Adoption of locally developed Metal Additive Manufacturing Technology: Evaluation of South Africa’s manufacturing industry’s readiness
| dc.contributor.author | Sono, Oscar James Hendrick | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Wotela, Kambidima | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | George, James | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-10-07T07:38:01Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-10-07T07:38:01Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021 | |
| dc.description | A research report presented in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Business Administration to the Faculty of Commerce, Law, and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2021 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Presently, Metal Additive Manufacturing (MAM) has progressed to the stage where the manufacture of components for industries such aerospace, energy, automotive and medical industries, are possible to a high degree of reliability. The South African government has invested substantially on the technology’s advancement through various government entities, publicly funding the research and development programmes and infrastructure developments. Yet the adoption of the technology remains slow, contrast to the USA and other European countries. Therefore, this thesis sought to explore the readiness of South Africa’s manufacturing industry to adopt locally developed MAM technologies. This was undertaken by employing a quantitative research approach, in which a cross- sectional design survey was used to conduct the interrogation, guided by innovation diffusion theories, particularly DOI. The study applies descriptive analysis to determine the current state of MAM adoption and the level of awareness about the technology within the industry. Backward multiple regression was used to determine if cost, organizational capability, and potential job loss have an impact on the adoption of the technology within the industry testing the three hypotheses. The results indicated that the state of MAM adoption within the manufacturing industry was low, with only three machines owned/leased, and potential adopters that are likely to uptake the technology, believing it can bring value-add to their organisations. These potential adopters are familiar with awareness programmes driving MAM campaigns. On the other hand, they also indicated reasons they believed would lead to non-uptake of the technology, the non-adopters did too, with cost of material being the leading constraint. Furthermore, results of tested hypotheses inferred a causal relationship between the adoption of MAM technology and the variables, and the impact was significant on its uptake or non-uptake. However, it was important to note that the sample size was low to take a conclusive stance, hence the researcher recommends a continuation of the study | |
| dc.description.submitter | MM2024 | |
| dc.faculty | Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Sono, Oscar James Hendrick. (2021). Adoption of locally developed Metal Additive Manufacturing Technology: Evaluation of South Africa’s manufacturing industry’s readiness[Master’s dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg]. WireDSpace. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10539/41389 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg | |
| dc.rights | © 2021 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. | |
| dc.rights.holder | University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg | |
| dc.school | WITS Business School | |
| dc.subject | Industrialisation | |
| dc.subject | Innovation adopters | |
| dc.subject | Rapid prototyping | |
| dc.subject | Research | |
| dc.subject | Development | |
| dc.subject | Value-add | |
| dc.subject | UCTD | |
| dc.subject.other | SDG-9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure | |
| dc.title | Adoption of locally developed Metal Additive Manufacturing Technology: Evaluation of South Africa’s manufacturing industry’s readiness | |
| dc.type | Dissertation |