Management and production techniques in the manufacturing and service industries and how it relates to the construction industry.

Abstract

This dissertation is concerned with the future of the construction industry in South Africa and the ability to improve. Continuous growth is predicted through to the year 2015 and beyond, it is considered that to meet this challenge the South African construction industry must achieve substantial improvement and change. South Africa is a developing nation with ambitious objectives to improve social development and growth through delivery of infrastructure and other areas including, municipal development, hospitals, roads, water, electricity and government facilities. It is essential that South Africa has a construction industry that can develop capability and capacity to achieve sustainable growth. Current management thinking acknowledges that the best management and production principles are transferable. This is not a new concept or proposal, early management and production theorists and applicators such as Frederick Taylor, Frank B Gilbreth and Henry Ford all held the view that best practice techniques are transferable in application. By researching and presenting current successful management and production practices it intends to identify principles that can be adopted for change and improvement by the South African construction industry. A current general review of the South African construction industry has been undertaken to place it in context regarding the adoption of these best practice principles. The research will adopt a qualitative approach; it will be subjective and contain descriptions of techniques, people interactions, observations and assumptions. The principles addressed in this research are Benchmarking, Lean Production and Supply Chain Management; they have been selected as current best practice and as having significant use and proven continued success. They are presented in a format to allow understanding of the principles now developed and to illustrate via existing case studies, successes in application. Conclusions are made on individual aspects, on common core practices existing in all three principles and the current state of the South African construction industry. Recommendations are made and further areas of research suggested.