Thesis (M.Bus.)--University of Technology, Sydney, 2000.

No description available.

Inaugural-Diss. / Tübingen, Eberhard-Karls-Universität ; 1992.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Purdue University, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-201).

Thesis (M.S.C.I.T.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Aug. 30, 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (DTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / The energy sector is fast nearing a tipping point of no turning back. Transitioning from fossil fuel to renewable energy holds both threats and opportunities for businesses across the world. Africa is a continent rich in natural resources. The World Bank predicts that by 2020 only four or five African countries will not be involved in mineral exploitation. However, the continent is in economic, political and social crises with the majority of Africans living in poverty. As an enabler of business, business expects information technology (IT) to support, grow and maintain their existing portfolio of IT products and services while at the same time innovate and build new IT competencies to respond rapidly to the transition towards renewable energy. But, IT leadership is blamed for being rigid and unable to service the evolving needs of their organisations. As a result, traditional management theory is failing IT leadership in responding to the rapid rate of change required for serving as an enabler and transformational agent for business in leveraging technology to create a competitive advantage. As an enabler of business, the rate of implementing new products and services has a direct impact on organisational competitiveness, something that traditional management theory does not provide for. Theory tells us what technical skills the IT department requires; it does not tell us what people skills are required. In addition, business managers in Africa need to develop the ability to integrate traditional and conventional management styles to resolve the unique challenges they face. The implementation of an effective and efficient IT department remains problematic for business and IT management as traditional management theory does not necessarily support the implementation of IT within organisations in the African Oil and Gas industry. This research explores the disconnect between traditional management theory and the way that IT implementation works within the African Oil and Gas industry. The study followed an inductive research approach. The research paradigm fluctuated between exploratory humanism and interpretivism. The African Oil and Gas industry presents the case study. A multistage mixed-model research design (a subset of mixed method research) was followed, combining quantitative data with qualitative data in order to add depth to the findings. The multistage mixed-model research design allowed for the collection and corroboration of data and enhanced the credibility of the study. This design was used to expand the qualitative and quantitative data collected by challenging the results from both methods.

In recent years, the construction industry has been compelled to explore all possible options for improving the delivery of their products and services. Clients are now expecting a better service and projects that meet their requirements more closely. This has challenged the industry to become more efficient, integrated and more attractive, with benefits for its potential workforce and for society as a whole. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are an enabler to facilitate the improvements required for modernisation. However, due to the geographically dispersed and nomadic nature of the construction industry's workforce, many people are prevented from efficiently and effectively using the ICT tools adopted to date. Mobile technologies providing the 'last mile' connection to the point-of activity could be the missing link to help address the ongoing drive for process improvement. Although this has been a well-researched area, several barriers to mainstream adoption still exist: including a perceived lack of suitable devices; a perceived lack of computer literacy; and the perceived high cost. Through extensive industry involvement, this research has taken the theoretical idea that mobile IT use in the construction industry would be beneficial, a step further; demonstrating by means of a state of the art assessment, usability trials, case studies and demonstration projects that the barriers to mainstream adoption can be overcome. The findings of this work have been presented in four peer-reviewed papers. An ongoing dissemination programme is expected to encourage further adoption.

This thesis presents a study of the fragmented nature of activities involved in the specification and procurement of construction products. Existing Internet-based approaches have perpetuated fragmentation in this domain and this has resulted in a problem known as 'digital anarchy.' The thesis describes the design and development of an application based on the metaphor of software agents to address this problem. The thesis has validated the view that failures in the existing approaches have resulted in the 'digital anarchy' problem. Such approaches have failed to eradicate paper-based communication patterns and its related sequential work methods. The thesis has established the proof of concept of using agents for the management of distributed information in the selected domain. The work has also synthesised agent technology, XML and Web Services into a cohesive architecture, demonstrating that the ultimate solution to the 'digital anarchy' problem will emerge from a synergy of the various streams of research in Internet-related technologies. The work has established that there is significant scope for systematic improvement in the specification and procurement of construction products listed on the Internet based on the agent paradigm.

Even though construction components account for more than fifty percent of the total installed costs, industry practices still solely rely on the human ability to individually track thousands of these components on the site. These primitive tracking processes are inefficient, error-prone, and can significantly hinder project performance. Thus, previous research efforts observed that up to eighteen percent of craft work-hours was attributable to the unavailability of components required for installation. Recently, though, the notion that these ineffective tracking processes can highly benefit from the implementation of information technologies (IT) has gained industry acceptance. However, the reality is that this IT influence on construction performance has not yet been addressed. The objectives of this study are (1) to develop a methodology for the automated identification and localization of engineered components on large industrial projects, and (2) to assess and to quantify the impact of this automating tracking process on project performance. The identification and localization methodology is proposed based on the combination of advanced sensing devices and localization algorithms. The integration of global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification (RFID) receivers facilitates a network-free data collection process capable of detecting the presence of large numbers of RFID-tagged components almost instantly. Based on the collected data, localization algorithms precisely estimate the coordinates of the tagged items. The precision of this automated approach is validated by means of lab and field experiments. Complementarily, the impact of this localization methodology on project performance was quantified during an extensive field trial on a large industrial site. For this purpose, field records from manual and automated tracking processes were collected during the trial. Then, the influence of the automated tracking process on construction performance was determined by considering the manual approach as the baseline for comparison. The results demonstrate that information technologies can significantly enhance project performance. / text

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1990.