South Africa endorsed a world trade accord ratified in Geneva on December 13, 1993. To promote world economic growth, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) aimed to slash duties on 8000 categories of manufactured goods. Tariff barriers have declined significantly and are now approaching trivial levels (Hill, 1999, p163). Unfortunately, South Africa is ranked near the bottom of the World Competitiveness Report (Cheales, 1995, p8). Increased foreign competition has caused many South African companies to search for techniques that will improve their overall performance. Unless these techniques can be identified and implemented timeously, some companies may fail to remain competitive. This research addresses the lack of awareness in the Eastern Cape (SA) and utilisation of two techniques used successfully in the USA (and elsewhere in developed countries) namely, Constraint Management and simulation. The overall objective was to develop a method of convincing industry management of the benefits of the two techniques. The approach adopted was to use simulation to prove Constraint Management. To achieve this objective a comprehensive literature survey was performed to determine the logic of each technique and the associated benefits. The next step was to determine the levels of awareness among industry practitioners and managers. Managers, engineers and academics were requested to complete questionnaires in order to determine awareness and utilisation of each technique as well as factors that prevented the application of both. The simulation modeling process was examined in order to verify the logic of simulation and a model of a manufacturing system was developed. Constraint Management principles were then applied to the model in a series of experiments. This process was then developed into a manual that could be used to address the lack of awareness and utilisation of both Constraint Management and simulation. The manual was tested on a group of BTech students and industry practitioners in order to establish whether its use would be effective in raising awareness, understanding and utilisation. The outcome was positive and it was established that this technique was effective.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:9606 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Van der Merwe, Karl Robert |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Engineering |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MTech |
| Format | xix, 238 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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