An evaluation of the implementation of Mercedes Benz production system (MPS) and the employee change readiness at Mercedes Benz commercial vehicles South Africa
- Authors: McAllister, Rozane Ronardo
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft , Organizational change -- South Africa , Organizational behavior -- South Africa , Employees -- Attitudes , Continuous improvement process -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:850 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017518
- Description: The evaluation report section describes the evaluation of the implementation of Mercedes Benz Production System (MPS) at Mercedes Benz Commercial Vehicles, which is a division of Mercedes Benz South Africa’s manufacturing plant situated in East London. The section evaluates the changes the implementation of MPS brought to the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’S) of the division and evaluates the change readiness of the employees in the division prior to the change. The change implementation was initiated by the management of MBCV as a strategic organisational change to bring about continuous improvement to the KPI’s of the organisation. These KPI’s are Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Morale (SQDCM). The reason behind the change at the time was deemed critical to MBCV in order to meet the annual KPI targets and remain cost competitive and sustainable. The evaluation report further describes the results of the change with regards to the organisational KPI’s and the level of employee change readiness which was conducted through a questionnaire survey. A brief literature review is included in the Evaluation Report under section one describing key concepts about Production Systems, Lean Manufacturing and Change Management. The evaluation section includes recommendations based on the results of the research findings and ends with a conclusion. The literature review section explores the literature that supports production systems, lean manufacturing and change management concepts, its definitions, importance and benefits. The literature review describes and critiques key concepts of the research such as productions systems, MPS in particular, lean manufacturing concepts and related change management topics relevant to the research. The literature review defines production systems and the concepts of lean manufacturing, highlighting the benefits of the concepts to enhance organisations’ manufacturing capabilities. An integrated part of lean manufacturing is people and the implementation of lean manufacturing into an organisation requires change management theories therefore key understanding in this particular research was to discuss change management concepts, in particular, employee change readiness. The literature will discuss different tools to assess employee change readiness and from this develop an employee change readiness tool. The change management concepts evaluated change readiness and the consequences if organisations are not ready for change. The research methodology section describes how that the research was conducted in two phases, one to evaluate the implementation of MPS with regards to the organisational KPI’s (SQDCM). This was assessed through reports from projects and presentations made by the project teams on improvements of the organisational KPI’s. The second phase evaluated the change readiness of the employees prior to the implementation of MPS. This phase of the research was intended to retrieve quantitative data with an adapted questionnaire which was distributed to employees. To evaluate the change readiness, a change model known as ADKAR was used as an evaluation instrument. The modified ADKAR questionnaire was distributed to employees in hard copies and completed during a weekly team meeting. The results were summarised and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the final results. Microsoft Excel (2010 version) was used to illustrate and display the graphs. Section three discussed the research methodology in more detail. The study shows that although there were some positive changes that came from the implementation of MPS in MBCV, especially to the following KPI’s (Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost), real consideration should be given to employee morale and the level of change readiness of MBCV employees.
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The influence of organisational culture on organisational commitment at a selected local municipality
- Authors: Van Stuyvesant Meijen, Jolise
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Local government -- South Africa , Corporate culture -- South Africa , Organizational change -- South Africa , Municipal services -- South Africa , Employee loyalty
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: vital:1172 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002788
- Description: Since 2000, local municipalities have been through a process of transformation which amalgamated a number of smaller local municipalities into larger municipalities. The amalgamation of a number of municipalities brings together an array of people, and therefore a myriad of organisational cultures are combined. The organisational culture of an organisation has an effect on the organisational commitment of its employees. A fit between the organisational culture and the employees will increase the organisational commitment of those employees and contribute towards improved service delivery. A survey conducted in South Africa indicated that the local municipalities have been delivering poor standards of service to the community; therefore there is a need to increase the service delivery within local municipalities. The importance of looking at the organisational commitment of a local municipality is because if there is commitment within the organisation, then employees will identify with their organisation and its goals, and will deliver the service more effectively and efficiently. Therefore, increasing the service delivery of local municipalities can be achieved through diagnosing the organisational commitment and organisational culture of employees within the selected municipality. The primary objective of this research was therefore to diagnose the relationship between organisational culture and the organisational commitment of employees at the selected municipality. In order to achieve this objective, a survey was conducted to canvas the opinions of respondents (N = 148) from the selected local municipality regarding their perceptions of the existing organisational culture, their preferences regarding the organisational culture within the selected municipality, and finally the organisational commitment. The main findings of this research conducted at a selected municipality can be summarised as follows: The dominant existing organisational culture is the power culture, while the dominant preferred organisational culture is the support culture; There is an organisational culture gap between the existing and preferred organisational cultures at the selected municipality; The dominant organisational commitment within the selected municipality is normative commitment; The findings pertaining to the relationship between organisational culture and organisational commitment of employees within the selected municipality can be stated as follows: The existing organisational cultures have significant effects on the organisational commitment of employees; The preferred organisational cultures do not have significant effects on the organisational commitment of employees; and The organisational culture gap does not have a significant effect on the organisational commitment of employees; The findings pertaining to the relationship between the biographical variables and the existing and preferred organisational culture, organisational commitment and the organisational culture gap can be stated as follows: There is no significant relationship between biographical variables and the existing organisational culture; There are significant relationships between the biographical variables, namely the departments in which respondents work, and the education level of respondents, and the preferred organisational culture; There are significant relationships between the biographical variables and organisational commitment; and The average organisational culture gap scores of the organisational culture scales for the biographical variables are significantly different. It can be concluded that organisational culture has a significant effect on the organisational commitment of employees within the selected municipality and therefore can affect the service delivery of the selected municipality.
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An investigation into how marketers cope with an environment of high complexity and turbulence, with special reference to the South African environment
- Authors: Mason, Roger Bruce
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Marketing -- South Africa , Success in business -- South Africa , Industrial management -- South Africa , Organizational change -- South Africa , Chaotic behavior in systems , Complexity (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:752 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003873 , Marketing -- South Africa , Success in business -- South Africa , Industrial management -- South Africa , Organizational change -- South Africa , Chaotic behavior in systems , Complexity (Philosophy)
- Description: This study investigated relationships between marketing success, the level of external environmental complexity and turbulence, and marketing mix tactics. The literature suggested that more successful companies in simple and stable environments use stabilising marketing tactics, while more successful companies in complex and turbulent environments use destabilising tactics, regardless of industry habits, management preferences or market sector. A marketing mix model for the different environments was developed using a chaos and complexity theory perspective. The study was exploratory, using a qualitative, case study technique. Data was collected via depth interviews and document analysis from four companies in the information technology (IT) and packaging industries. These industries were identified as, respectively, the most complex and turbulent, and the simplest and most stable, South African environments. Two companies from each industry were chosen to reflect more successful and less successful companies. The more successful company in the complex/turbulent environment was found to use destabilising tactics, as did the more successful company in the simple/stable environment. Therefore, contrary to expectations, it appears that destabilising tactics contribute more to success than stabilising tactics do, regardless of the environment. It was also found, contrary to expectations, that stabilising tactics were used by both the less successful companies. The research concluded that destabilising tactics are related to more success and stabilising tactics to less success. The lack of clear differentiation between the two industries may be because the whole South African environment is complex and turbulent, because the packaging industry is not sufficiently simple and stable to differentiate it from the IT industry or because packaging industry managers perceive their industry to be complex and turbulent and act accordingly. Despite these uncertainties, the research showed the marketing mix model to be reasonably accurate for the complex/turbulent environment, and therefore of potential value to South African companies. To overcome the equivocal findings, further research is recommended in different industries, in countries with different levels of complexity and turbulence and into specific marketing mix tactics. Research into managers’ perceptions of environmental complexity and turbulence and into co-evolution of marketing tactics and external environments would also be of value.
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The social construction of 'capacity building': a grounded theory study of organisation development consultants' accounts
- Authors: Eagar, Ryan
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Organizational change -- South Africa , Business consultants -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:2969 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002478 , Organizational change -- South Africa , Business consultants -- South Africa
- Description: The primary aim of this thesis is to explore, through organisation development (OD) consultants' accounts, the meaning of 'capacity building' in the South African development context. The need for theory development in this area is apparent from two interrelated vantage points. Firstly, while 'capacity building' is an increasingly espoused development approach, it is seen to be a confusing and ill-defined concept, for which there exists no adequate theory. Secondly, there is an growing call within the OD field to perfonn 'recOIlllaissance' (Weick,1990) on OD as it is being practised in different socio-historical and organisational contexts, so as to discern future trends for this discipline. Due to the lack of documented debate which grounds OD issues in the South African development sector, OD practitioners' 'capacity building' interventions were seen to provide suitably unchartered terrain for this study. Given that theory generation was intended, the general epistemological principles provided by Glaser and Strauss's (1967) 'grounded theory' methodology were adopted. As a way of avoiding some of the criticisms and limitations of this approach, this thesis followed later conceptualisations of this method, in particular its reframing within the social constructionist idiom. In accordance with this perspective, this study directed attention to the ways in which OD consultants, in a non-governmental organisational (NGO) sector known as 'intermediary' NGOs, accounted for their 'capacity building' role in this development context. The results, based on in-depth interviews with ten OD consultants, indicate that 'capacity building' is an elusive and inchoate concept with more than one meaning for the participants. Their narrative account variously constructs 'capacity building' as value-driven OD process facilitation; funder and market regulated service provision; and people-driven product delivery. As a result of this multi-vocal construction, the participants' accounts reveal that OD consultancy in this sector is primarily concerned with 'managing the tensions' of the consultants' ambiguous and contradictory roles. By examining how the tensions articulated by the consultants inhere in their relationship to the environment in which they operate, this thesis firstly explores how the contradiction and anlbiguity attached to this concept can be traced to different stakeholder expectations of 'capacity building'. Secondly, it exanlines how these different stakeholder discourses conflict with each other and with an OD perspective. Thirdly, through an explication of the core category of 'managing tensions', it explores the image of OD consulting as a 'shifting and inconstant balancing act'. Fourthly, it shows how there exist wider contextual forces operating in the development sector which serve to throw these consultants 'off balance' and into delimited and 'received' service provision roles which run counter to their raison d'etre. Finally, the research examines new ways of approaching the 'capacity building' question and of understanding the nature of OD consultancy. It concludes with an attempt to respond to a conceptual aporia in OD literature by examining possible alternative images and metaphors for the role of the OD consultant.
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