The South African Journal of Industrial Engineering

“We are not here to survive disruption. We are here to make waves.” Self-quotation from the keynote In October, I had the honour to present a keynote at the SAIIE35 conference. This highlighted a reality of our time: disruption is no longer an anomaly but the permanent operating environment for modern systems. Industrial Engineers, therefore, stand at a strategic frontier: uniquely equipped to design, govern, and evolve systems under persistent uncertainty. The keynote examined recent shocks that reshaped industries and societies: the Cape Town “Day Zero” drought, the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic load shedding, the global shift to electric mobility, international tariff turbulence, and the rapid rise of AI. Each exposed systemic fragilities across infrastructure, supply chains, governance, and human capital. Yet each also revealed that crises can accelerate innovation when systems are designed to adapt. This is the new mandate for Industrial Engineering. Beyond efficiency and optimisation, our discipline now centres on resilience, adaptability, and ultimately anti-fragility, i.e., systems that improve under stress rather than merely withstand it. Recovery is no longer enough; the goal is learning, evolution, and transformation. South Africa illustrates this vividly. Water scarcity prompted new behavioural and technological systems; the energy crisis catalysed decentralised generation and microgrids; global disruptions forced supply chain redesign; AI created both capability and ethical tension. In each scenario, Industrial Engineers are essential to reconciling complexity, data, technology, and human behaviour into coherent redesign. For this journal, this calls for intensified scholarship in adaptive systems, sustainable energy and mobility, AI-integrated operations, crisis analytics, and socio-technical redesign shaped by South African realities. Our historical roots show that Industrial Engineering has always evolved through change. Industrial Engineers must lead in designing tomorrow by shaping systems that thrive in uncertainty and strengthen through it.This edition has a total of 15 articles, with 8 articles 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. Corne SchutteEditor

Excessive inventory is harmful to any organisation, and typically adds to high inventory carrying costs, reducing employee efficiency, increasing equipment expenses, and causing a loss of opportunity. This study considers inventory management techniques for reducing and controlling excess inventory for manufacturing industries. It uses a case study approach to investigate the underlying causes of excess inventory, which were identified as design specification changes, wrong items being procured, bulk purchases, order changes by clients, intuitive buying, and spares not being traceable. This study's findings showed that purchases without a confirmed demand, a parked/staged fleet, changes in specification, spares take-on, and demand changes by clients account for 80% of the total excess stock, and so must be carefully reviewed. The results also show that organisations could salvage money from the excess stock if the right inventory technique were applied. The research recommends that management set up a clear demand policy that would require top management approval to procure inventory. The policy would incorporate 12-month time fences and zones to allow just-in-time delivery of inventory for immediate consumption; develop a lateral transhipment policy; and adopt a management toolkit to dispose of excess inventory. The outcome of this study could help organisations to gain an in-depth understanding of inventory stock keeping units (SKU) in order to reduce inventory holding costs.

The purpose of this article was to optimise the cost of the energy consumption of an industrial complex that was using three energy sources: industrial electricity, natural gas, and solar energy. Before undertaking any optimisation action, we carried out an in-depth examination of the company’s energy system. This action was positioned as an essential pivot for collecting energy data according to: Source (gas, electricity); Equipment or production tools; Usage (heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation, etc.). The in-depth examination of the company’s energy system made it possible to identify the energy consumption of the equipment and the costs associated with it for a year of operation. With an objective of energy and economic performance, the simplex algorithm was implemented to resolve the energy mix model and machine hours, according to the two-phase technique applied first to the energy problem and second to resolving the time problem.

This study evaluates the mental workloads of academic staff in Turkey, and examines the differences based on academic titles. Mental workload, which is critical for occupational health and safety, is assessed using a hybrid approach combining the CarMen-Q mental workload scale and the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process. The scale has four main factors and 29 sub-factors. An original algorithm was developed using fuzzy logic, α-cut, and an optimism index for defuzzification. The internal consistency of the study is high (α = 0.94). This research presents a novel contribution by integrating fuzzy logic into academic mental workload assessment.

The volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of modern manufacturing, intensified by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and competition, requires resilient systems for safe operations. This study examines resilience engineering in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, emphasising its role in managing safety within complex socio-technical systems. Resilience emerges from management, decision-making, and system participants' actions. A key finding is the limited practical understanding of resilience engineering, highlighting the importance of a learning culture. A conceptual framework links resilience engineering principles to essential organisational cultures, guiding implementation. The paper suggests future research on the application of resilience engineering in African manufacturing sectors.