Note from the editor

Abstract

“History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.” - Malcolm X

Industrial Engineering in South Africa is relatively new, when compared to some of the other Engineering disciplines in South Africa. And, what makes it interesting, is that a lot of the active Industrial Engineers in South Africa have had the privilege to know, or even study under the pioneers who established this exciting discipline in South Africa. However, time moves on and unless we document it, this rich history will get lost. This journal is an ideal vehicle to document some of this history. It is therefore a privilege to publish in this edition a guest editorial from Frank Sperotto. Frank Sperotto is one of the individuals who was involved with SAIIE right from the beginning, and is thus in an ideal position to ensure that this legacy is not lost. This editorial updates earlier publications, documenting the history of Industrial Engineering in South Africa. 

This edition has again a healthy mix of articles, covering a very wide variety of topics relevant to the Industrial Engineering discipline, covering our history, using techniques to influence camera placements at the large radio telescope project in South Africa, analysing the placement or emergency vehicle placement to increase response times, improving the supply chain process, suggesting ways to amend strategic framework and processes, improving production planning techniques, and covering manufacturing techniques.

Due to a more scalable editorial process where we use section editors to manage the review process, and the fact that it reaches most readers electronically, we can therefore aim for editions with more articles per edition. Therefore:

• This edition has a total of 16 articles (including the guest editorial that has not been subjected to the same review process than other articles),
• Another notable difference in this edition is that the proportion of locally authored articles has increased: of the 16 articles, 9 are from authors with South African connections and the balance from international authors.

 If you have suggestions on how we can take this journal forward, please let me know. 

C.S.L. Schutte: Editor