The aim of this study was to investigate the current ERP selection processes that are used by KwaZulu-Natal organizations, in order to determine what problem factors were evidenced during the selection process. In order to obtain a KwaZulu-Natal organizations' perspective of the ERP selection process, two stages were used to gather survey data. The first stage consisted of an electronic mail and fax survey; the second stage was a door to door survey done in business parks and industrial parks/zones in the Greater Durban region - this was for purposes of remedying the low response rate obtain during the first stage. Sixty-three respondents from a wide range of industrial sectors in KwaZulu- Natal responded to the research questionnaire. In terms of response information: more than 55% of respondents had recently acquired an ERP solution and their ERP systems were fully integrated 12.7% of respondents had bought ERP software, but it was not fully implemented 6.3% of respondents were at the ERP selection stage, they were without an ERP system but had already commenced the selection process 23.8% of respondents did not have ERP nor did they intend to obtain ERP in the future 1.6% of respondents did not have ERP but indicated that they may have such a system in the future. Respondents were randomly chosen from medium sized and large sized organizations in KwaZulu-Natal. They are determined as large in turnover, total asset and number of employees by South African standards and aremostly hierarchical and centralized organisations with a divisional/functional structure. The study revealed that although ERP selection was considered to be making a significant contribution to organizations7 IT/IS strategy, the ERP selection process was not paid enough attention in practice in KwaZulu- Natal organizations due to a number of obstacles deduced from this study. Therefore, this study can be of benefit to organizations in identifying these obstacles and in recommending strategies that could be employed to overcome them. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

The successes or failures one experiences in life depend greatly on the decisions that one makes. This is not only true in one’s personal life but is also the case in the business environment. In this modern world, simple and complex decisions are the key elements for a business to be successful in the competitive global environment. Effective decision making is an intricate process. In Eskom it is important to integrate the technological and business aspects to support the decision making process. Research methodology provides one with the necessary tools to support this decision making. The main focus of the study is the development of an Optimisation Model for the Management of Transformers in the Eskom East Grid Transmission Sysytem. In the Eskom Transmission system, there are a large number of power transformers which are the most expensive and strategically important component of the Transmission system. There were three main objectives. The first objective included the forecasting of transformer failures using the forecasting techniques of moving average, weighted moving average, exponential smoothing and regression analysis. The second objective focused on the investigation of the re – location of the tap changer maintenance team to a new area using the mathematical and statistical methods of simulation and decision tree analysis. The third objective included the investigation of an inventory control and management model where the optimum number of spares pertaining to transformer units that should be made available was determined using the mathematical and statistical model called the economic order quantity. These objectives were then used to investigate the development of the optimisation model pertaining to transformers. The results of the study concluded that the operating research techniques which included the forecasting methods and the economic order quantity models were suitable for research in Eskom. However it is important to note that the Eskom system and the environment in which transformers operate in is dynamic and has some factors that cannot be controlled. These factors must be taken into consideration when the various models are used in the investigation of the optimisation model. The introduction of these external factors is beyond the scope of this study and is not included. It was concluded that the simulation and decision tree analysis could be used as an integral part of the optimisation model successfully. The limitations that were highlighted included the integrity of the secondary data (sample size, the source of the secondary data, data quality and data governance), the limitations associated with forecasting, the limitations of the operations research, mathematical and statistical models and the fact that the Eskom network is dynamic. . The recommendations included the application of the forecasting techniques and the inventory control model to a larger population size which was that of the transformers in the entire Transmission system. It was indicated that Eskom resources, time and money must be used to support the business’s strategy to train and develop employees to an acceptable competency level. Future studies should include the factors that affect forecasting and the implementation of the inventory control model to increase the accuracy of the results. The introduction of these external factors is beyond the scope of this study and was not included in the models. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009.

Low cost and high efficiencies are probably the most common of strategies used in large businesses today. This requires, however, optimum levels of commitment and performance from the employees coupled with an excellent taste for change. The transition from the use of Mondi employees to labour broker employees is a change process that impacts on a company's most valuable asset - their employees. It is with this in mind that the researcher conducted a case study aimed at identifying the impact of using labour broker employees in the waste handling operations on the morale of the affected employees. The researcher found it essential to evaluate the impact of this change on operational costs and efficiencies of the section. The three research questions that were outlined to meet the above aims were: (1) Does the use of labour broker employees in the waste paper handling part of the recycling operations impact positively or negatively on the morale of the Mondi waste paper handling operators? (2) Does the use of labour broker employees in the waste paper handling part of the recycling operations reduce the operational costs in that section? (3) Does the use of labour broker employees in the waste paper handling part of the recycling operations decrease or increase the operational efficiencies in that section? The initiative to use labour broker employees in the waste paper handling operations was not set up as an experiment. It was already in motion and the researcher opted to study it. Direct observation and unstructured interviews were used to answer research question (1). It was found that the change had completely demotivated the Mondi waste handling operators. Their morale levels dropped to particularly low levels as they felt disliked, not part of a team and unappreciated for their efforts and past service. The impacts of this low morale were hidden due to the plant being under utilised against its design capacity. They also had a prevailing sense of insecurity and uncertainty regarding their jobs, which made them uneasy. Factors associated with operational costs and efficiency was measured before (2004) and after the initiative (2005) to establish the impact of using labour broker employees on them. Direct observations and a quantitative analysis of data from the company's finance and technical departments were used to answer research questions (2) and (3). It was noted that there was a decrease in the operational costs due to the lower rate of pay of the labour broker employees and them doing overtime. The use of labour broker employees resulted in no significant improvement on the operational efficiencies. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2006.

No description available.

No description available.

Abstract Management is a field that started getting attention in the beginning of the 20 th century by Frederick Taylor. His publication is called the Principles of Scientific Management and is based on the principles of using scientific methods to find the best way of conducting each operation within a production facility. Many of Taylor’s principles may appear obsolete today but the matter of an effective material flow is still highly current. Efficiency is the relationship between the input into an operation and its result. A substantial part of the material flow is storage and the costs tied to it. An area about the importance of eliminating storage is JIT or just in time. The main principle of JIT is that a product shouldn’t be produced until a customer expresses its demand for it. Inventory Management is an area within JIT and contains different principles regarding how to avoid storage. Production Management is another area with a set of principles on how to plan an efficient layout of the production. There are many benefits that can be achieved with an efficient production flow and also many disadvantages if the flow is inefficient. It is therefore important to identify the weak spots in the production line and improving them. Our research question: How can the principles of JIT within the areas Inventory Management and Production Management be used to make the material flow more efficient? By conducting a case study at a company in the plastic recycling business, we have come to a conclusion. They need to reduce the amount of material in the warehouse by either buying less material or by increasing the capacity of the cutting operation. The can also make the cutting operation automatic in order to decrease to amount of time that is required for the cutting. They can also eliminate the need for storing half complete material by purchasing a more efficient granulation machine. The last thing to improve is to move the warehouse for final storage closer to the loading area in order to decrease the amount of time needed for that particular operation.

This thesis presents a series of integrated models for simultaneous optimization of location, capacity, product range, and production technology decisions in production-distribution systems. The interactions between these decisions can be significant. This thesis draws its motivation from these interactions. In order to benefit from the capital and/or employment subsidies, preferential tax rates, and free trade zones provided by governments, firms need to take the interdependencies between their location, capacity and technology decisions into account. These decisions could be further complicated due to varying scale and scope economies inherent in different production technologies. / The models proposed in this thesis are based on two fundamentally different but equally central approaches. The first approach builds on traditionally popular integer programming formulation in facility location theory, in which two such models presented in this thesis. The first one assumes that there are a number of dedicated production technologies for each product whereas, the second one assumes that a set of flexible technologies is also present. Analytical properties of the models are described, which lead to the development of exact and heuristic solution procedures. Results of several sets of computational experiments are also reported. The second approach is based on continuous approximation (also known as continuum mechanics), which has not been used to its potential in the literature. The third model in this thesis is proposed for a system with single product. It is based on the use of continuous functions in representing spatial distribution of cost parameters and decision variables. In this model, the focus is to compute the service regions leaving the precise plant locations to a subsequent analysis. This model lends itself to closed form solutions and allows derivation of a number of insights on the impact of several cost factors on facility design decisions. Then, it is utilized in an analytical framework to analyze several plant focus decisions of firms in a multi-product environment. The closed form solution is used to analyze several product and market focus strategies, which have provided several insights into more sophisticated plant focus decisions and into the impact of different production technologies on these decisions.

Most classical unconstrained optimization methods require derivative information. Different methods have been proposed for problems where derivative information cannot be used. One class of these methods is heuristics including Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs). In this study, we propose EAs for unconstrained optimization under both deterministic and stochastic environments. We design a crossover operator that tries to lead the algorithm towards the global optimum even when the starting solutions are far from the optimal solution. We also adapt this algorithm to a stochastic environment where there exist only estimates for the function values. We design new parent selection schemes based on statistical grouping methods and a replacement scheme considering existing statistical information. We test the performance of our algorithms using functions from the literature and newly introduced functions and obtain promising results.

This thesis discusses the use of inventory pooling methods in inventory management for the so-called multi-location systems whereby the stocking locations share their inventories, typically by using lateral transhipments, in order to fill demand at a stock-out retailer with supplies from another having surplus items. The capability of conventional pooled-inventory systems are upgraded with the proposal herin of a novel approach that employs emergency orders along with lateral transshipments to improve network performamce under a high shortage-penalty environment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2008.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 54).