Question 3 Case Study

The South African higher education landscape is undergoing reconstruction and transformation to make it more efficient and more responsive to the need of the people. The exercise has been conceived in external circles as principally a merger/rejuvenation exercise. However, the opinion that a principal success factor for the initiative among other things is to see an opportunity to reengineer, improve processes and make the institutions breathe new lives. This is even more pertinent in the country where good University candidates are in short supply. In other words, supply outstrips the demand for higher education and there is a glut in terms of the number of places to be filled each year. This is part of the underlying reason for reducing the number of institutions while keeping the number of existing sites the same.

An enterprise engineering strategy called EEF(Enterprise Engineering Framework) has been crafted to be the foundation step for Component-Based Development. The research formulated a BPR-driven approach to enterprise architecture construction and to show how enterprise architectural artefacts could form the basis for enterprise component development. The framework defines three stakeholders, whose contributions are vital, namely management, enterprise modeller and information system developer. The University of Zululand example is used as a simplified illustration of the framework. Management develops the vision as well as the strategy for achieving the vision. The modeller translates the vision and strategy into an implementable and testable model of the enterprise. The information system developer matches the resulting business architecture to appropriate web or information systems services. In conclusion, the research fits into the modern trend towards goal-driven enterprise component identification and specification.

Question 3

The University of Zululand example is used as a simplified illustration of the framework. Management develops the vision as well as the strategy for achieving the vision.

Elaborate on the significance of SIX SIGMA and provide a detailed description of the FIVE(5) steps of SIX SIGMA.