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There is considerable evidence that the strategic use of Information Systems can lead to a competitive advantage. There is however, a marked lack of understanding of the options available, as well as the smooth coordination of Information Systems strategy with Business strategy. This paper provides insight into the role of Information Systems and its link with business strategy. It focuses on Information Systems strategy options, and explores the criteria needed for successful Information Systems strategy and Business strategy alignment. The paper presents and examines the results of a study of strategic alignment at Volkswagen of South Africa. Data was obtained from business and Information Technology executives. The result of the study enables Volkswagen not only to benchmark themselves, but also provides direction to enable successful business/IT alignment. It identifies specific actions necessary to ensure that IT is being used to appropriately enable or drive the business strategy.

Thesis (MEng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Artificial intelligence has provided several techniques with applications in manufacturing. Knowledge based systems, neural networks, case based reasoning, genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic have been successfully employed in manufacturing. This thesis will provide the reader with an introduction and an understanding of each of these techniques (Chapter 2 & 3). The intelligent manufacturing process can be a complex one and can be decomposed into several components: intelligent design, intelligent process planning, intelligent quality management, intelligent maintenance and diagnosis, intelligent scheduling and intelligent control. This thesis will focus on how each of the artificial intelligence techniques can be applied to each of the manufacturing process fields. Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Knowledge based systems Neural networks Fuzzy logic Case based reasoning Genetic algorithms Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Manufacturing intelligence can be approached from two main directions: theoretical research and practical application. Most of the concepts, methods and techniques discussed in this thesis are approached from a theoretical research point of view. This thesis is also aimed at providing the reader with a broader picture of manufacturing intelligence and how to apply the intelligent techniques, in theory. Specific attention will be given to intelligent scheduling as an application (Chapter 11). The application will demonstrate how case based reasoning can be applied in intelligent scheduling within a small manufacturing plant. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Kunsmatige intelligensie bied 'n verskeidenheid tegnieke en toepassings in die vervaardigingsomgewing. Kennis baseerde sisteme, neurale netwerke, gevalle basseerde redenasie, generiese algoritmes en wasige logika word suksesvol in die vervaardigingsopset toegepas. Dié tesis gee die leser 'n inleiding en basiese oorsig van metodes om elk van die tegnieke te gebruik (hoofstuk 2 & 3). Die intelligente vervaardigingproses is 'n komplekse proses en kan afgebreek word in verskeie komponente: intelligente ontwerp, intelligente prosesbeplanning, intelligente gehaltebestuur, intelligente onderhoud en diagnose, intelligente kontrole en intelligente skedulering. Hierdie tesis sal fokus op hoe elk van die kunsmatige intelligente tegnieke op elk van die vervaardigingprosesvelde toegepas kan word. Hoofstuk 5 Hoofstuk 6 Hoofstuk 7 Kennis gebaseerde sisteme Wasige logika Neurale netwerke Gevalle baseerde redenasie Generiese algoritmes Hoofstuk 8 Hoofstuk 9 Hoofstuk 10 Vervaardigingsintelligensie kan vanuit twee oogpunte benader word, naamlik 'n teoretiese ondersoek en 'n praktiese aanslag. Die meeste van hierdie konsepte, metodes en tegnieke word in hierdie tesis vanuit 'n teoretiese oogpunt benader. Die tesis is daarop gerig om die leser 'n wyer perspektief te gee van intelligente vervaardiging en hoe om die intelligente tegnieke, in teorie, toe te pas. Spesifieke aandag sal gegee word aan intelligente skedulering as 'n toepassing (Hookstuk 11). Die toepassing sal demonstreer hoe gevalle baseerde redenasie toegepas kan word in intelligente skedulering.

The advent of new technology and ever-escalating fuel prices would make alternative energy sources increasingly important in coming years. This study is aimed to develop the tools required to analyze the feasibility of alternate energy sources. Although the study refers specifically to solar energy, the methodology is good for any alternative energy source. Four models are used to analyze complete performance of a photovoltaic(PV) system. The SOLAR model estimates the total radiation at a site. The PVPM model calculates the PV output for this total radiation. The PRODCOST and LIFECC models analyze the economic performance of the photovoltaic system. This works as a complete package which by itself will help to make preliminary analysis of various sites before making a further in-depth study for a selected few. The model is intended to be a part of a larger model, which will be a complete planning tool for power system expansion in developing countries. The efforts towards this direction can be continued further by developing various models, each analyzing a special task. The models can be integrated to form a hierarchical structure which completely models the power system in developing countries. / M.S.

published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Transportation engineering has taken upon a new role; to empower the alternative modes of travel: walking, biking, and bus transit. In this new era, engineers are rethinking a network designed predominately for the automobile. The ultimate goal of this research is to create a process that can make a vehicle dominant corridor a desirable, livable thoroughfare by livability design and context sensitive performance measures. Balancing travel modes requires an account of vehicular traffic and the impact of reconfiguring existing conditions. The analysis herein is conducted by field data collection, transportation equations and microsimulation. Simulating traffic behavior will be the means to apply livable alternatives comparable to existing Southeast Florida conditions. The results herein have shown that micro-simulation can be utilized in transportation planning to reveal good livability alternatives. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Layered manufacturing plays important role in industry. Conventional pro-cess planning takes polygon soup as input and has high quality requirements on these polygonal model such as no self-intersection, no degenerate polygon et al. A growing number of models, especially for those in complex shape are acquired from reverse engineering. Implicit representation always serves as intermediate representation and ¯nally need to be tesselated into polygonal mesh for layered manufacturing applications. However, the present tessellation techniques have difficulties to provide topologically faithful and self-intersection free polygonal mesh from implicit model. On the other hand, implicit representation are mathematically compact and robust, which is important for presenting complex freeform models. / I develop a robust and efficient approach to directly slicing implicit solids. Different from prior slicing techniques that reconstruct contours on the slicing plane by tracing the topology of intersected line segments, which is actually not robust, I generate contours through a topology guaranteed contour extraction on binary images sampled from given solids and a subsequent contour simplification algorithm which has the topology preserved and the geometric error controlled. The resultant contours are free of self-intersection, topologically faithful to the given r-regular solids and with shape error bounded; therefore, correct objects can be fabricated from them by layered manufacturing. Moreover, since I do not need to generate the tessellated B-rep of given solids, my direct slicing approach is memory efficient - only the binary image and the finest contours on one particular slicing plane need to be stored in-core. My method is general and can be applied to any implicit representations of solids. / Moreover, I also investigate techniques for support generation for layered manufacturing in image space. Region subtraction is a crucial operation for support generation. I develop a robust and reliable region subtraction method on implicit solid slicing. Compared with the conventional approach in which support regioncontours are produced from part slicing contours by polygonal operations, my approach calculates reasonable support region on binary image for each layer. I investigate a conservative growing-swallow technique to remove as much as possible the support material for self-support region while still guarantee the safety of building process. My region subtraction can serve as core technique for many layered manufacturing processes. In my research, I demonstrate region subtraction technique in both Fused Decomposition Modeling(FDM) and Stereolithography(SLA). A region cleaning technique which can reduce topology complexity of calculated support structure region is developed to fulfil specific requirement of FDM. With all the operations involved being discrete on binary image, my approach is more robust compared with the polygonal operations which are based on numerical computation. Moreover, processing on binary image makes my approach highly parallelizable. My self-intersection free contour extraction technique used in direct slicing can also be adopted to extract support structure contour on binary image if necessary. / Huang, Pu. / "October 2012." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract --- p.i / Chinese Abstract --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / List of Figures --- p.vii / List of Tables --- p.ix / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Contribution --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Organization --- p.5 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Direct Slicing on Implicit Solid --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Slicing based Support Generation --- p.9 / Chapter 3 --- Problem Definition --- p.10 / Chapter 4 --- Topologically Faithful Slicing Contour Generation --- p.12 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.12 / Chapter 4.2 --- Sampling and Contour Generation --- p.15 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Sampling --- p.16 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Topologically faithful contouring --- p.17 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- r-Regularity and Accuracy in Layered Manufacturing --- p.19 / Chapter 4.3 --- Constrained Smoothing --- p.20 / Chapter 4.4 --- Contour Simplification --- p.24 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Variational segmentation --- p.25 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Topology and distortion verification --- p.27 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Hausdorff Error Analysis --- p.31 / Chapter 4.5 --- Results and Discussion --- p.33 / Chapter 5 --- Reliable and Robust Region Subtraction for Support Generation --- p.43 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.43 / Chapter 5.2 --- Preliminary --- p.46 / Chapter 5.3 --- Region Subtraction --- p.48 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Binary Image Grid-width and Self-support Feature Threshold --- p.48 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Conservative Growing-swallow Method --- p.50 / Chapter 5.4 --- Region Cleaning Technique for FDM --- p.53 / Chapter 5.5 --- Anchor Support Generation for SLA --- p.57 / Chapter 5.6 --- Result and Discussion --- p.60 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.71 / Chapter 6.1 --- Summary and Discussion --- p.71 / Chapter 6.2 --- Future Work --- p.73 / Chapter A --- Inconsistent Contouring Problem Analysis --- p.76 / Bibliography --- p.80

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Much has been documented about the importance of effective strategic planning as a basis for an organisation to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Inadequate strategic planning is also widely recognised to be one of the major factors that contribute to the failure of most small organisations. At the same time, developing a strategy for an information technology organisation is increasingly becoming a complex exercise, considering the rate at which the field is growing and the need for organisations in this field to respond quickly to changing market demands. For large organisations, it may be a matter of ensuring that existing, tried and tested strategies are frequently updated. For small organisations on the other hand, this may be a nightmare of an exercise. In this research, the author explores a number of strategic planning approaches with the aim of identifying elements in them that could assist the strategy development process of a small information technology company. After a detailed analysis of conventional approaches to strategic management, it suggests a framework which uses the Core Competence Approach to strategy development as a basis. It is supplemented by selected techniques of Strategic Choice as a toolset for systematic decision-making within the strategy development process of a small information technology company. Also included, is a case study on the application and evaluation of the suggested framework for an initial strategy-development process at a typical small information technology company. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.