Browsing by Author "Vermeulen, Marius Jacobus"

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    Strategic local manufacturing supplier development roadmap as a decision support tool
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Vermeulen, Marius Jacobus; Oosthuizen, G. A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The support of local businesses is vital in ensuring the growth of a country‟s economy. The South African government, in particular, has created various support mechanisms and policies to assist the growth of local businesses. The manufacturing industry posses many opportunities for local manufacturing suppliers to exploit although many of them struggle to capitalise on these opportunities as they may lack certain skills or infrastructure. Due to the complex nature of local supplier development organisations in South Africa find it very difficult to understand/asses the maturity level of a local manufacturing supplier (LMS), relative to their required technology/capability, in order to fulfil the organisation‟s procurement or commercialisation strategy. Developing a LMS requires a strategic and effective approach to ensure all key areas for development are addressed. Organisations further battle to identify the most appropriate LMS to develop and utilise all existing support mechanisms or funding structures effectively, in order to do so. A strategic local manufacturing development roadmap is proposed in this thesis to be utilised as a decision support tool in selecting the most appropriate supplier for development based on the end user‟s requirements. In order to understand the key elements, stakeholders, funding mechanisms available and the reason to develop local suppliers a thorough literature study was conducted to establish a theoretical foundation. Thereafter the theoretical framework was applied to several case studies in order to extract further key elements, sequence of development phases, types of development projects and the role each stakeholder plays along the development of local suppliers. Only then could a conceptual framework be developed. Thereafter the conceptual framework was further developed and validated using three significant case studies. Each case study proposed further improvements/inclusions into the framework to establish a holistic roadmap for developing a LMS, as a decision support tool. The roadmap illustrates four phases of the required development of a LMS. Each phase has certain key elements that a developing local supplier will need to achieve/ensure before it could move onto the next stage. A mathematical model is created to represent the framework such that calculations can be made on the percentage to which a local manufacturing supplier conforms to certain requirements. These requirements are customisable according to an organisations needs. This is necessary as it will quantify where the supplier lies along the road map of development and will be able to track the progress of development for each supplier once the development program has been initiated. The outputs of the model can assist the end user to make informed decisions of the current maturity level of various LMS relative to its required capability/technology and determine the most appropriate LMS to develop. The framework further establishes a clear prioritised action plan to develop a LMS through various support structures and funding mechanisms, relative to its maturity phase.