OR Practice in South Africa by Hans W Ittmann CSIR Built Environment, P O Box 395, Pretoria, 0001 hittmann@csir.co.za IFORS 2011 MCC, Melbourne Slide 1 10-15 July 2011 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Agenda • Introduction • Brief feedback on Global Survey re South Africa • Highlight some of the interesting aspects • Personal knowledge of the OR scene • OR society – journal and conference • Private and public sector • • Large organisations Small consultancies • Academic institutions including research institution • Conclusions Slide 2 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Introduction • Only 10 responses received through the survey • Respondents to small to draw any conclusions • Still interesting to look at some of the results • Main input will be from personal local knowledge of the OR scene in South Africa • Brief background to OR society • OR at academic institutions • OR in private sector • OR in government • Biggest challenge for OR Slide 3 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Survey - Position in Organisation Logistics Researcher - Freight flow analyst Managing Director Principal Operations Researcher look after a team of modellers who does stochastic modelling of operations Prof at Unisa. Private consultant working mostly alone but within my own CC (closed corporation). Senior Lecturer (Operations research) Senior Lecturer - Supply Chain Management Senior Scientist Software Practitioner (algorithm development for missile and UAV industry) Sole Proprietor of "Large Scale Linear Programming Services" – www.lslps.com Supply Chain Strategist Slide 4 © CSIR 2006 Frequency 1 10.00 1 1 10.00 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 1 10.00 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 www.csir.co.za Percent Survey - Name of your organisation Armscor Defence Institutes Centre for Supply Chain Management Denel Dynamics a division of Denel Pty (Ltd) Graduate School of Business Leadership LSLPS - "Large Scale Linear Programming Solutions" Operational Research Consulting Sasol Technology UTi Unisa; Quant Consulting University of Pretoria Slide 5 Frequency 1 1 Percent 10.00 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 1 1 1 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 © CSIR 2006 Frequency Centre for Supply Chain Management Imaging and control systems LSLPS No name specified Optimisation Group Quant Consulting CC Research And Analysis Supply Chain Design & Innovation Value Chain Value chain optimisation www.csir.co.za 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Percent 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 Survey - Objectives of the group Frequency Algorithm optimization Develop decision support tools; large emphasis on developing transport planning technology. Freight flow analysis General OR services OR Services OR services Optimisation of Strategic Planning Supply chain design & innovation To support the Sasol businesses on a strategic, tactical and operational level with models and propo(?) supply chain management, project management, financial management ebusiness and technology management Slide 6 © CSIR 2006 Percent 1 1 10.00 10.00 1 1 1 1 1 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 www.csir.co.za Survey - Academic qualifications Undergraduate B.Eng(Industrial) - University of Pretoria Postgraduate Frequency 1 Percent 10.00 B.Sc Mathematics and applied mathematics University of Stellenbosch 1 BSC - Chemistry, OR and Computer Science - Uniwest South Africa 1 10.00 BSc (Maths; Applied Maths; OR) University of Pretoria BSc (math, stats) Univ of Pretoria 1 10.00 1 10.00 BSc Mathematics, University of Pretoria BSc (Hons) OR, UNISA, South Africa 1 10.00 BSc(Hon) Nust, Applied Mathematics 1 10.00 Stellenbosch University, BComm Logisitcs, Operations Research and Quantitative Analysis 1 10.00 Stellenbosch, Mathematics & Logistics 1 10.00 University of Pretoria, Industrial Engineering 1 10.00 Slide 7 10.00 © CSIR 2006 BSc (Hons) University of Johannesburg (RAU) MSc University of South Africa M Eng University of Pretoria, Industrial Engineering M.Sc Operational Analysis, University of Stellenbosch MSc (Stats, OR) Univ of Pretoria MSc (computer science, OR) Unisa PhD (OR) Unisa Frequency 1 Percent 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 1 10.00 MSc Operations Research Uniwest South Africa MSc in OR, UNISA, South Africa 1 10.00 1 10.00 MSc, University of Zimbabwe, Mathematical Modelling 1 10.00 Masters Stellenbosch, Logistics 1 10.00 PhD(Engineering) - University of Pretoria Stellenbosch University, BComm Honours in Operations Research 1 10.00 1 10.00 www.csir.co.za Survey - OR Software packages Frequency Excel GRTOLS LINGO Lingo Mathematica SPAR for reliability Simul8 Sumulation Visual Basic 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Percent 12.50 12.50 12.50 12.50 12.50 12.50 12.50 12.50 Frequency AIMMS Arena - discrete event simulation of operations GAMS / CPlex GRTOLS; OMNI+ & H/Cplex all from Haverly Inc LINDO MS Excel Matlab Own, self-programmed SAS VISA MCDA Slide 8 © CSIR 2006 Percent 1 1 10.00 10.00 1 1 10.00 10.00 1 1 1 1 1 1 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 10.00 www.csir.co.za Survey - Techniques used and barriers • People are aware of many techniques • Limited use of most of the techniques • Frequent use of a few and very specific techniques • Barriers – Find it difficult to convey the benefits of OR to the decision makers – There are no barriers. OR is accepted in the organisation, it is used widely and has started to deliver on international projects also Slide 9 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Local Knowledge - ORSSA • OR society was established in 1969 • Currently closed to 300 members • Over 100 attended the IFORS 2008 conference • Formally 5 chapters across the country – some active others dormant • Activities of ORSSA: • Bi-annual journal establish in 1985 • Quarterly newsletter • Annual conference • Student competition • Tom Rozwadowski award – best paper Into Africa initiative Slide 10 • © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Local Knowledge – Private Sector • Initially large OR groups in mining house • Currently only aware of • SASOL Operations Research Team • Stochastic Modelling of Production, Refining and Blending of Fuels • Sasol Group Energy Linear Programming Model • Process Modelling of the Liquid Factory Value Chain • Global Tank Planning Model for the Solvents Business Unit • Finalist in Franz Edelman 2010 • INFORMS prize in 2011 • OPSI Systems • Vehicle routing, scheduling – optimisation and modelling • Many larger companies have in-house limited OR related staff • Number of small consultancies Slide 11 • Large scale LP for the mining industry • University professors • A number of these scattered across the country © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Local Knowledge – Public Sector • Government in general – very limited to almost non-exsisting • Defence • Defence Research Institute • Defence team won Franz Edelman award in 1996 • Eskom (electricity provider) • Limited want to re-introduce it • OR is performed but by non-OR people • Transnet (rail operator) • Limited use • SAA – member of Agifors; are using OR related packages • SAFCOL – forestry government owned, limited use of OR • CSIR – large OR group, combined with statisticians and logisticians • High level, specialist consulting • Variety of OR related projects over many years • Election forecasting, Crime prevention, Logistics, etc. © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Slide 12 Local Knowledge – Universities • Most universities have departments where OR is taught • Different Universities: • Stellenbosch university • • Cape Town university • • Slide 13 General OR Univ of Kwa-Zulu Natal • • Logistics Univ of Limpopo • • Financial Modelling Univ of Johannesburg • • Transport Planning UNISA • • MCDM, Decision Theory Univ. of Pretoria • • General OR, Graph Theory, Logistics Applied Mathematics Univ of the North West • © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Telecommunications networking, Large LP Specific questions Do you believe OR-type practice is thriving in your country? - Difficult to just affirm this - Many people are using OR without realizing it! Do people identify with the OR community? - OR community very small, personally I don’t think so If not, what labels might they use to describe their activity, e.g. logistics consultant, credit and risk analyst? - A whole range: decision support, supply chain management, logistics, decision science, etc How is the activity provided: in –house; by external commercial consultants; or by external academic consultants? - In all kinds of different ways – it is just very difficult to know and to give a view on this Slide 14 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Specific questions Are there some industry sectors where OR-type work is particularly prevalent? - Chemical industry - Difficult to give a view on the entire South Africa situation Is the OR-type activity mainly project-based (usually via an OR-type group of experts) or integrated into a management decision process? - A whole mixture of OR-type activities How might IFORS and the South African OR Society identify those who are carrying out OR-type practice in your country? - One possibility is through ORSSA and possibly related professional bodies Slide 15 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za Conclusions • To give a complete picture is very difficult • OR is doing well in certain areas in South Africa – one of the biggest companies in the country has embraced it in a very big way • OR in South Africa is very practically orientated with very little real research being done • OR is done via different “names or phrases” in the country • There is not any hype around the term “analytics’ at all Slide 16 © CSIR 2006 www.csir.co.za