Effects of bottlenecks on graduation ceremonies : case of University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Graduation ceremony plays a vital role in the lives of the individuals and families, as it is a much-revered ritual in educational institutions everywhere. Effective planning for better utilisation of available resources as well as accurate scheduling set of activities remain essential as it improve the flow of operations processes. The amplitude in staging graduation ceremonies epitomises a bottleneck effect, which reveals a number of mischievous problems through the supply chain networks. As graduands leave the ceremonies after receiving their certificates without the event even finishing, this has caused inefficiencies and the bottlenecks in the processes and flow of operations, due to the improper planning and information sharing for graduands. This study investigates selected graduands from College of Law and Management, IT and Governance, with emphasis in Supply Chain Management, Marketing and Management only at Westville campus. The effect of collaborative relationships remains the central hypothesis for instant information sharing on graduation planning, scheduling and flow of operations processes across supply chain trading partners. The main objective aims to determine bottlenecks experienced at graduation ceremonies, possibilities of collaborative relationships, staging graduation ceremonies and strategies to which reduced process bottlenecks can have on the process efficiency of the graduation ceremonies. The seamless linkages between supply chain partners seem to entrench effective planning for better information flow in graduation scheduling to improve the flow of operations processes. The study uses mixed methods to collect data. The quantitative approach uses frequency distributions to analyse individual variables. The qualitative approach uses thematic analysis to analyse respondent from Corporate Relations Division. The study found empirical research evidence on the optimised information sharing through collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment model that graduation ceremonies can fastidiously adapt to engage graduands in staging their graduation ceremonies. The study discovered that (84%) of respondents are of conviction that UKZN graduation ceremonies are missing out on memorable experiences that could be lived on graduation due to bottleneck effects. The study also found that majority of the respondents (79%) agreed that collaborative relationships have a significant role to play in mitigating the graduation bottlenecks and on the entire supply chain networks. The managerial implications indicated that the supply chain efficiency and integration is the responsibility of each individual supply chain partner involved in a graduation ceremony

A Case Study of the Degree of Collaboration between Various Levels in the Reparable Chain in the United States Air Force

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment and other logistics processes were developed in the commercial sector to reduce total system costs of production while simultaneously providing reduction in inventory levels, improved customer service levels, greater flexibility in scheduling, greater velocity of inventory through the pipeline, and, as a result, greater profitability (Ploos van Amstel, 1990:1). Many companies including Wal-Mart, Motorola, Target, Johnson & Johnson, and Kellogg\u27s, just to name a few, have seen great achievements since implementing CPFR processes. Can these processes be applied to the Air Force supply chain? This thesis intends to examine the flows and relationships to identify opportunities Air Combat Command Regional Supply Squadron (ACCRSS), Depot Repair Facilities, and Operational Bases. This research will use a case study approach to address the research and investigative questions. Air Force supply chain management has many responsibilities that must be accomplished. This thesis will seek to look at many of the variables but does not promise to cover all aspects or attempt to provide the ultimate solution. It will merely present the literature reviewed and the data collected and try to draw a conclusion as to whether civilian CPFR techniques can be applied to current Air Force supply chain practices

An efficient production planning approach based demand driven MRP under resource constraints

Production plans based on Material Requirement Planning (MRP) frequently fall short in reflecting actual customer demand and coping with demand fluctuations, mainly due to the rising complexity of the production environment and the challenge of making precise predictions. At the same time, MRP is deficient in effective adjustment strategies and has inadequate operability in plan optimization. To address material management challenges in a volatile supply-demand environment, this paper creates a make-to-stock (MTS) material production planning model that is based on customer demand and the demand-driven production planning and control framework. The objective of the model is to optimize material planning output under resource constraints (capacity and storage space constraints) to meet the fluctuating demand of customers. To solve constrained optimization problems, the demand-driven material requirements planning (DDMRP) management concept is integrated with the grey wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm and proposed the DDMRP-GWO algorithm. The proposed DDMRP-GWO algorithm is used to optimize the inventory levels, shortage rates, and production line capacity utilization simultaneously. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, two sets of customer demand data with different levels of volatility are used in experiments. The results demonstrate that the DDMRP-GWO algorithm can optimize the production capacity allocation of different types of parts under the resource constraints, enhance the material supply level, reduce the shortage rate, and maintain a stable production process

Application of lean scheduling and production control in non-repetitive manufacturing systems using intelligent agent decision support

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Lean Manufacturing (LM) is widely accepted as a world-class manufacturing paradigm, its currency and superiority are manifested in numerous recent success stories. Most lean tools including Just-in-Time (JIT) were designed for repetitive serial production systems. This resulted in a substantial stream of research which dismissed a priori the suitability of LM for non-repetitive non-serial job-shops. The extension of LM into non-repetitive production systems is opposed on the basis of the sheer complexity of applying JIT pull production control in non-repetitive systems fabricating a high variety of products. However, the application of LM in job-shops is not unexplored. Studies proposing the extension of leanness into non-repetitive production systems have promoted the modification of pull control mechanisms or reconfiguration of job-shops into cellular manufacturing systems. This thesis sought to address the shortcomings of the aforementioned approaches. The contribution of this thesis to knowledge in the field of production and operations management is threefold: Firstly, a Multi-Agent System (MAS) is designed to directly apply pull production control to a good approximation of a real-life job-shop. The scale and complexity of the developed MAS prove that the application of pull production control in non-repetitive manufacturing systems is challenging, perplex and laborious. Secondly, the thesis examines three pull production control mechanisms namely, Kanban, Base Stock and Constant Work-in-Process (CONWIP) which it enhances so as to prevent system deadlocks, an issue largely unaddressed in the relevant literature. Having successfully tested the transferability of pull production control to non-repetitive manufacturing, the third contribution of this thesis is that it uses experimental and empirical data to examine the impact of pull production control on job-shop performance. The thesis identifies issues resulting from the application of pull control in job-shops which have implications for industry practice and concludes by outlining further research that can be undertaken in this direction

A Taxonomy of Supply Chain Collaboration

Supply chain collaboration has emerged as an important cooperative strategy leading to new focus on interorganisational boundaries as the determinants of performance. Although collaboration increasingly receives great attention both from practitioners and academics, relatively little attention has been given to systematically reviewing the research literature that has appeared about supply chain collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to examine previous studies on supply chain collaboration based on a taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy is composed of four different research streams of describing specific subjects of interorganisational settings, namely information sharing, business processes, incentive schemes, and performance systems. The analysis includes the assessment of research ideas and key findings. Results show the great variability of key concepts across the four components of the taxonomy and an increased awareness of complementarity amongst research streams. Several recommendations for future research are also identified in this paper

Optimizing the Performance of Robotic Mobile Fulfillment Systems

A robotic mobile fulfillment system is a novel type of automated part-to-picker material handling system. In this type of system, robots transport mobile shelves, called pods, containing items between the storage area and the workstations. It is well suited to e-commerce, due to its modularity and it's ability to adapt to changing orders patterns. Robots can nearly instantaneously switch between inbound and outbound tasks, pods can be continually repositioned to allow for automatic sorting of the inventory, pods can contain many different types of items, and unloaded robots can drive underneath pods, allowing them to use completely different routes than loaded robots. This thesis studies the performance of robotic mobile fulfillment systems by solving decision problems related to warehouse design, inventory and resource allocation, and real-time operations. For warehouse design, a new queueing network is developed that incorporates realistic robot movement, storage zones, and multi-line orders. For inventory allocation, we develop a new type of queueing network, the cross-class matching multi-class semi-open queueing network, which can be applied to other systems as well. Resource (re)allocation is modeled by combining queueing networks with Markov decision processes while including time-varying demand. This model compares benchmark policies from practice wit

A Taxonomy of Supply Chain Collaboration

Supply chain collaboration has emerged as an important cooperative strategy leading to new focus on interorganisational boundaries as the determinants of performance. Although collaboration increasingly receives great attention both from practitioners and academics, relatively little attention has been given to systematically reviewing the research literature that has appeared about supply chain collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to examine previous studies on supply chain collaboration based on a taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy is composed of four different research streams of describing specific subjects of interorganisational settings, namely information sharing, business processes, incentive schemes, and performance systems. The analysis includes the assessment of research ideas and key findings. Results show the great variability of key concepts across the four components of the taxonomy and an increased awareness of complementarity amongst research streams. Several recommendations for future research are also identified in this paper. Keywords: supply chain collaboration, literature review, supply chain management, taxonom

The simulation and evaluation of a proposed management system with shared constrained resources in the multi-project environment

In a competitive environment management of organizations has to decide which the best opportunities are to pursue, as well as how to deliver faster and cheaper than their competitors on their commitments. This has to be done with limited resources to ensure profitability. In this study a conceptual management model is proposed to serve as a management tool to help management of organizations choose the right amount of value opportunities entering the organization’s value stream, managing the risks associated with the opportunities, and converting the opportunities into high-value adding realities as fast as possible. The solution applies supply chain and constraint management principles to the proposed management model, assuming that Critical Chain multi-project management is in place. The conceptual management model also proposes a set of strategically placed buffers as an integral part of the process, which are the primary means of managing the whole system for increased productivity. The TOC thinking processes is systematically employed to identify the core management problem for the study and also proposing a solution. The proposed solution was simulated and confirmed that it is indeed a valid way to increase organizational value in terms of amount and timing.Dissertation (MSc(Management of Technology))--University of Pretoria, 2007.Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM)unrestricte

Potable Reuse: Guidance for producing Safe Drinking-Water

In response to growing pressures on available water resources, potable reuse represents a practical source of drinking-water in specific circumstances.This document describes how to apply appropriate management systems to produce safe drinking-water from municipal wastewater. Information is provided on specific aspects of potable reuse, including the quality and protection of source wastewaters, types of control measures, monitoring considerations and public acceptance. Application of potable reuse is also illustrated through a number of case studies.The guidance is intended for use by drinking-water suppliers and regulators who are familiar with the WHO's Guidelines for drinking-water quality and, in particular, the framework for safe drinking-water, including water safety plans. This publication may also be useful to others with an interest in potable reuse including environmental health and water resource professionals