D.Ing. / During the last pre-millennium decade South African engineers were involved mainly in military product development. The downscaling of development within the military arena, forced the engineering as well as other industries to refocus on commercial product development and marketing (the engineers in the military environment were not the only ones influenced by the change in the economic climate. Many others were also affected, but for the sake of explanation, the military environment was used). This stage led to the creation of various small- to-medium enterprises (SMEs), which were set up by creative, determined engineers and entrepreneurs. However, by the latter part of the last decade, these initiatives ended sadly in the liquidation of quite a number of companies. These ongoing liquidations are a result of various aspects, such as cash flow restrictions, growing currency value and a low national- growth figure. The research done in fulfilment of this thesis, addresses some of the events of the last decade and offers general, practical suggestions on how to overcome some of these hurdles within the current economic climate. It illustrates that experience enables an entrepreneur to develop methods and provide suggestions on how to create, establish, survive and grow within a high-technology driven SME. Shortfalls, methods and products are discussed by means of case studies. The products discussed in the thesis, are all classified among the field of mobile, portable and static electronic power-conversion. Thirty high-technology companies participated in a survey in support of the research statements. As a summary, it is shown that various aspects often restrict new product development (NPD) for SMEs. Optimum and effective usage of knowledge and experience in areas of technology, marketing, human resources, organisational, operational, manufacturing and financial management is required to achieve goals successfully and to survive in today’s industry. An investigation was done to determine the relationship between these interdivisions of an SME. In conclusion, methods and models are presented to optimise the techniques that are currently used within SMEs. These techniques are then further expanded on and presented as guidelines for business discussions. Practical examples are presented in support of the actual models.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:14817 |
| Date | 22 January 2009 |
| Creators | Van der Merwe, Gabriel Jacobus |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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