19 articles in this issue
Corne Schutte
“When you're finished changing, you're finished."? Ben Franklin The Southern African Institute for Industrial Engineering (SAIIE) had its first annual SAIIE Awards and Gala Dinner on 21 July 2016. The three winners in the award categories were as fol... see more
Amer Mohammad Momani,Tarek H. Al-Hawari,Rand W Mousa
Capacity expansion generally requires large capital expenditure on illiquid assets. Therefore, decisions to enlarge capacity must support the organisation’s strategic objectives and provide valuable input for the budgeting process. This paper applies an e... see more
Rudolph Oosthuizen,Leon Pretorius
In complex sociotechnical systems, cognitive and social humans use technology to make sense of situations when making decisions. These elements make sociotechnical systems difficult to develop. A modelling and assessment methodology for systems engineerin... see more
Bhrigu Ahuja,Adam Schaub,Daniel Junker,Michael Karg,Felix Tenner,Raoul Plettke,Marion Merklein,Michael Schmidt
With its ability to fabricate fully dense three-dimensional structures by selectively melting micro-sized metal powder, the additive manufacturing process of laser beam melting (LBM) is considered by many to be a significant technology that is complementa... see more
John Schuurman,Jan H Van Vuuren
A scheduling problem in the colour printing industry is considered in this paper. The problem is to find an optimal assignment of print jobs to each of a set of colour printers, as well as an optimal processing sequence for the set of jobs assigned to eac... see more
Izak P Meyer,Taryn Jane Bond-Barnard,Herman Steyn,Joyce Jordaan
Globally-expanding organisations that are trying to capitalise on distributed skills are increasingly using virtual project teams to shorten product development time and increase quality. These virtual teams, which are distributed across countries, cultur... see more
Petrus Daniel Swart,PJ Vlok,Johannes Lodewyk Jooste
Asset managers (AMRs) have long struggled to influence others within their organisations to support Asset Management (AM) practices. This dilemma was further highlighted with the issuance of the AM suite of standards, ISO 55000. This paper explores an alt... see more
Zahier Ebrahim,J J Pieterse
The South African automotive component manufacturing sector is facing global pressure to remain competitive. Performance improvement interventions are often deployed in manufacturing companies that are aimed at improving competitiveness. The high failure ... see more
Louzanne Bam,PJ Vlok
This article builds on earlier research that made the case for developing a framework to ensure increased, sustained, creative activity in engineering organisations. A milestone in the development of such a framework is the identification of the elements ... see more
Nathan Wilson,Cornelius Jacobus Fourie,Romano Delmistro
Railway systems can pose complex problems for the scheduling and operation of trains. A passenger rail service’s first priority is to provide a punctual and safe transport service to its customers. But doing so is a major challenge for rail network operat... see more
Mohammad Mahdavi Mazdeh,Mostafa Jafari,Peyman Akhavan,Seyed Jalal Mousavi
This study aims to explore the dynamics of the knowledge supply process for new product development in the automotive industry, and to evaluate the impact of knowledge outsourcing on new product development performance. The model was developed using a lit... see more
Casper Durandt,Eon Van der Merwe Smit,Niek D Du Preez
Conservative engineering design rules for large serial coupled production processes result in machines having locked-in free time (also called ‘critical downtime’ or ‘maintenance opportunity windows’), which cause idle time if not used. Operators are not ... see more
Choonghyun Lee,Choon Seong Leem
This paper analysed the keywords in manufacturing productivity- related studies over the last 30 years to consider the change in the concept of ‘productivity’, a longstanding and important factor in studies about manufacturing. After first identifying 110... see more
Thorsten Schmidt-Dumont,Jan Harm van Vuuren
Multiple factors have to be taken into account when mobile telecommunication network providers make decisions about radio transmitter placement. Generally, area coverage and the average signal level provided are of prime importance in these decisions. The... see more
Rina Peach,Herman Ellis,Jacobus Krige Visser
Over the past two to three decades, maintenance management has undergone a paradigm shift; it is no longer seen as a necessary evil, but as an integral part of the business process that creates value for the organisation. The next step in the evolution of... see more
Eren Ozceylan
The process of player selection in multi-player sports like soccer is a complex multi-criteria problem. In this paper, a two-phase approach is proposed for soccer player selection. In the first phase, the attributes of each player – based on their positio... see more
Tremaine Ferreira,Igor Gorlach
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are widely used for transporting materials in industry and commerce. In this research, an intelligent AGV-based material-handling system was developed using a model- based systems engineering (MBSE) approach. The core of t... see more
Teresa Hattingh,Marc Fienberg,Dieter Hartmann
A study was conducted at the sole global producer of suspension struts for a particular vehicle manufacturer. This supplier is currently able to meet customer demand. However, it does so because of a large finished goods and work-in-progress (WIP) invento... see more
Horacio Bautista-Santos,José Luis Martínez-Flores,María Beatriz Bernabé-Loranca,Diana Sánchez-Partida,Fabiola Sánchez-Galván
The integration of supply chains has become a global operations strategy for many organisations because it allows them to improve customer service, minimise operating costs, and synchronise channels across the supply chain. This paper presents the design ... see more