Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / This thesis reports on a research project conducted at Stellenbosch University, focusing on the field of
information management, and contributing to the development of an approach for structuring information in
such a manner that context becomes apparent, which on its part assists persons (and groups of persons) in
selecting useful information from a larger whole, given a certain context. This document is composed of three
general sections.
The first section is a literature study focusing on the following topics: (1) Information overload: The amount of
information in the world, as well as its rate of generation is discussed, together with the notion of information
overload, its causes, symptoms and possible solutions. (2) Information utilisation in organisations: General
concepts concerning the utilisation of information in organisations are discussed, together with the manners in
which organisations fail in efficiently utilising information, but also some examples where organisations have
succeeded. (3) Information modelling: Various well-known information modelling approaches currently
employed to improve information utilisation are discussed and compared. It is however mentioned that none
of these approaches are sufficiently general, flexible and simple enough to assist typical organisational
knowledge workers in efficiently interacting with information.
The second section of this thesis focuses on the conceptual framework information modelling approach
currently being investigated at Stellenbosch University as a means for improving the information utilisation
efficiency of organisational knowledge workers. The basic concepts of the approach are discussed, and it is
compared with the more well-known information modelling approaches mentioned in the literature study. The
research being conducted on the approach is further briefly discussed, which includes the purpose of this
thesis (which is the development of a methodology for conceptual framework implementation in
organisations), the research method followed, and the thesis hypothesis, which is: Information represented by
a conceptual framework implemented through the use of the developed conceptual framework
implementation methodology, offer a truthful view on information found in an organisation. The
methodology developed is subsequently discussed in terms of its phases and activities, each of which is
discussed in terms of its description, the rationale behind and prerequisites of its execution, details of the
manner of its execution, and the eventual outputs thereof.
The final section of this thesis provides information on the validation of the conceptual framework
implementation methodology described in the previous section, which were done in two parts. A theoretical
validation was done through a comparison of the developed methodology with existing methodologies for the
implementation of other information modelling approaches. A practical validation was also done through two
case studies by which conceptual frameworks were implemented at two separate organisations. The
document is finally concluded through a summary of the contents of this thesis, the outcome of the hypothesis
test, and some closing remarks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1916 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Kotze, Dirk J. |
| Contributors | Schutte, C. S. L., Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial Engineering. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Stellenbosch University |
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