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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 •
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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
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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.
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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
•
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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
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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
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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
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