M.Phil. / Within the South African context a government of national unity has been elected. Before and after the election, mention was made of the corporatisation and/or the privatisation of state owned assets and parastatals such as Eskom, Telkom and Spoomet. The corporatisation and/or privatisation of these state assets would result in an increase in funds for the government to spend on the Reconstruction and Development Programme, as well as lead to the increase in efficiency of some of these state owned assets. Every day more comment is being made on the possibility of Eskom corporatising. This research proposed to study certain current management philosophies and methodologies being used within Eskom's Technology, Research and Investigations (T-R-I) with a view to corporatisation. This was done by comparing current management practices found in T-R-I, to both literature and prominent engineering companies in South Africa. Topics included the concept of engineering management, marketing, organisational structures, project management and change management. A literature review on strategic planning was also performed and this lay the foundation for personalised interviews with managers in prominent South African engineering companies. The interviews were conducted by means of a structured questionnaire and a statistical analysis, and comparisons of the various methodologies in terms of strategic planning within these engineering companies, were subsequently performed. A visit was also undertaken to Australian utilities which have already been through the corporatisation process. Here, first hand knowledge of the various experiences of corporatisation was obtained. T-R-I is a multi-disciplinary engineering consulting organisation which undertakes investigations, studies, applied research and testing for Eskom and other companies. It employs 308 technical people in modem laboratories. T-R-I operates in an engineering environment and following from the literature search, it is believed that T-R-I should apply the principles of engineering management. A comprehensive overview of marketing and all the aspects associated therewith was performed. It is recommended that T-R-I develop a marketing intelligence system and one comprehensive marketing plan. T-R-I also needs to develop a decision support system that will assist in making better analyses and decisions as far as product development and entry into the market is concerned. Competitors also need to be studied in more detail. Three organisational designs were investigated, i.e. the functional organisation, the product organisation and the matrix organisation. Since all of T-R-I's work is based on projects, it is recommended that T-R-I follow a matrix type structure for the effective execution of its projects. Six key activities for successful change implementation were highlighted in this study. Strategic planning was analysed by means of what literature promotes as an effective business plan. The purpose of the vision, mission, philosophy, environmental analysis and goals was discussed and comparisons were made between the literature studies and T-R-I's business plan. A structured questionnaire was developed in order to facilitate interviews with managers of five prominent South African engineering companies. A detailed statistical analysis of the resultant discussions is presented in the thesis. The questionnaire extracted information on organisational nature, organisational principles of operation, people development, management aspects and strategic planning. By comparing T-R-I's current methodology and detailed contents of the business plan to these five engineering companies, it was found that T-R-I acknowledged and responded to all of the main issues and methodologies. The Australian electricity industry has already been corporatised. A visit to five utilities in Australia was undertaken to discuss how corporatisation has affected them. What was very clear in the discussions, was that T-R-I will not survive as an "Eskom only" service provider but that it needs to expand its market. T-R-I cannot take it for granted that it has a captive market in Eskom. All of the Australian utilities visited, however, indicated that they believed that corporatisation was well worth it. It is, however, recommended that comparative studies be performed in order to evaluate what companies did to transform from parastatals or military supporting companies to successful companies in the private sector (eg. Denel, Sentech and the Atomic Energy Corporation). In-depth studies focusing on these organisations will add to the identification of those inefficiencies within T-R-I that would enhance its capabilities, should they be positively addressed, in order to sustain itself in the future and be a successfully corporatised entity.

M.Ing. / This study proposed to evaluate decision methods for R&D projects to assist managers to choose the appropriate type of model for their organization. In order to enhance the understanding of selection of R&D projects, general characteristics of project selection models have been explained with their advantages and disadvantages. For this purpose, model groups, criteria for models and usage of models have been addressed in detail. For better understanding of project selection models, the general characteristics of R&D projects, which are uncertainty, sequentiality and project interactions have been explained. It has been found by literature survey that the most used models are scoring models, economic models and optimization models. Among these models scoring models have more advantages than the others. However, there is not a perfect model for all types of projects and organizations. The criteria for selection of projects and models have been introduced. It has been found that criteria for selection of projects differ according to the type of projects under consideration, to the managers' view of project selection and to the size of the organizations. Research projects are often selected by using scoring models, which allow subjective estimation. On the other hand development or new product projects are selected mostly by using economic models. It has also been found that realism, flexibility, cost, ease of use, and capability were the most accepted criteria for selection of models. In order to make the discussed subjects clearer the project selection practice of Premet R&D has been explained in a step by step fashion. The model used by Premet R&D in the project selection process has also been addressed. Premet R&D's model has been compared with other models and weighted factor scoring model, which is a better version of their model, has been recommended for Premet R&D.

The need for a procedure to design chemical plants for pollution prevention results from a recent emphasis on pollution prevention at the source. The conceptual design procedure of Douglas (1985) has been extended to consider process alternatives for pollution prevention. Waste penalties become another criteria in the economic evaluation of flowsheet alternatives. New heuristics are presented that lead to process alternatives that reduce or eliminate waste streams. Twenty processes comprising a total of 79 individual plants have been studied, and their waste loads have been summarized. This analysis shows that the majority of the waste from chemical processes can be classified as either waste from the reaction chemistry or waste from the separation system. Because much of this waste is waste water, water reuse should be considered to reduce the total waste load. The aqueous waste load from these twenty processes could be reduced by an average of 63% if all fresh water streams could be replaced with recycled water. By identifying the decisions having the greatest impact on waste loads in a chemical processes, alternative decisions for pollution prevention can be made, leading to alternative flowsheet designs. This is shown through a discussion of the styrene process, in which flowsheet alternatives using steam as a heat carrier are compared to those using either methane or toluene. Several feasible flowsheets are for each case, each having roughly the same economic potential. Heat integration should be considered to identify to best few candidates for a more rigorous design. The StreamCosts screening method targets wasteloads resulting from the reaction chemistry, by screening reaction pathway alternatives based on the costs of the feed and exit streams, including the waste penalties. Those pathways with large amounts of waste byproducts can be eliminated early in the design procedure. Finally, the PIPII computer package has been extended for pollution prevention. The production of Bis (2-Hydroxyethyl) Terephthalate serves as a case study to demonstrate the use of the code. The total waste penalty of 58.5 MM$/yr for the base case alternative leads to an economic potential of $-$47.3 MM\$/yr, showing a strong incentive for waste reduction.

Sustainable development problems are a genre of multi-objective ill-defined problems. The scarcity of resources in developing countries adds to the convolution of these problems, which is rooted within many disciplines. Focusing on the energy sector development and its sustainability, the main contribution of this research is of two folds: (i) The use of conventional energy sources has many negative implications on the economies of developing countries. A review of the global efforts to enhance economic growth through the deployment of renewable energy technologies is presented. Noting the failure of these efforts to accomplish their objective in due time, the appropriate strategic management tools were identified and integrated in the problem solving process to aid steer the decision process towards more effectual solutions. (ii) On the micro level, energy development projects are capital-intensive and hence prohibitive for most of the developing countries. The essence of a successful strategy is then to find the dynamic strategic fit (DSF) between these systems' external factors (opportunities and challenges) and their internal factors (resources and capabilities). We present an algorithm that utilizes the DSF concept to improve on sub-optimal solutions represented by economically feasible developmental projects. We present two real-world applications that illustrate the algorithm's ability to reduce the behavioral makeup of decision-makers and politics effects, which are discerned with MADM models.

Product realization is a very complex, interdisciplinary process. At early design stages, decisions must be made not only about physical attributes of the design, but also about scheduling and resource allocation for many product and manufacturing engineering activities, as well as purchasing, finance, marketing, etc. Typically, complex interdependencies exist among these disparate activities, and it is difficult to predict how decisions will affect overall organizational objectives of low cost, high quality and short time-to-market. Many decision support needs in this process seem to fall in a gap between emerging design-for-manufacture models (which evaluate design attributes for cost of a specific manufacturing activity) and management-level models (such as very abstract but comprehensive PERT-type networks). This research addresses this "gap." In the proposed model there are three distinct object representations that together define a product realization problem: product attributes, activities, and resources. In the first stage of the model, two relational matrices are used to (i) match product attributes to the required design and manufacturing activities, and (ii) then match the activities to the resources required for realization. In the second stage, an activity network is generated from the data in the relational matrices. The network is assembled from predefined "templates" of activities which have default precedence relationships (for example, sequences of prototyping and tooling activities). This activity network is then used to simulate aggregate cash flow. There are several applications envisioned for a computer tool based on this model: as a "prospectus" for new product designs to assess aggregate cost and development time within a specific organizational context; to assist managers in "concurrent" scheduling of design, tooling, and other preproduction activities; as a vehicle for budget negotiation between engineers and financial managers during the design process; and as an aid for value analysis. After reporting results of a field study and prototype computer implementation, I conclude that the model could potentially be used for decision support, but several important conceptual and implementation limitations remain to be addressed.

Business Process Management (BPM) has become one of the management approaches adopted by many organisations that strive to survive in a turbulent and competitive environment. BPM offers the means to manage and optimize business processes with the objective of improved efficiency and effectiveness; thereby improving the potential of business success. However, the extent to which BPM influences business success is a matter of debate with diverse schools of thought finding it difficult to reach consensus regarding the critical success factors of BPM and the extent at which processes and people influence business success. The capability of an organisation or enterprise is the ability to deliver on a desired outcome. In this dissertation, the enterprise capabilities of BPM are investigated. The research sets out to investigate the BPM maturity level of a South African parastatal. The intention is to identify and improve on those factors that influence maturity of the enterprise capabilities and may have negative impact on stakeholders. The approach taken to address the research objectives drew on case study methodology. Fieldwork was conducted using company documents, observation, a questionnaire and in-depth interviews. The questionnaire responses were qualitatively analysed using the categories of Hammer's model of enterprise capability. The research findings identified weaknesses in all categories of enterprise capability though expertise appeared to be thriving. The findings further suggest that weaknesses in leadership and the leadership style in particular impact on the effectiveness of business processes. The leadership style was seen as the major driver to impede process effectiveness. The following themes describing leadership style were derived from interviews: creation of sense of belonging, degree of approachability and extent of collaboration. In order to improve the BPM in the case company, the following recommendations were made: communication sessions, awareness training and process remodelling. The research study also provides the opportunity to understand BPM in a broader context, thus having potential for transferability to other organisations.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

The engineering and design of complex systems often requires that multiple design tasks be executed in parallel or overlapping efforts. When the design of individual subsystems is distributed among multiple organizations, challenges arise with respect to managing design productivity and coordinating successful collaborative exchanges. Research and development engineering projects compound these challenges further due to their inherently greater uncertainty. This report examines several factors that influence design productivity in the collaborative research and development environment, including the selection of subsystem interfaces, design information management, and complexity management. A collaborative research and development project to upgrade the Hobby-Eberly Telescope is introduced to provide case examples and illustrate the proposed value of subsequent management recommendations. / text

In this paper, I will explore the hidden costs and risks of IT offshoring and how to manage those costs so that realistic expectations can be set. Establishing a baseline of such expectations will help companies understand and follow best practices in planning, executing, and managing the full offshore lifecycle. While details will vary with each project, offshore vendor, and company, these costs are seen across most offshore ventures and, if understood, will help explain why so many offshoring attempts fail, help IT managers and decision makers anticipate potential problems, and help CIOs more accurately predict cost savings. / text

vi, 146 leaves : ill. ; 25 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.1974) from the Dept. of Applied Mathematics, University of Adelaide