M.Ing. / Broadly speaking, the world in which we live exhibits complex interactions of multivariate and multidimensional parameters that are implemented by organizations in a global organizational space. Within this space exists numerous organizations in various disciplines and with various objectives, save the common objective of survival. These organizations compete in the environment created by this space, consuming energy, labour and raw materials from the environment and producing energy, finished products and waste back into the environment. The optimization of the operation, structure and existence of each organization in organizational space allows for a structured approach to symbiotic survival and the common achievement of a multitude of organizational objectives; providing for the avoidance of the depletion or extinction of resources, materials and energies within the space. If the world as we know it holds organizational space as one of its facets, then the global system is at the mercy of the operations of each organization, amongst others. The world then contains the embodiment of each system in some or other dimension. It allows for the training of the mind of the set of human systems to seek out that which allows for the progression of the common interest of the global system and thus the survival of each system it contains, ultimately leading to its own survival. Engineering management allows for the formalization of a relationship between two disciplines that can greatly impact the operation of the global system. It is not true that this is the most important of all disciplines; but what can be said to be true is that successful completion of the objectives of each discipline allows for the achievement of the overall system objectives. Together with all other disciplines, engineering management calls for both the consideration of organizational space as a whole and the consideration of each organization within the space. The consideration of all organizations as an open, selfcontained system allows for the satisfaction of the latter consideration by finding the solution to the question: “If I was a system, how would I want to be controlled and optimized?” An organizational system contains a set of components, inputs, energies, processes and outputs in one or other formation. Probably one of the most important elements of the component set is the set of human beings – a component which exhibits nonlinear and time variant response characteristics. The successful modeling and optimization of a system as a whole requires the modeling of each component and process, and that which poses the greatest difficulty is the human, perhaps because the one responsible for the modeling is itself a component of the same set. Viewed in light of the greater system, the author is simply a member of the component set of an academic organization interacting within the global organizational space, and this is the accumulation of the research that I respectfully present.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:6702 |
| Date | 25 March 2010 |
| Creators | Paddy, Ricardo J. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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