16 articles in this issue
Susan Adendorff
“All we know about the new economic world tells us that nations which train engineers will prevail over those which train lawyers. No nation has ever sued its way to greatness.” - ? Richard Douglas Lamm (1935 - ) (politician, writer, public acco... see more
Cornelius SL Schutte,Denzil Kennon,Wouter Bam
The industrial engineering discipline in South Africa is examined by introducing the context of the discipline and by revisiting its history. The drivers influencing the context and future of industrial engineering in South Africa are also considered, and... see more
Wei Lin Teoh,M. S. Fun,Sin Yin Teh,Michael B C Khoo,W. C. Yeong
Since the run length distribution is generally highly skewed, a significant concern about focusing too much on the average run length (ARL) criterion is that we may miss some crucial information about a control chart’s performance. Thus it is important to... see more
Chi-Hua Chen,Ya-Ting Yang,Chia-Sheng Chang,Chia-Min Hsieh,Ta-Sheng Kuan,Kuen-Rong Lo
In recent years, the improvement of cloud computing and mobile computing techniques has led to the availability of a variety of mobile applications (‘apps’) in the app store. For instance, a garbage truck app that can provide the immediate location of a g... see more
Rajenlall Siriram
Improving the forecasting process may enable managers to make better decisions. In this paper, the forecasting process includes three factors: [A] forecasting input factors, [B] competitive advantage factors, and [C] forecasting effectiveness factors. It ... see more
Bernard Katz,Louis Louw,Niek du Preez
“Instead of being really good at doing some particular thing, companies must be really good at learning how to do new things”. This ability to do new things involves both the identification and the mastery of the next ‘new thing’ as well as the ability to... see more
Devon Hagedorn-Hansen,G. A. Oosthuizen,Tristan Gerhold
The high cost of quality prostheses, together with the lack of trained prosthetists, makes it challenging to obtain prosthetic devices in developing communities. Modern 3D digitising techniques and additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are gaining popu... see more
Kinfe Tsegay Beyene,Chun Sheng SHI,Wei Wei Wu
Using formal survey data from textile and leather product manufacturing firms in Ethiopia, we investigate how the current national cultural setup (power distance, collectivism, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance) is affecting organizational learning, o... see more
Imtiaz Abdul Kader,Barry Dwolatzky
Why do projects fail? This is a question that has been researched across various project disciplines, including that of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). This paper introduces a different angle on why BPR projects fail. An analysis of a case study co... see more
Oscar Cruz-Domi´nguez,Ramiro Santos-Mayorga
This paper presents an option for improving the process of assigning storage locations for merchandise in a warehouse. A disadvantage of policies in the literature is that the merchandise is assigned allocation only according to the volume of sales and th... see more
Kinfe Tsegay Beyene,Chun Sheng Shi,Wei Wei Wu
Though innovation strategy and organizational learning have been credited to impact on product innovation performance, they have been rarely considered in a single model simultaneously. Thus, the main aim of the paper is to investigate the extent of impac... see more
Louzanne Oosthuizen,PJ Vlok
This paper synthesises an overview of various models of the engineering design process with an overview of the most relevant theories within the field of creativity studies to conclude that (i) creativity plays a role throughout the engineering design pro... see more
J Van Der Linde,Herman Steyn
Depending on the specific needs of the host companies, Project Management Offices (PMOs) are created and mandated for different reasons. As a result of varying mandates and functions of PMOs, there is no agreed method to determine the value of a PMO. By s... see more
Mustafa Emre Yetkin,Ferhan Simsir,Muharrem Kemal Ozfirat,Pinar Mizrak Ozfirat,Hayati Yenice
As a decision-making problem, selecting proper machines and equipment plays a key role for mining sites and companies. Many factors affect this decision, and values belonging to these factors can be expressed numerically and/or non-numerically. In order t... see more
Vesna K Spasojevic Brkic,M Klarin,S Stanisavljev,A Brkic´,Z Sajfert
The production cycle (PC) time, as a very important economic indicator of freezing current assets, involves the time needed to manufacture a unit or a series of units, from putting them into production until they are put into storage; and yet it is rarely... see more
Ntokozo H. Nkiwane,Werner G. Meyer,Herman Steyn
With large infrastructure backlogs in Africa, well-controlled projects will play a significant role in African infrastructure development. In this paper, the monitoring and/or directive use of Earned Value Management (EVM) is investigated and linked to pr... see more