The mediating role of trade-offs in the relationship between operations strategy and sustainability of water utility in South Africa
Date
2019
Authors
Lushozi, M F
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
A number of studies on operations strategy and on trade-offs have been commissioned in the past years, however these studies have failed to address the gap on studying operations strategy and trade-offs specifically on the South African water utilities sustainability. To bridge this gap this study investigates whether it is a prudent for the South African water utilities to focus on all five generic operations strategy performance objectives or to trade-off some of them. Quantitative research is conducted where questionnaires were used to collected data from South African water utilities The study aimed at developing an operations strategy trade-offs model to be used specifically on South African water utilities which may also have aspects that are extendable to water utilities elsewhere in Africa or the world. The results for study indicate that water quality, cost and speed were ranked at top three main performance objectives which suggest that not all five operations strategy performance objectives should be focus area where resources are scarce. Furthermore, the results did not support the hypothesis that trade-offs provide a mediating effect on the relationship between operations strategy and sustainability of the water utility. However, as a main outcome the model without trade-offs was supported by the study and this model can now be used by water utilities to test it.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Masters of Science
in
Industrial Engineering.
October, 2019
Keywords
Citation
Lushozi, Mthunzi, (2019) The mediating role of trade-offs in the relationship between operations strategy and sustainability of water utility in South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/28925>