Thesis (MEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since the intervention of the Competition Commission and the abolition of the mandatory use of the government gazetted Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) fees scale, engineering services consultants in South Africa have been competing based on price for engineering contracts in both the public and private sectors. Discounts benchmarked against ECSA professional fees scale demanded by clients have resulted in declines in professional fees over the years. The capacity to deliver professional services that are of such high quality that it meets the client’s expectation, professional and ethical standards when working at low fees is one of the biggest challenges facing consulting professionals today. This research studied the risks encountered by civil and structural engineering services consultants and the impact of discounted professional fees on their risk exposure. The study included a review of literature, discussions with practicing engineers and a questionnaire based survey. A total of 23 practicing consulting engineers representing small, medium and large consulting engineering firms participated as respondents in the questionnaire survey. The literature review identified project and organisational level risks particular to civil and structural engineering services consultants. The study compiled information on the discounting practices of civil and structural engineering services consultants in South Africa. It is found that the practice of discounting is widespread, affecting small, medium and large consulting firms. The range of discounts offered in the industry results in a significant decrease in the fee scale recommended by ECSA for various engineering project types. Respondents identified the primary reasons why they are forced to offer discounts and identified project and organisational risks most impacted by discounted fees in an order of perceived importance to them. Financial loss on the project, inadequate supervision and quality control on site and inability to perform value engineering were identified as project risks with the most impact on respondents’ organisation. At the organisational level human resource issues such as training and mentoring of young engineers, ability to attract and retain quality/experienced staff and overall business sustenance were identified as risks most impacted by discounted fees. Measures adopted by respondents to mitigate risk associated with discounted fees on project were also identified and recommended. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sedert die ingryping van die Kompetisie Kommissie en die afskaffing van verpligte fooie soos gepubliseer deur die regerings koerant en Ingenieurs Raad van Suid Afrika (IRSA), het ingenieurs konsultante in Suid Afrika meegeding gebaseer op die prys van ingenieurs kontrakte in beide die publieke en private sektore. Afslag wat gemeet word teen professionele skale van ECSA word vereis deur kliënte. Onetiese tender gedrag deur kliënte en raadgewers het gelei tot ʼn daling in professionele fooie oor die jare. Die kapasiteit om professionele dienste te verskaf, wat van ʼn hoë kwaliteit is, kliënte se verwagtinge bereik en professionele en etiese standaarde bereik teen lae koste is een van die grootste uitdagings vir professionele raadgewende ingenieurs in vandag se mark. Hierdie tesis bestudeer die risiko’s wat siviele en strukturele raadgewende ingenieurs ondervind, asook die impak wat afslag van professionele fooie het in terme van die blootstelling van risiko’s. Hierdie studie behels ʼn literatuur studie, gesprekke met ingenieurs in die praktyk en ʼn vraelys opname. ʼn Totaal van 23 raadgewende ingenieurs wat klein, medium en groot raadgewende ingenieurs instansies verteenwoordig het deelgeneem aan die vraelys opname. Die literatuur studie het projek risiko’s en risiko’s op die organisasie vlak geïdentifiseer wat veral verband hou met siviele en strukturele raadgewende dienste. Die studie het informasie gegenereer oor die dalende uitvoering van siviele en strukturele raadgewende dienste in Suid-Afrika. Dit is bevind dat die beginsel van afslag in die algemeen klein, medium en groot raadgewende firmas beïnvloed. Die omvang van die afslag wat aangebied word in die ingenieurs bedryf het gelei tot ʼn beduidende afname in die fooi skaal wat aanbeveel word deur ECSA vir die verskeie ingenieurs projek tipes. Die verskeie deelnemers van die studie het gedui dat die primêre rede hoekom hulle gedwing word om afslag aan te bied en projek en organisasie risiko’s identifiseer, is omdat afslag fooie ʼn voorafgestelde belang is vir hulle. Finansiële verliese op ʼn projek, onvoldoende toesig, kwaliteitsbeheer en die onvermoë om hoë gehalte ingenieurswese toe te pas was geïdentifiseer as die projek risiko’s wat die meeste invloed het op die deelnemers se organisasies. By die organisasie vlak was menslike hulpbronne, soos opleiding en die mentorskap van jong ingenieurs, die vermoë om kwaliteit of ervare personeel te trek en te behou, en die algehele besigheid lewensmiddele geïdentifiseer as risiko’s wat die meeste beïnvloed word deur afslag fooie. Maatreëls wat aangeneem is deur deelnemers aan die studie om risiko’s wat verband hou met afslag fooie van ʼn projek te versag is geïdentifiseer en aanbeveel.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

This thesis is an empirical qualitative case study of the work of an evaluation commission which was established by the Ministry of Culture, Research and Art in the German state of Baden-Württemberg in 2003 to undertake a cross-sectional examination of the quality of teaching and research in universities and teacher training colleges offering courses in Educational Science (Erziehungswissenschaft). Although much literature on evaluation methods and models exists, little addresses the minutiae of evaluation work through the eyes of those doing it. This study therefore aims to augment this knowledge by examining the attitudes, experiences and difficulties which evaluators face. It contributes to the discourse on evaluation theory and practice by providing suggestions for what might help to improve decision-making processes in this particular environment. Informed by phenomenological theory, this exploratory study also uses decision-making theories as a means of providing knowledge on both individual and organisational issues which can augment our understanding of how expert commissions work: the social, political and cultural mechanisms that are involved, and the techniques that evaluators employ in order to provide institutions with an objective, fair, trustworthy and reliable evaluation report. As external review has become an accepted means of quality assurance, this research constitutes a contribution to the discourse on ways of improving quality assurance in higher education on a broader scale, not just within the context of German higher education. Furthermore, it also offers insight into the discipline of Educational Science itself and the notion of competing research paradigms, which have an impact on the way the discipline perceives itself and is perceived by others. The study is broadly divided into three main sections. The first contextualises the history of higher education evaluation, specifically within the German context. It looks at how the idea of what a university is has changed, especially during the last few decades of the 20th century, and notions of quality within this particular environment. The evaluation is also briefly introduced within the context of Baden-Württemberg. The second section explores the evaluation by examining the documents available in the evalag agency archive in Mannheim, thereby facilitating an understanding of the background to the commission and the processes which the evaluators underwent as work progressed. The third provides insight into what the evaluators themselves thought of the process and is based on interview analysis. The thesis concludes with a brief survey of more recent developments in quality assurance in Germany.

This paper presents the background, aim and results of a small empirical study conducted in the setting of a medical hospital library. The background is found both in the quality ambitions of the medical professions and organizations and in the effort of medical libraries to show their importance to the total quality of medical decision making. As a first step in the library's quality process, the aim has been to identify quality performance indicators of value to library users in their contact with a medical hospital library. The second step- to identify satisfaction levels - is not included in this work. Another aim has been to compare the quality categories in this small study with the generally accepted quality categories that emerged in the comprehensive studies of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry in which customers express their expectations and perceptions of services. This study is based on a small number of interviews with representatives from different user groups within a hospital. The analysis is inspired by phenomenography which build on perceptions of phenomena - in this case the phenomenon "quality". In the material from the interviews five quality categories were identified. Compared to generally accepted quality categories from the service sector none of these five categories were unique. Important conclusions were that despite the homogeneity of the user group, expectations and needs are different and vary from time to time. Consequently flexibility and individual treatment of library users are crucial if the library is to meet user expectations. But the material also shows that despite access to modern technology users have very traditional perceptions of the library seeing the library as a room. If libraries were to let only user expectations initiate changes, it would lead to stagnation. It is not realistic to rely only on the knowledge or interest of the users.

Context. In recent years, Software Quality Assurance (SQA) has become a crucial part of software development processes. Therefore, modern software development processes led to an increase in demand for manual and automated code quality assurance. Manual code quality reviews can be a time-consuming and expensive process with varying results. Thus, automated code reviews turn out to be a preferred alternative for mitigating this process. However, commercial and open-source static code analyzer tools often offer deep analysis with long lead time. Objectives. In this thesis work, the main aim is to introduce an early code quality assurance tool, which features a combination of software metrics. The tool should be able to examine code quality and complexity of a telecommunication grade software product such as source code of specific Ericsson product by Ericsson. This tool should encapsulate complexity and quality of a software product with regards to its efficiency, scope, flexibility, and execution time. Methods. For this purpose, the background section of the thesis is dedicated to in-depth research on software metrics included in well-known static code analyzers. Then, development environment, under investigation source code of Ericsson product, and collected software metric for evaluation were presented. Next, according to each software metric’s characteristics, point of interest, and requirement, a set of steps based on a Susman’s action research cycle were defined. Moreover, SWAT, a suitable software analytics toolkit, employed to extract conducted experiment data of each software metric from a static analyzer code named Lizard in order to detect most efficient software metrics. Outcome of conducted experiment demonstrates relationship of selected software metrics with one another. Results. The chosen software metrics were evaluated based on a variety of vital factors especially actual data from number of defects of specific Ericsson product. Highly effective software metrics from investigations in this thesis work were implemented as a new model named hybrid model to be utilized as an early quality assurance. Conclusions. The proposed model, which consist of well-performing software metrics, demonstrate an impressive performance as an early code quality indicator. Consequently, the utilized model in this master thesis could be studied in a future research to further investigate the effectiveness and robustness of this tool an early quality assurance.

D. Phil. / School based assessment (SBA) or continuous assessment (CASS) as it is often referred to, includes all forms of assessment conducted by the teacher, at the classroom level, which are then collated for summative judgment purposes to feed into the exit point assessment result. Internationally there has been a search for more authentic forms of assessment and South Africa has also explored alternative forms of assessment so that the final assessment is not dominated by a once-off external summative examination. SBA was officially introduced as part of the assessment regime for the award of the Senior Certificate, in the South African education system, in 2001 and has subsequently been included as part of the assessment requirement for the National Senior Certificate (NSC) that replaced the Senior Certificate, in 2008. As much as SBA allows for a broader form of assessment of learning, it reduces the reliability of assessment and claims have been made that it impacts on the public confidence and credibility of the certificate. This is as a result of assessment now being conducted by teachers in the classroom, who are poorly equipped to implement SBA. Umalusi, the Quality Assurance Council, responsible for the final standard and quality of exit assessment has raised concerns about the reliability of SBA and therefore, to guard the credibility of the Senior Certificate and the National Senior Certificate, the Council has statistically moderated the SBA marks using the examination marks as a benchmark. This form of moderation has been regarded as not being the most appropriate, since it undermines the essence and purpose of this form of assessment. Therefore this study attempts to review the current form of quality assurance of SBA as it is implemented across all provincial education departments (PEDS), so as to develop an improved model for the quality assurance of SBA. In order to adequately contextualise the study, two of the key components of this study, that is, school based assessment (SBA) and quality assurance, were explored in detail in chapter two of the study. This chapter also evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of SBA, and then focused on the implementation and management of SBA in South Africa, its current status and challenges. The major challenges facing the South African schooling system, with regard to SBA, relate to: (a) the lack of a clear understanding of the specific purpose of SBA; (b) the policies, structures and processes for the implementation of SBA are grossly inadequate; (c) the reliance on statistical moderation of SBA has resulted in a lack of motivation to improve the quality of SBA; and therefore there is a need for creative thinking to ensure fairness in SBA.

Samtidigt som konkurransen i byggbranschen idag är hög har kraven på kvalité och effektivitet från samhället ökat. Däremot har många av de frågor som rör hanteringen av digitala handlingar och digitala leveranser inte behandlats på det sätt som krävs för att få en standardiserad arbetsprocess. Begreppet BIM har florerat i branschen under en längre period vid det här laget, men trots detta råder det fortfarande en hel del oklarheter om vad det faktiskt innebär. Visualiseringsaspekten som utvinns ur en BIM-modell har blivit väl vedertagen, men tillskillnad från en 3D-CAD är det snarare I:et i BIM, informationen, som definierar övriga aspekter. Därför bör BIM snarare tolkas som ett informationsflöde med tillhörande 3D-modell än tvärtom. Framgångsfaktorer gällande implementeringen av ett standardiserat arbetssätt i våra grannländer har varit statliga riktlinjer och direktiv. I direktiven har varje del av byggprocessen behandlats ur ett BIM-perspektiv, där standarder och arbetsmetoder bestämts. I Sverige har vi i dagsläget inte kommit lika långt gällande ett standardiserat arbetssätt. Varje aktör beskrivs som sina egna pionjärer och risken blir således stor för att hjulet måste uppfinnas på nytt varje gång. Ett steg i rätt riktning hade därför varit att större byggherrar och förvaltare, gärna statliga, gemensamt utarbetar en manual liknande den som återfinns i våra grannländer och kräver BIM i sina upphandlingar. Hur vida en BIM-modell kan uppnå juridisk status lägger i sin tur grunden för hur framtidsutsikterna ser ut för arbetssättet. Här kommer även processen med att kvalitetssäkra modellerna bli ännu viktigare. / At the same time as the competition in the construction industry is high. The demand for quality and efficiency has increased from the community. However, many of the issues concerning the management of digital documents and deliveries are not being handled in the manner required to obtain a standardized work process. The concept of BIM have flourished in the industry for a long period of time at this point, but despite this there is still a lot of confusion about what it actually means. The visualization aspect obtained from a BIM model has been well established but in a BIM model it is the information that defines the other aspects. It should therefore rather be interpreted as a flow of information with an associated 3D model than vice versa. Success factors regarding the implementation of a standardized working process in our neighboring countries has been government guidelines and directives. The so called BIM manuals are treating each part of the construction process from a BIM perspective and standards and processes get determined. Meanwhile, the process regarding similar guidelines has not been progressed in Sweden. Each actor is being described as their own pioneer and the risk is therefore great for the wheel to be reinvented every time. A step in the right direction would be if larger property developers, preferably the ones being owned by the government, in collaboration drew up documents similar to the ones found in our neighboring countries and required BIM in their procurements. Whether or not a BIM model can achieve legal status lays the foundation for the future of BIM, at the same time as this greatly affects the process of assuring the quality of the models.

En hög rapporteringsgrad av egenkontroller är en förutsättning i dagens byggande. I varje projekt strävar alla parter mot att det både ska vara tids- och kostnadseffektivt. Egenkontrollen fungerar som en garanti för att rätt kvalitet på produkten hålls. Inte bara för beställaren men även för samhället och entreprenören själv. Denna studie har utförts i samarbete med PEAB Anläggning och har som huvudsyfte att undersöka företagets rutiner gällande egenkontrollsarbetet och därmed hitta möjliga förbättringar. Studien behandlar även vad de anställdas anser om dagens egenkontroller samt lyfter fram deras åsikter. Dessutom undersöks det hur PEAB Anläggnings pilotprojekt för BIM 360, som är ett digitalt system för hantering av bygghandlingar och dokument, har tagits emot av de anställda. En omfattande litteraturstudie har utförts för att ge information och kunskap inom ämnet. Från litteraturstudien har underlag för en enkätstudie och två intervjustudier skapats. Efter att resultatet analyserats och jämförts med litteraturstudien har det även diskuterats, både gällande resultat samt metod. För resultatet har förslag för möjliga förbättringsåtgärder lyfts fram. Förslagen kan leda till att PEAB Anläggning i framtiden kan utveckla sitt egenkontrollsarbete. Det kan i studien konstateras att det finns en del brister i dagens egenkontrollsarbete. En stor faktor är den krångliga administrationen. I studien har det även noterats att det finns ett engagemang bland de anställda att faktiskt arbeta och lära sig mer gällande förbättrad kvalitet och egenkontroller. Vidare bör PEAB Anläggning se över möjligheterna att utbilda sina anställda inom kvalitetssäkring och egenkontroller. / A high degree of self-inspection reports are essential in today's society where the construction is to be both time and cost effective. Self-inspections acts as a guarantee that the quality of the product is right. Not just for the customer but also for society and the contractor himself. This study has been prepared in cooperation with PEAB Anläggning and has as main purpose to examine the company's procedures regarding its own self-inspections work, and thereby find possible shortcomings. The study deals with employees' attitude towards today's self-inspections as well as highlighting their opinions. In addition, it examines how PEAB Anläggnings pilot project for BIM 360, a system for digital handling of construction documents is received by the employees. An extensive literature study was conducted to provide information and knowledge in the subject. From the literature study has the basis for a survey and two interview studies been created. After the results have been analyzed and compared with the literature study, it has also been discussed, both in terms of results and in terms of methods. The results have suggestions for possible improvement measures. The proposals could lead to the future development of PEAB Anläggnings self-inspections work. The study can confirm that there are some flaws in today's self-control work. A big factor is the complexity of the administration. In the study, it has also been noted that there is a commitment among employees to actually work and learn more regarding self-controls. Furthermore, PEAB Anläggning should look at the opportunities to train their employees in quality assurance and self-controls.