"A lean-led-evaluation" of infrastructure development improvement programme in South Africa
- Authors: Monyane, Thabiso Godfrey
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Construction industry -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44535 , vital:38131
- Description: A doctoral study was embarked upon with the intentions of addressing cost management problems encountered on Infrastructure Delivery Projects in South Africa. Given that poor cost performance constitute hindrance to the realization of project goals, it is imperative to eliminate it from project delivery. The prevalence of cost overrun in public sector projects is a call to all stakeholders to address cost management issues in the construction industry. The predominance of cost overruns in public sector construction projects in South Africa has been observed. With the decline of the current economic conditions in South Africa, project performance is a great concern that needs attention. In addition, ineffective initiatives to curb the abuse of the procurement processes are directly affecting the outcomes of construction projects, and if these status quo remains, the sector will continue to have a bad image and continued waste of taxpayers’ money will not cease until the public sector remove non-value adding activities in their operations. Study adopted a mixed methods designed that collected both textual and statistical data. Semistructured interviews were undertaken to determine the outcomes of current project management practices in South Africa. In terms of performance of projects, the status quo paints a disconsolate picture. Findings reveal protracted processes, and the use of unqualified and inexperienced contribute to poor performance of public sector projects. Poor performance continues to dominate the construction sector, especially in the public sector. Interviews data were contrasted with evidence from project-related documents. Based on the data, the study produces a vignette of existing cost management frameworks applied to such projects. Encompassing various stages of the project delivery lifecycle, this vignette will enable an identification of the challenges afflicting cost management on projects. Accordingly, this study identified Lean opportunities from existing cost management practices. Such opportunities will enable identification of effective cost management during project delivery. There appears a need for collaborative cost management practices. Lean tools mentioned for improvement include the 5Whys, the big room, target value design, and the integration of design and construction. A collaborative cost management framework was developed through relevant theories to improve the cost management process of public sector projects.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Monyane, Thabiso Godfrey
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Construction industry -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44535 , vital:38131
- Description: A doctoral study was embarked upon with the intentions of addressing cost management problems encountered on Infrastructure Delivery Projects in South Africa. Given that poor cost performance constitute hindrance to the realization of project goals, it is imperative to eliminate it from project delivery. The prevalence of cost overrun in public sector projects is a call to all stakeholders to address cost management issues in the construction industry. The predominance of cost overruns in public sector construction projects in South Africa has been observed. With the decline of the current economic conditions in South Africa, project performance is a great concern that needs attention. In addition, ineffective initiatives to curb the abuse of the procurement processes are directly affecting the outcomes of construction projects, and if these status quo remains, the sector will continue to have a bad image and continued waste of taxpayers’ money will not cease until the public sector remove non-value adding activities in their operations. Study adopted a mixed methods designed that collected both textual and statistical data. Semistructured interviews were undertaken to determine the outcomes of current project management practices in South Africa. In terms of performance of projects, the status quo paints a disconsolate picture. Findings reveal protracted processes, and the use of unqualified and inexperienced contribute to poor performance of public sector projects. Poor performance continues to dominate the construction sector, especially in the public sector. Interviews data were contrasted with evidence from project-related documents. Based on the data, the study produces a vignette of existing cost management frameworks applied to such projects. Encompassing various stages of the project delivery lifecycle, this vignette will enable an identification of the challenges afflicting cost management on projects. Accordingly, this study identified Lean opportunities from existing cost management practices. Such opportunities will enable identification of effective cost management during project delivery. There appears a need for collaborative cost management practices. Lean tools mentioned for improvement include the 5Whys, the big room, target value design, and the integration of design and construction. A collaborative cost management framework was developed through relevant theories to improve the cost management process of public sector projects.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Construction material logistics management: the case of North-Central Nigeria
- Authors: Alumbugu, Polycarp Olaku
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Construction industry -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44556 , vital:38132
- Description: The Management of Construction Material Logistics Systems plays a significant role in meeting the goals of cost, quality and time to completion of a construction project. Fundamentally, it is accepted that any inefficiency in the delivery of construction material could lead to a time overrun and thus, a rise in construction costs. Therefore addressing the operational performance of logistics would have a positive impact on the goals of a construction project. The aim of this study was to investigate and evaluate the operational performance of material logistics in North-Central Nigeria as there is little specific research conducted on its effectiveness and efficiency. The methodology used included an extensive literature review and a field study conducted on ten quantitative approach that is rooted in the positivist paradigm, and purposive sampling techniques, was adopted. The descriptive method of data analysis was employed, and the findings and interpretations presented through graphs and images. Analysis of the findings led to the conclusion that material logistics did not operate as a system. There was almost no collaboration and integration of the logistics systems to create a synergistic interrelationship between functions in pursuit of higher overall effectiveness and efficiency. Improvement was needed in warehouse and transport operations and processes; technology and automation of logistics operations were absent, and delivery of material to customers was not effective. The implication was that the current materials logistics system did not meet the delivery goals of cost, quality and time of a construction project. The recommendations suggested included the adoption of the framework developed in this study. This would serve as a guide towards effective and efficient logistics management for material manufacturing firms, and for construction professionals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Alumbugu, Polycarp Olaku
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Construction industry -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44556 , vital:38132
- Description: The Management of Construction Material Logistics Systems plays a significant role in meeting the goals of cost, quality and time to completion of a construction project. Fundamentally, it is accepted that any inefficiency in the delivery of construction material could lead to a time overrun and thus, a rise in construction costs. Therefore addressing the operational performance of logistics would have a positive impact on the goals of a construction project. The aim of this study was to investigate and evaluate the operational performance of material logistics in North-Central Nigeria as there is little specific research conducted on its effectiveness and efficiency. The methodology used included an extensive literature review and a field study conducted on ten quantitative approach that is rooted in the positivist paradigm, and purposive sampling techniques, was adopted. The descriptive method of data analysis was employed, and the findings and interpretations presented through graphs and images. Analysis of the findings led to the conclusion that material logistics did not operate as a system. There was almost no collaboration and integration of the logistics systems to create a synergistic interrelationship between functions in pursuit of higher overall effectiveness and efficiency. Improvement was needed in warehouse and transport operations and processes; technology and automation of logistics operations were absent, and delivery of material to customers was not effective. The implication was that the current materials logistics system did not meet the delivery goals of cost, quality and time of a construction project. The recommendations suggested included the adoption of the framework developed in this study. This would serve as a guide towards effective and efficient logistics management for material manufacturing firms, and for construction professionals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Data quality issues in electronic health records for large-scale databases
- Authors: Saiod, Abdul Kader
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Healthcare -- Data quality
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44577 , vital:38145
- Description: Data Quality (DQ) in Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is one of the core functions that play a decisive role to improve the healthcare service quality. The DQ issues in EHRs are a noticeable trend to improve the introduction of an adaptive framework for interoperability and standards in Large-Scale Databases (LSDB) management systems. Therefore, large data communications are challenging in the traditional approaches to satisfy the needs of the consumers, as data is often not capture directly into the Database Management Systems (DBMS) in a seasonably enough fashion to enable their subsequent uses. In addition, large data plays a vital role in containing plenty of treasures for all the fields in the DBMS. EHRs technology provides portfolio management systems that allow HealthCare Organisations (HCOs) to deliver a higher quality of care to their patients than that which is possible with paper-based records. EHRs are in high demand for HCOs to run their daily services as increasing numbers of huge datasets occur every day. Efficient EHR systems reduce the data redundancy as well as the system application failure and increase the possibility to draw all necessary reports. However, one of the main challenges in developing efficient EHR systems is the inherent difficulty to coherently manage data from diverse heterogeneous sources. It is practically challenging to integrate diverse data into a global schema, which satisfies the need of users. The efficient management of EHR systems using an existing DBMS present challenges because of incompatibility and sometimes inconsistency of data structures. As a result, no common methodological approach is currently in existence to effectively solve every data integration problem. The challenges of the DQ issue raised the need to find an efficient way to integrate large EHRs from diverse heterogeneous sources. To handle and align a large dataset efficiently, the hybrid algorithm method with the logical combination of Fuzzy-Ontology along with a large-scale EHRs analysis platform has shown the results in term of improved accuracy. This study investigated and addressed the raised DQ issues to interventions to overcome these barriers and challenges, including the provision of EHRs as they pertain to DQ and has combined features to search, extract, filter, clean and integrate data to ensure that users can coherently create new consistent data sets. The study researched the design of a hybrid method based on Fuzzy-Ontology with performed mathematical simulations based on the Markov Chain Probability Model. The similarity measurement based on dynamic Hungarian algorithm was followed by the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, which will increase the quality of service over HCOs in adaptive frameworks.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Saiod, Abdul Kader
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Healthcare -- Data quality
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44577 , vital:38145
- Description: Data Quality (DQ) in Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is one of the core functions that play a decisive role to improve the healthcare service quality. The DQ issues in EHRs are a noticeable trend to improve the introduction of an adaptive framework for interoperability and standards in Large-Scale Databases (LSDB) management systems. Therefore, large data communications are challenging in the traditional approaches to satisfy the needs of the consumers, as data is often not capture directly into the Database Management Systems (DBMS) in a seasonably enough fashion to enable their subsequent uses. In addition, large data plays a vital role in containing plenty of treasures for all the fields in the DBMS. EHRs technology provides portfolio management systems that allow HealthCare Organisations (HCOs) to deliver a higher quality of care to their patients than that which is possible with paper-based records. EHRs are in high demand for HCOs to run their daily services as increasing numbers of huge datasets occur every day. Efficient EHR systems reduce the data redundancy as well as the system application failure and increase the possibility to draw all necessary reports. However, one of the main challenges in developing efficient EHR systems is the inherent difficulty to coherently manage data from diverse heterogeneous sources. It is practically challenging to integrate diverse data into a global schema, which satisfies the need of users. The efficient management of EHR systems using an existing DBMS present challenges because of incompatibility and sometimes inconsistency of data structures. As a result, no common methodological approach is currently in existence to effectively solve every data integration problem. The challenges of the DQ issue raised the need to find an efficient way to integrate large EHRs from diverse heterogeneous sources. To handle and align a large dataset efficiently, the hybrid algorithm method with the logical combination of Fuzzy-Ontology along with a large-scale EHRs analysis platform has shown the results in term of improved accuracy. This study investigated and addressed the raised DQ issues to interventions to overcome these barriers and challenges, including the provision of EHRs as they pertain to DQ and has combined features to search, extract, filter, clean and integrate data to ensure that users can coherently create new consistent data sets. The study researched the design of a hybrid method based on Fuzzy-Ontology with performed mathematical simulations based on the Markov Chain Probability Model. The similarity measurement based on dynamic Hungarian algorithm was followed by the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, which will increase the quality of service over HCOs in adaptive frameworks.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Innovation: its impact on the success of construction micro, small, and medium enterprises in Northern Nigeria
- Authors: Tsado, Abel John
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Construction industry -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44568 , vital:38130
- Description: There is growing recognition of the important role Construction Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CMSMEs) play in economic development. In 2013, Nigeria had about 36,994,578 Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and 731,303 CMSMEs, about 1.99% of the total number of MSMEs in the country. However, 50% of CMSMEs in Nigeria close down within their first five years of existence. Consequently, only about 10% of CMSMEs in Nigeria survive, thrive, and grow to maturity. Enterprises failing within so short a time, portend a huge problem surrounding CMSME innovation and success. While literature seems to indicate innovation as the likely way out of CMSMEs failure, few researchers have considered the connection between CMSMEs innovation and their success. Hence, this research aimed to explore the effect of innovation(s) and innovation systems on the success of the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs. The research objectives were: to identify the types of innovation that are predominant in/peculiar to the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs; to determine how the types of innovation impact the success of the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs; to establish what the innovation systems that manage the innovation of the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs are; and, to determine how the innovation systems, promote innovation among the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs. Qualitative research method was utilised; consisting of 17 recorded interviews within Northern Nigerian which is the study area. The interview also employed structured interview guide, comprising structured open-ended questions to ensure consistency and rigour in the data collection process. The research adopted two stage non-probabilistic sampling, comprising judgmental and snowballing sampling for stage one and two respectively. In stage one, participants were drawn judgmentally based on their innovation and in stage two, the sample size was expanded, using a snowballing sampling technique where the participants in stage one suggested other participants who had also been innovative. Data collected were transcribed and open coded, while the codes for innovation types, and innovation impact on CMSME success were developed with the aid of a deductive code earlier developed from literature. The code occurrences were determined and categorised, and themes were developed. These themes were then subjected to interpretation and analysis. The research findings indicate that the predominant type of innovations within the CMSMEs in the northern part of Nigeria are product innovation, management innovation and service innovation. In addition, there are, technological application innovations, logistics innovations and labour innovations. These innovations impact on the profit, capital, customers, workers and the products of the CMSMEs studied. The innovations are responsible for the CMSMEs success periods, reasons for success and their salient points of success. Therefore, the research concludes that innovation impacts on the studied CMSMEs success. Consequently, the research achieved its aim. The study also discovered an absence of systems that support the innovation of CMSMEs in the northern part of Nigeria. Through this research, an innovation system framework has been developed and it is recommended that it be implemented because of the observed lack of innovation systems in Nigeria.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Tsado, Abel John
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Construction industry -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/44568 , vital:38130
- Description: There is growing recognition of the important role Construction Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CMSMEs) play in economic development. In 2013, Nigeria had about 36,994,578 Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and 731,303 CMSMEs, about 1.99% of the total number of MSMEs in the country. However, 50% of CMSMEs in Nigeria close down within their first five years of existence. Consequently, only about 10% of CMSMEs in Nigeria survive, thrive, and grow to maturity. Enterprises failing within so short a time, portend a huge problem surrounding CMSME innovation and success. While literature seems to indicate innovation as the likely way out of CMSMEs failure, few researchers have considered the connection between CMSMEs innovation and their success. Hence, this research aimed to explore the effect of innovation(s) and innovation systems on the success of the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs. The research objectives were: to identify the types of innovation that are predominant in/peculiar to the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs; to determine how the types of innovation impact the success of the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs; to establish what the innovation systems that manage the innovation of the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs are; and, to determine how the innovation systems, promote innovation among the Northern Nigerian CMSMEs. Qualitative research method was utilised; consisting of 17 recorded interviews within Northern Nigerian which is the study area. The interview also employed structured interview guide, comprising structured open-ended questions to ensure consistency and rigour in the data collection process. The research adopted two stage non-probabilistic sampling, comprising judgmental and snowballing sampling for stage one and two respectively. In stage one, participants were drawn judgmentally based on their innovation and in stage two, the sample size was expanded, using a snowballing sampling technique where the participants in stage one suggested other participants who had also been innovative. Data collected were transcribed and open coded, while the codes for innovation types, and innovation impact on CMSME success were developed with the aid of a deductive code earlier developed from literature. The code occurrences were determined and categorised, and themes were developed. These themes were then subjected to interpretation and analysis. The research findings indicate that the predominant type of innovations within the CMSMEs in the northern part of Nigeria are product innovation, management innovation and service innovation. In addition, there are, technological application innovations, logistics innovations and labour innovations. These innovations impact on the profit, capital, customers, workers and the products of the CMSMEs studied. The innovations are responsible for the CMSMEs success periods, reasons for success and their salient points of success. Therefore, the research concludes that innovation impacts on the studied CMSMEs success. Consequently, the research achieved its aim. The study also discovered an absence of systems that support the innovation of CMSMEs in the northern part of Nigeria. Through this research, an innovation system framework has been developed and it is recommended that it be implemented because of the observed lack of innovation systems in Nigeria.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
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