skapas så utfördes ett kvasi-fält-experiment för att mäta effekten av att ställa om ordningen på en meny (där de vegetariska alternativen var högst upp). Tidigare studier har visat att nudging ger resultat, men utan att rapportera hur kunder upplever att bli nudged. För att undersöka detta så visades deltagare med olika demografi (ålder, kön osv.) en digital lunchmeny, där deras känslor och tankar observerades genom kvalitativ forskning i form av think aloud sessioner. Deltagarna blev presenterade tre menyer som använde olika nudging taktiker. Resultaten användes för att skapa en konceptuell modell för en digital meny som bygger på knowledge-based systems. Systemet integrerade social, label, ordning nudges så väl som vinstmarginal för att skapa ett system som är hållbart både från klimat och ekonomiskt perspektiv.

Dissertation presented for a Masters Degree in Development Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and School of Social Sciences, at the University of the Witwatersrand. 17 September 2014 / The manufacturing sector contributed to growth in the 20th century, which ultimately enhanced capabilities related to machinery and plants. However, towards the end of the 20th century, the manufacturing sector became less prominent as a catalyst for growth as the economy became increasingly bit-driven. A bit-driven or knowledge economy characterises the 21st century, where economic growth is created through the expansion of ideas and the enhancement of human capabilities (Evans, 2007). In order to analyse the requirements of economic growth in the 21st century, I relied on the New Growth theory and the capability approach of Amartya Sen. The capability approach reviews state policies in terms of its impact on developing its citizens’ capabilities, for instance, the ability to choose amongst Information and Communications Technology (ICT) courses at universities (Sen, 1990: 49). South Africa has several policies in place which acknowledge the importance of a knowledge-based economy. It has also referred to the efforts of the African National Congress (ANC) to build a Developmental State (DS). This research examined several policies aimed at creating a 21st century DS and asks whether they enhance the capabilities of citizens to partake in the knowledge economy. This paper looked at development during the industrialisation period (specifically after World War II). Here, economic growth was propelled through manufacturing. I drew on specific countries’ experiences such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan, which were 20th century DSs. However, as the 21st century approached, the industrial revolution was replaced with a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The 20th and 21st century DSs are linked in that the manufacturing sector in the latter DS needs the services sector as a catalyst for job creation and economic growth. Therefore the manufacturing industry needs to diversify to include the services sector (Zalk, 2014).

No / This paper presents a Knowledge-Based (KB) integrated approach for planning and designing of number of machining centres, selection of material handling system, layout and networking architecture and cost analysis for a Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). The KB model can be applied for integrating the decision issues at both the planning and designing stages of an FMS for three types of layouts (single row, double row, and loop) and three MHS types (robot-conveyor, AGV-conveyor and a hybrid AGV-robot-conveyor). The KB methodology starts from a suitable information input, which includes demand per year of part types, part type’s information, machining centre’s calculation, Material Handling System (MHS) selection, machining centre’s layout selection, networking selection and financial analysis. The KB methodology is developed by using AM, an expert system shell, and contains over 1500 KB rules. The performance of the system has been verified and validated through four published and four industrial case studies, respectively. The validation results from industry show that the KB methodology is capable of considering detailed design inputs and is able to assist in designing and selecting a practical FMS. It is concluded that a KB system for the present FMS application is a viable and efficient methodology.

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