ORSSA Annual General Meeting

Conference 1 Room, Pecan Manor, Hartebeespoortdam Tuesday, September 15th, 2015 at 17:45

Minutes

1. Welcome and apologies The President welcomes all present. Executive Committee members who sent apologies are Mark Einhorn (Marketing Manager), Martin Kidd (ORiON Journal Manager), Jacques du Toit (Webmaster), Quintin van Heerden (Pretoria Chapter Chair), Hans Ittmann (IFORS Representative), and Theo Stewart (EURO Representative). These members of the Executive Committee have sent representatives to read their reports on their behalf. The reports are added as addenda to these minutes. ORSSA members who sent apologies are Wim Gevers, Joke Bührman, John Dean and Brahm Bothma.

2. Finalisation of agenda Hennie Kruger (President) requests discussion of a correction to the Constitution and the item is added under point 14 of the agenda. He notes that there is an error on the agenda where points 8 and 12 are duplicates.

3. Minutes of the 2014 AGM Dave Evans (Database Manager) motions to accept the minutes of the 2014 Annual General Meeting. Bernie Lindner (Newsletter Editor) seconds the motion. Decision: The minutes of the 2014 AGM are accepted by the AGM.

4. Matters arising There are no matters arising from the previous Annual General Meeting in addition to the points already on the current agenda.

5. President’s report Hennie Kruger (President) presents his annual report. A copy of the report is added as Addendum A to these minutes.

6. ORSSA membership Dave Evans (Database Manager) presents his report for 2015. The report is added as Addendum B to these minutes. A list of members set to have their membership terminated in 2016 is also included. Dave mentions that we might be in a better head count situation than reflected in the President’s report due to 26 new applicants awaiting approval. The Society has about R20 000 in unreferenced membership fees. If these references are found, the list of potential membership terminations will decline. Dave will present a talk on the membership database in the course of the Conference.

7. Financials a. Financial statements for 2014

Tiny du Toit (Treasurer) presents the financial statements for 2014. These statements are attached as Addendum C to these minutes. They have been independently audited by Cilliers van Zyl.

b. Income, expenditure and financial position – 2014 Tiny du Toit presents the financial statements for 2015. These statements are attached as Addendum A to these minutes. Marthi Harmse proposes that these statements are accepted as correct. Hans Ittmann (IFORS Representative) seconds this proposal.

c. Budget for 2015 Tiny du Toit (Treasurer) tables the 2016 budget, which is attached as Addendum C to these minutes. He proposes an increase of 6% in membership fees in order to manage member expectation and mitigate financial risks. The meeting votes by show of hands and the motion is passed unopposed. Decision: Membership fees to be increased by 6% from 2015.

d. BEE certification Tiny du Toit steps down as Treasurer and the new Treasurer will continue to investigate obtaining a BEE certificate for ORSSA. Action: New Treasurer to continue obtaining 4BEE status.

8. Marketing manager’s report Hennie Kruger (President) tables the annual Marketing Manager’s report on behalf of Mark Einhorn (Marketing Manager). This report is attached as Addendum D to these minutes. There are no problems to report. A budget has been allocated to the Marketing Manager for his projects.

9. ORSSA Conferences a. 2015 Conference

Robert Bennetto (Chair of the LOC) is happy with the 2015 Conference. The Conference might break even but there is a 50% fee that is still due to the venue. The proceedings are a success with an acceptance rate at 73%. Hennie Kruger (President) thanks Fanie Terblanche, Hans Ittmann and Danie Lötter for their hard work in making the Proceedings a success.

b. 2016 Conference Danie Lötter (Chair of the 2016 LOC) announces that the 2016 Conference will be hosted by the Western Cape Chapter. It will run from 11 to 14 September at the Lanzerac Wine Estate in Stellenbosch. President of EURO, Elana Fernandez has tentatively accepted to be the keynote speaker along with Paul Fatti from WITS University.

10. Publication reports a. Report by ORiON editor and journal manager

Stephan Visagie (ORiON Editor) tables the annual journal report, which is attached as Addendum E to these minutes. Highlighted concerns include the slow rate of submissions and the lack of diversity in authorship. Theo Stewart (EURO Representative) comments that SCOPUS is the most effective opportunity for visibility and that Stephan is on the right track with his accreditation process. David Clark asks from an industry point of view whether the Society should rethink the continuing the journal. Theo Stewart suggests that the Society should do a sober review of ORiON to test its relevance. Stephan believes the journal is relevant and important.

b. Report by Newsletter editor and business manager

Bernie Lindner (Newsletter Editor) tables the annual newsletter report, which is attached as Addendum F to these minutes. Robert Bennetto suggests that we place the content of the Newsletter on the website as well and make it more accessible than the current archive in .pdf format. Bernie agrees and will ensure that the Webmaster takes this into account when designing the new website. Danie Lötter (Newsletter Business Manager) tables the annual newsletter business report, which is attached as Addendum G to these minutes. Action: Bernie Lindner to inform Jacques du Toit (Webmaster) to include space for the electronic publication of Newsletter items on the new website.

11. Webmaster’s report Hennie Kruger (President) tables the webmaster’s report on behalf of Jacques du Toit (Webmaster). The report is attached as Addendum H to these minutes.

12. Marketing Manager’s report This item has already been presented in point 8.

13. Chapter reports a. Johannesburg Chapter

Robert Bennetto tables the Johannesburg Chapter report as interim Chapter Chair. The report is attached as Addendum I to these minutes.

b. Pretoria Chapter The Pretoria Chapter report is tabled by Winnie Pelser on behalf of Quintin van Heerden (Pretoria Chapter Chair). The report is attached as Addendum J to these minutes.

c. Vaal-Triangle Chapter The Vaal Triangle Chapter report is tabled by Fanie Terblanche (Vaal Triangle Chapter Chair). The report is attached as Addendum K to these minutes.

d. Western Cape Chapter The Western Cape Chapter report is tabled by Danie Lötter (Western Cape Chapter Chair). The report is attached as Addendum L to these minutes.

e. KwaZulu-Natal Chapter

Hennie Kruger (President) informs the Society that the Chapter appears to be inactive. A replacement chairman must be found in an attempt to get the Chapter back on track. Action: Hennie Kruger to nominate a replacement Chair or the KwaZulu-Natal Chapter.

14. External Liaison a. SAIIE

Louzanne Oosthuizen welcomes news of ORSSA events to advertise to the SAIIE. The ORSSA conference is accredited for CPD points and Louzanne encourages members with engineering degrees to make use of this.

b. EURO Theo Stewart (EURO Representative) encourages the members to register on the EURO website to increase its online influence and presence. In addition to the big conferences, there are many other small events aimed especially at emerging researchers.

c. IFORS Hans Ittman (IFORS Representative) Hans notifies the Society that the 2016 Conference will be held in Quebec. ICORD asks for delegates to the conference in December in Sri Lanka. Theo Stewart is looking at presenting an ICORD Teacher’s Workshop in Cape Town during 2016 and welcomes participation from anyone interested. Hans Ittmann reminds recipients on his questionnaire on OR MS Education to respond the survey.

15. “Meetups” initiative David Clark reports on the Meetups initiative that has been successfully running in Johannesburg. The report is attached as Addendum M to these minutes.

16. Election of the 2015 Executive Committee The signed nomination forms are attached as Addendum N to these minutes. The 2016 nominees for the ORSSA Executive Committee are:

Portfolio Nominee Nominator Seconded by

President Winnie Pelser .

Vice President Hennie Kruger The 2015 president becomes the 2016 Vice President.

Secretary Lieschen Venter Jacques du Toit Linke Potgieter

Treasurer Isabelle Niewoudt Hennie Kruger Dave Evans

Database Manager Dave Evans Neil Jacobs Angela Rademeyer

Marketing Manager Mark Einhorn Brian van Vuuren Bernie Lindner

ORiON Editor in Chief Stephan Visagie Linke Potgieter Jan van Vuuren

OriON Manager Martin Kidd Danie Lötter Neil Jacobs

Newsletter Editor Berndt Lindner Linke Potgieter Jan van Vuuren

Newsletter Manager Danie Lötter Jan van Vuuren Thorsten Schmidt-Dumont

Webmaster Jacques du Toit Berndt Lindner Brian van Vuuren

Additional Member Linke Potgieter Lieschen Venter Danie Lötter

Additional Member Jan van Vuuren Lieschen Venter Christiaan van der Walt

Additional Member Brian van Vuuren Lieschen Venter Hennie Kruger

Additional Member Angela Rademeyer Hennie Kruger Lieschen Venter

Co-opted: Johannesburg Chapter Chair

Robert Bennetto

Co-opted: Pretoria Chapter Chair

Quintin van Heerden

Co-opted: KwaZulu-Natal Chapter Chair

Vacant

Co-opted: Vaal Triangle Chapter Chair

Fanie Terblanche

Co-opted: Western Cape Chapter Chair

Danie Lötter

Co-opted: EURO Representative

Theodor Stewart

Co-opted: IFORS Representative

Hans Ittmann

Decision: All nominees are elected, unopposed.

17. General a. Correction to the Constitution

Hennie Kruger (President) presents an error in the Constitution arising from the 2014 change. Theo Stewart (EURO Representative) proposes that the correction be accepted and Hans Ittmann (IFORS Representative) seconds. Decision: The correction to the Constitution is accepted. . Winnie Pelser (Vice President) thanks Hennie Kruger (President) for his excellent service as his presidential term draws to an end. The meeting is adjourned. ------------------------------------------ Hennie Kruger President 22 September 2015

Addendum A – President’s report

Operations Research Society of South Africa

President’s Report

Pecan Manor – Hartbeespoort Valley

Tuesday 15th September 2015

In this 2015 annual report I would like to give a brief overview of the work and activities of the

Executive Committee (EC) of ORSSA towards ensuring that ORSSA provides a home and quality

service to its members. I hope to convince you that the EC has done very well this year in many

respects, but that there is room for improvement in some areas. It is, however, important to mention

that all members of the EC serve the Society on a voluntary basis, without remuneration, and amidst

severe pressures of their fulltime jobs. I would therefore, at the outset of my report, like to thank all

members of the EC for their time, commitment and passion for our Society.

Executive Committee

At the AGM in Parys last year the Executive Committee of ORSSA was elected unopposed. During

the year we had a change in portfolios and a new Database manager was elected with the existing

Database manager who moved to an Additional member portfolio. One of the co-opted members

was also replaced due to personal circumstances. The current Executive Committee members,

together with seven co-opted members, who will serve until the end of 2015, are:

President: Hennie Kruger

Vice President: Winnie Pelser

Secretary: Lieschen Venter

Treasurer: Tiny du Toit

Database Manager: Dave Evans

Marketing Manager: Mark Einhorn

Newsletter Editor: BerndtLindner

Newsletter Manager: Danie Lötter

ORiON Editor: StephanVisagie

ORiON Manager: Martin Kidd

Webmaster: Jacques du Toit

Additional Members: Jan van Vuuren

Margarete Bester

Linke Potgieter

Louzanne Oosthuizen

Angela Rademeyer

Co-opted: Robert Bennetto (Johannesburg Chapter Chair)

Quintin van Heerden (Pretoria Chapter Chair)

Fanie Terblanche (Vaal Triangle Chapter Chair)

Danie Lötter (Western Cape Chapter)

Remi Adewumi (KwaZulu-Natal Chapter)

Theo Stewart (EURO

Representative) Hans Ittmann

(IFORS Representative)

Membership

The core business of ORSSA is the provision of a value-for-membership-fee service to its members.

To perform this duty effectively the Society has, amongst other things, a Database manager who

takes care of the majority of activities related to our members. Dave Evans has taken over the

Database manager functions from March 2015. During 2015, up to the end of August, there have

been 27 new membership applications. This is in line with the 29 applications received for the same

period during 2014. Unfortunately we are still experiencing difficulties collecting membership dues.

This is an ongoing and serious problem and the EC was given a clear directive by the members

during the 2012 AGM to terminate all memberships of individuals who owed more than the equivalent

of two current annual membership fees. Of the members tabled at last year’s AGM because of

overdue membership fees, 48 were terminated at the end of 2014. A further 22 responded to the

threat of termination by paying and eight of them will be reviewed again for termination at the end of

2015. A list of members that was terminated is contained in the meeting materials parcel. According

to the members’ database, we have another 66 members who appear to have failed to pay their

membership fees for at least two years (2014 and 2015). These members are also due for termination

on 31 December 2015. We will, however, follow-up with these members before final termination. A

full list of members due for termination is also contained in the meeting materials parcel.

Looking at the current size of our Society it is somewhat alarming to note that the number of members

has decreased with 14.3%. During 2014 we had 314 members while the total for 2015 is 269. It

remains a challenge to retain members and to collect membership dues and I would like to call on

everybody to assist us with this problem.

The current picture of the size of our Society is as follows (as at the end of August 2015):

JHB PTA VT WC KZN Other Totals

Full 41 45 33 52 10 2 183 67%

Student 8 8 1 33 4 54 20%

Retired 2 0 0 1 0 3 1%

Corporate 1 1 0 0 0 2 1%

Life 1 1 1 4 1 1 9 3%

Honorary 1 3 0 3 0 7 3%

Other (Libraries,

etc) 1 2 1 3 1 5 13 5%

Totals 55 60 36 96 16 8 269 100%

20% 22% 13% 36% 6% 3% 100%

There are plans to improve the online database which will also have a positive effect on the membership

functions. The Database Manager and Webmaster play key roles in this. More information will be given

with the Webmaster’s report.

I would like to thank Dave Evans and his predecessors for the meticulous job that they have done during

2015.

Finances

I am pleased to report that the Society's finances are currently in good shape.

Membership fees were increased by 10% at the previous AGM. The treasurer made improvements to

the procedures of generating membership fee invoices and receipts of payments which resulted in

invoices and receipts being issued much faster. In addition to the membership fee invoices issued as

part of the March Newsletter, the invoices were also sent via email to members. These electronic

versions of the invoices resulted in additional payments being made. Payments made to third parties

were also done faster than the previous year. The 2014 conference has delivered a profit of about

R24 000 and I would like to congratulate the 2014 local organising committee that was headed by

Lieschen Venter. A long standing issue that was finally resolved is our account at the domain hosting

company Ample Hosting that we no longer use. This translates to a saving of more than R1000.00

annually. The closing of the Nedbank current account and the Nedbank fixed deposit account was also

recently completed and the money was transferred to our Standard bank account. A new fixed deposit

account to the amount of R210000 was opened at Standard bank. The Society also has a fixed deposit

of R40000 at Standard Bank.

At the end of 2014, 48 memberships were terminated due to non-payment for two or more terms. This

resulted in the write-off of R35340 in bad debt. This is an increase in bad debt of R9240 from the

previous year. I would once again like to urge our members to pay their membership fees regularly as

our Society is very much dependent on this income. There are currently a further 66 members who are

in arrears with two or more years outstanding membership fees. In total they owe the Society R68567.

These individuals will be contacted by email or telephone before the end of the year to remind them to

pay their dues. Failure to do so will then unfortunately result in membership terminations.

The process to obtain formal status as a non-profit entity has finally been achieved. The Society has

been registered, in terms of Section 14 of the Companies Act, of 2008, under the name of ORSSA NPC

with registration number 2015/194115/08. The next step is to obtain a Level 4 BEE certification to make

it more attractive, especially for our colleagues from industry, to expend money on ORSSA. Some of

our members require a tax clearance certificate to enable them to make membership payments. To

obtain such a certificate the Society must be registered at the South African Revenue Service as an

Article 18A organisation – we will look into this matter as soon as possible.

An independent auditor compiled our statements for 2014 which will be presented shortly by the

treasurer.

The major expenses of the Society (i.e. its publications and the annual conference) are being managed

responsibly: we expect to at least break-even with this year’s annual conference, while the Newsletter

with a predicted small loss for 2015 is aiming at breaking even in 2016. The Treasurer will report shortly

on the Society’s capital, assets and liabilities as they reflect so far on this year’s balance sheet. He will

also present our 2015 Budget. A minimal increase in membership fees is planned for 2016.

Unfortunately Tiny du Toit, the current treasurer, will step down at the end of 2015. I would like to say

a special thank you to Tiny for the outstanding job that he has done the past two years to manage the

Society’s finances. We hope to fill this position in the election of the new executive committee later in

the meeting.

Chapters

The Society has the following five fairly active chapters:

Johannesburg Chapter (Chair: Robert Bennetto)

Pretoria Chapter (Chair: Quintin van Heerden)

Vaal Triangle Chapter (Chair: Fanie Terblanche)

Western Cape Chapter (Chair: Danie Lotter)

KwaZulu-Natal Chapter (Chair: Remi Adewumi)

Each ORSSA member is affiliated with a Chapter, and should be receiving electronic mail invites to

activities of their Chapter. I would like to invite all members to approach your Chapter Chairs if you

have ideas for possible future events, or if you are not on the Chapter mailing list. Chairs may be

contacted via the Society’s website and some of them are also present at this meeting.

As part of the chapter activities, a new initiative called meet-ups was started during 2014 and

successful meet-ups have already been held by the Johannesburg and Western Cape chapters.

There have already been 25 meetings held by the Johannesburg Chapter and plans are in place to

take this initiative forward. Members interested in joining these meetings should contact David Clark

or Robert Bennetto.

It has been said many times before that Chapter activity is the lifeblood of the Society. Of the five

current chapters, four are active in organizing events for their members. There is some concern over

the KwaZulu-Natal Chapter which appears to be inactive at the moment – this is something that we

will address in the near future. The Chapter Chairs will be reporting later in the meeting on activities

organized this year by the respective chapters. I would like to thank all the Chapter Chairs for their

hard work and the successful management of their chapters.

Conferences

The Society organizes an annual national conference which has become the highlight of events in every

calendar year. This year’s conference which is still underway here at Pecan Manor was organized by

the Johannesburg Chapter with support from the Pretoria Chapter. I would like to thank Robert Bennetto

and the local organizing committee for a job well done. As in the past there is a large variety of

operational research work covered at the conference this year. A special thank you goes to our

sponsors who contributed generously to this year’s conference. We have received sponsorships from

OPSI Systems, Blue Stallion Technologies, North West University (Centre for BMI), the Department of

Logistics, Stellenbosch University and the Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch

University.

We are already in the fifth year of publishing double-blind peer-reviewed proceedings for our national

conference. Submitting a paper for inclusion in these proceedings is, however, not a prerequisite for

presenting a paper at the conference. I was involved in the process of producing the proceedings and

would like to thank the co-editors Hans Ittmann, Fanie Terblanche (who took responsibility for a large

part of the reviewing process and the finalization of the proceedings) and Danie Lotter for their

assistance and guidance during the process. Hopefully the proceedings will help raise the levels of

quality and visibility of the work presented at the conference and will enable ORSSA delegates to

generate subsidy-qualifying research outputs from our conferences.

The 2016 annual conference will be hosted by the Western Cape Chapter of our Society from 11-14

September 2016. The local organising committee will be headed by the chapter chairperson, Danie

Lotter, who will be telling us more about the conference venue later in this meeting ─ more information

about next year’s conference, as well as important dates related to the conference, will also be posted

on the ORSSA website in due course.

Newsletter

The Society publishes a high-quality newsletter every quarter. It contains feature articles, conference

advertisements, book reviews and software advertisements, amongst other things.

The Newsletter editorial team should be commended for the manner in which they handle and

manage the affairs of the newsletter, often under difficult circumstances. There was a decrease in

the number of advertisers during 2015 and together with increasing costs the Newsletter has made

a loss of R4723 during the first half of 2015. For the second half of 2015, an income of R16800 and

cost of R18006 have been forecasted. If these amounts realise, the Newsletter will make a loss of

R5929 for the 2015 year.

I would like to thank the editor, Bernie Lindner, and the business manager Danie Lotter for a sterling

job done again this year – we are proud of this publication and the achievements of the editorial

team. Members are encouraged to increase the relevance of the Newsletter even further by sending

contributions to the editor and by supporting the requests for advertising in the newsletter. I would

also like to acknowledge and thank the companies and those tertiary institutions which regularly

advertised in the newsletter for their ongoing support – without their support we would not be able to

report positively on the newsletter finances.

ORiON

The flagship publication of the Society is its scholarly journal, ORiON, which has been shipped bi-

annually to members for the last 30 years. The journal has been published on time since 2004 and

the final edition for this year is already in the final editing process and is due to go out on time in

December this year. One of the on-going difficulties facing our journal is the relatively low submission

rate of high-quality papers. I would therefore like to encourage members to keep ORiON in mind

when deciding where to send your manuscripts for publication. Another challenge is the rules for

both indexing ORiON and keeping the journal on the list of accredited journals of the Department of

Higher Education and Training (DoHET). These, and other matters, will be addressed by the editor

later during this meeting.

I appeal to everybody to support our journal and strengthen the efforts of the editorial team to grow

the journal in stature. I would like to thank the editor, Stephan Visagie, and the journal manager,

Martin Kidd, for the extremely time-consuming and important scholarly aspect of the EC’s job that

they do so well.

Website

The webmaster, Jacques du Toit, has performed a tremendous job in handling and looking after the

ORSSA webpage which can be accessed at http://www.orssa.org.za Periodic backups of the website

are now taken and the allowable storage space (2GB) is properly managed. We have recently

experienced problems with the website which was down for three days in July and again for a couple

of days in August. The problems were due to a server migration that was carried out by the hosting

company. Fortunately, these problems were all solved by the webmaster.

The online database in its current format remains a challenge to finalize. The Society’s webmaster

is looking into the possibility of redesigning and re-programming some of the functionality. The

assistance of others members of ORSSA have been enlisted and a prototype of the database has

already been developed. The Database manager will also play a key role in assisting with

requirements from a membership point of view. The webmaster will provide more details later during

this meeting.

I would like to take this opportunity and thank Jacques for an excellent job done with the society’s

website. Being webmaster requires a huge amount of time to constantly keep it up to date and at the

same time add new functionality - we are grateful for the time and effort Jacque is putting into this

portfolio.

Awards

The Society makes recognition awards in four different categories to individuals who have served

the profession of Operations Research in an exemplary fashion. This year is no exception and

awards will be made at the banquet this evening. In addition to these awards, the Executive

Committee may also invite long-standing full members of the Society to become Fellows of the

Society. The EC has, however decided not to extend any new fellowships this year.

The Tom Rozwadowski medal is awarded each year for the best paper published in a peer-reviewed

journal during the previous calendar year by a member of the Society. A large number of excellent

nominations were again received this year and again there is a clear winner of this premier award for

2015. The award will be made this evening at the banquet. Thank you to Jan van Vuuren and Winnie

Pelser for convening the nomination and selection committees respectively, and for following the

governing rules of the award to the letter. Thank you to all the nominators and also to the referees

who made recommendations in terms of the winning entry.

Each year the Society organises two national student competitions: one on honours / 4th year level

and one on masters degree level. These competitions are based on written year projects and theses,

and the entries are typically of a very high standard. Two finalists were invited from a large list of

entries to compete in the special competition session. Winners have been selected in each category,

and will be announced at tonight’s banquet, at which time the Gerhard Geldenhuys and Theo Stewart

medals will be presented to the two winners. I would like to thank Blue Stallion Technologies who

has once again sponsored prizes for the winners of the student competition. Thank you also to

Machteld Strydom and her team of independent adjudicators for the hard work they have put in to

consider the entries of both competition categories and to select winners.

Liaison with other Bodies

Our Society is a member of the International Federation of Operations Research Societies, known

as IFORS. IFORS has a large international conference every three years, and the next one will be in

Quebec in Canada during the period 15–21 July 2017. Members are encouraged to be on the lookout

for the conference website and to start planning now to present a paper at that meeting which

promises to be an excellent networking opportunity. Hans Ittmann is the IFORS representative on

the EC and also a regular contributor (and past editor) of the IFORS Newsletter for Developing

Countries. Martin Kidd is also a representative for the IFORS Newsletter and should you have a

suitable contribution for this Newsletter, please contact Hans or Martin. Hans will report later in the

meeting on IFORS-related matters.

ORSSA is also a member of the European Association of Operational Research Societies, known as

EURO. This grouping organises conferences during non-IFORS-conference years, the last one

taking

place in Glasgow, Scotland in July earlier this year. The next EURO conference will be in Poznan in

Poland during the period 3-6 July 2016. Members can find out more about the conference at

http://www.euro2016.poznan.pl/

Theo Stewart is the EURO representative on the EC and he will be reporting later in the meeting on

EURO-related matters. Whilst individuals cannot be members of EURO, ORSSA members are

encouraged to register online as members of a member society of EURO at http://www.euro-

online.org/ ─ this site is often used for international OR conference abstract submission.

ORSSA also has representation on the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions,

known as SACNASP. We do not currently have a SACNASP representative on the EC and members

interested to register with SACNASP are invited to contact me.

The South African Institute for Industrial Engineering (SAIIE) has agreed to a long-term agreement

with ORSSA for the annual accreditation of the ORSSA conference for ECSA (Engineering Council

of South Africa) CPD points at a reduced cost and with a reduced administrative burden for ORSSA.

This agreement confirms that SAIIE views ORSSA as a partner organisation in promoting and

supporting activities where many Industrial Engineers also work.

A new initiative to liaise more closely with tertiary institutions and Grade 11 and 12 learners in schools

is in a very early stage of planning. A taskforce to address this will be established in the near future

and more information will be made available as the project progress.

Finally, I would like to make members aware of the new Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)

qualification which was launched by INFORMS during 2013. This qualification is designed to

recognize analytics professionals who want to demonstrate a commitment to excellence and con-

tinued professional development. ORSSA is proud, and want to congratulate, those members who

have already obtained this certification.

Conclusion

I want to conclude by reiterating my sincerest thanks to all members of the EC for their hard work

and commitment. It is a privilege and a pleasure for me to have worked with you for the past two

years. I would like to thank Lieschen Venter in particular for the manner in which she has handled

the portfolio of secretary this year ─ to most members she is the face of the EC throughout the year.

Thank you also to our Vice President, Winnie Pelser who has provided me with expert advice and

second opinions on many occasions this year. I would also like to thank those EC members who will

be stepping down as EC members at the end of 2015. Each and every one has excelled in their

respective portfolios thereby contributing to the growth and well-being of our Society.

Finally, thank you to all members of our Society for their support. I want to extend a warm invitation

to the members of our Society to please make contact with Winnie or any EC member if you have

any ideas by which you feel ORSSA can improve the quality of the service it provides to its members.

Thank you for your attention.

Hennie Kruger

ORSSA President

Addendum B – Database Manager’s report

Database/Membership Manager’s Report: 2015

Dave Evans took over from Louzanne Oosthuizen in March 2015; this report is prepared by

Dave.

Of the 83 members tabled at last year’s agm because of overdue membership fees, 53 were

terminated at the end of 2014. Their names are attached in Annexure A. A further 22

responded to the threat of termination by paying. The other eight will be reviewed again for

termination at the end of 2015.

At 13th August 2015, the members of the Society were as follows:

JHB PTA VT WC KZN Other Totals

Full 41 45 33 52 10 2 183 67%

Student 8 8 1 33 4 54 20%

Retired 2 0 0 1 0 3 1%

Corporate 1 1 0 0 0 2 1%

Life 1 1 1 4 1 1 9 3%

Honorary 1 3 0 3 0 7 3%

Other (Libraries, etc) 1 2 1 3 1 5 13 5%

Totals 55 60 36 96 16 8 269

20% 22% 13% 36% 6% 3%

We also have a further 27 new membershhip applications being processed, many just

waiting for payment of fees to be finalised.

At the same date, according to the members’ database, we have 72 members who appear to

have failed to pay their membership fees for at least two years (2014 and 2015). A list of

those members is also attached in Annexure B.

As members may know, electronic deposits of membership fees often have references

which are unclear, so some of these members may have paid. At the beginning of 2016, the

process will therefore be to contact all those members and check which have paid, in a way

which we have been unable to identify. Any members who are more than two years in

arrears are terminated.

Should members be in contact with any of the people in Annexure B who have paid, or who

you believe are in arrears by mistake, please ask them to contact the Database/Membership

Manager or the Treasurer.

Jacques du Toit, the Webmaster, is leading a team to put the members’ database online.

This will allow members to update their own details if anything like a phone number or email

address changes, and also to check the status of their membership fees account. We expect

to complete this project during 2016.

Annexure A: Members terminated at the beginning of 2015

Dr F Babi Mr W Jooste Mr MO Olusanya

Prof GDI Barr Mr CJJ Joubert Mr OO Osiyemi

Miss A Barty Miss LG Kgari Mrs DE Puthini

Mrs WL Bean Mr JJ Lord Mr SS Saul

Mr WA Carstens Mr B Maghoma Mr J SIBANDA

Miss JR Chipfakacha Mr N Manson Mr A Steenkamp

Mr RA Daffue Mr DM Maposa Ms MJ Treurnicht

Mr RJ de Beer Miss BE Mashika Mrs V TSHUMA

Mr PS Ellis-Smith Mr PT Mashungupa Mr M van der Merwe

Mr EC Essmann Mrs MR Masungwini Mr HJ van Nelson

Mr FJ Fagan Mr DJP Matthee Miss HE Van Staden

Mr DJ Goosen Mr BC McDonald Ms I van Zyl

Mr B Graham Mrs LE Meijer Mr A van Zyl

Miss J Grobler Ms IA Meyer Mr I Vawda

Mr GJ Hardy Mr AJ Moolman Mr RH Venter

Mr LO Joel Mrs M Mouton Ms E Versfeld

Annexure B: Members potentially to be terminated at the beginning of 2016.

Dr AO Adewumi Mr A Kandira Mnr LF Scheepers

Mr HM Barnard Mr MP Kidd Miss E Scholtz

Mr J Bekker Mrs T Koali Mr MJ Sekhasimbe

Mr JG Benade Prof JW Kruger Mr LN Shilubana

Ms MJ Bester Mr EJ Lanz Mr ZP Simpson

Ms S Bester Dr PEN Lutu Mr K K Sipeyiye

Mr GM BISSICT Mr MM Magele Mr AJ Smit

Mr W Bossenger Mr BJ Maile Mr J Stray

Dr AP Burger Mr J Matthews Miss HL Tarr

Mr I Campbell Miss T Meyer Mr S Theletsane

Dr G Davie Mr MJ Kushner Mev J Thiart

Mr DJ de Villiers Dr E Munapo Mr S Trupp

Prof AG de Wet Mr N Myataza Ms SM Turpin

Mr P Dlamini Mr O Ncube Mr PD Ugo

Mr MM Drewes Mrs CD Neethling Ms M van der Merwe

Prof ND du Preez Miss J Nel Mr FJ van der Westhuizen

Miss A du Toit Prof ME Nthangeni Mr Q van Heerden

Mr JH Engelbrecht Mr AK Ntlokwana Mev EJC Van Staden

Miss D Fivaz Mr SV Ntshangase Mr PR Veldhuizen

Mr J Hammarstrom Dr FG Ortmann Mr E Waffo Dassi

Mr A Hearn Mr EB Peters Mr EF Wilgenbus

Mr P Hector Mr JJ Potgieter Mr H Williams

Addendum C – Financial statements

AGM Financial Report for 2015

The ORSSA society had a good year financially. Currently, the society’s finances are in a

healthy state. The local organising committee of the 2014 conference headed by Lieschen

Venter can be congratulated for making a profit of about R24000.00. The process to obtain

formal status as a non-profit entity has finally been achieved. This process has been started

a while ago and now the society has been registered under the name of ORSSA NPC with

registration number 2015/194115/08. As a result, we are now registered as such in terms of

Section 14 of the Companies Act, 2008.

The next step is to obtain a Level 4 BEE certification. This basically means that any person

who spends money on e.g. our annual conference will receive recognition for 100% of the

funds spent when they go through their BEE verification process. Such recognition will make

it more attractive to expend money on ORSSA. The Exec has approved our request to obtain

a Level 4 BEE certification and currently we are gathering all the documentation that is needed

for the certification in order to apply very soon.

Some of our members require a tax clearance certificate to enable them to make membership

payments. For this certificate the society must be registered at the South African Revenue

Service as an Article 18 A organisation. We are also looking into the matter to obtain a tax

clearance certificate as soon as possible.

Membership fees were increased by 10% at the 2014 AGM. The treasurer made

improvements to the procedures of generating membership fee invoices and receipts of

payments which resulted in invoices and receipts being issued much faster. In addition to the

membership fee invoices issued as part of the March Newsletter, the invoices were sent via

email. These electronic versions of the invoices resulted in additional payments being made.

Finally, payments made to third parties were done faster than the previous year.

Another longstanding issue that was finally resolved is our account at the domain hosting

company Ample Hosting. We hosted our conference website on the orssaconf.co.za domain

owned by Ample Hosting a few years ago and has since moved the website to the orssa.org.za

domain. We had difficulty closing the account as they required information on the account no

one initially seemed to know. With the assistance of Marthi Harmse we obtained this

information and was able to close the account and the corresponding monthly debit order.

This resulted in savings of more than R1000.00 to the society per year.

Mr. Cilliers van Zyl, an independent auditor from Potchefstroom, compiled our statements for

2014. Our Nedbank current account has been closed recently. We also closed our long term

Nedbank investment and transferred the R185614.16 of the this investement as well as the

R12174.01 which was still left over in the Nedbank current account to our Standard bank

current account. We then created a new long term investment (12 months) at Standard bank

for R210000.00 starting at an interest rate of 7.305%.

Finally, the treasurer would like to thank Trudie du Toit, Hennie Kruger, Dave Evans, Lieschen

Venter, Marthi Harmse, Jonas Stray and Cilliers van Zyl for their valuable inputs.

Addendum D – Marketing manager’s report

Addendum E – ORiON Editor in Chief’s report

Addendum F – Newsletter report

I would like to thank: Mark Einhorn for his guidance, his approach and his outstanding work on

setting a good standard for the Newsletter (high quality articles and typesetting it in Adobe InDesign)

and currently contributing awesome cartoons; Danie Lotter for managing the business side

(advertisements) and proofreading; Hans Ittman for his consistent and insightful book reviews; Brian

van Vuuren for his new movie reviews; Prof Jan van Vuuren for proof reading; and finally my

colleagues at Industrial Engineering who help with packing, labelling and mailing newsletters (this

takes a couple of hours).

Below is a table I have prepared to give an overview of the last 4 Newsletters.

Table 1: Key Information on recent ORSSA Newsletters

October 2014 December 2014 March 2015 June 2015

Editor Mark Mark/Bernie Bernie Bernie

Themes ORSSA Conference

OR Tools (R and SAS)

Cloud computing SKA Conferences (ORSSA, EURO & ORPA)

New features OR at universities (continued)

Movie review, What O(U)R members are up to

Pages 16 12 12 16

Advertisements [income (3)]

4 2 2 3

Copies printed [cost]

(2) 280 [R3 876] 290 [R4 041] 300 [R5 403]

Copies mailed [cost]

(1)

(2) 252 [R2 563] 261 [R3 432] Cost includes printing 258 invoices

272 [R3 607] Cost includes mailing ORION subscribers

(1) Cost varies based on number of international stamps. (2) Don’t have invoices (3) Will get this info soon (Monday 17 Aug).

My idea is to create an interesting read for members, especially the younger/newer members,

whose numbers are quite substantial and whose main interaction with the society is the newsletter.

So I have tried to feature “hot topics” such as cloud computing, the square kilometre array, movie

reviews. However I do not want to “ignore” the more senior members, who probably read the

newsletter more diligently… In addition I would like the newsletter to be a good marketing tool for

the society, i.e. nice to put on library/department/office coffee tables. I want it to be something

members can be proud of and will help convince non-members what we are doing is pretty cool

(show to friends and family). Mark has really created a good image for the newsletter, I plan to

further research and steal ideas from other newsletters and magazines, e.g. I want to start using

large quotes that you usually find in magazines (TIME, etc.) which we all use to just scan over an

article before to help to decide if we want to read the entire article.

I have been a bit late in mailing the newsletters off, usually the last week of the month (i.e mailed

June newsletter last week of June), I will try and push this earlier, ideal is to mail it the week before

publication month (i.e. mail June newsletter last week of May). This is just a case of starting a month

earlier.

It has always been a problem to get enough articles submitted to the newsletter. I don’t think

members don’t want to submit, I just think members feel too scared they can’t contribute (i.e. the

articles they can submit aren’t good enough). Two suggestions for improving this is

1. Having a competition run per chapters on number of articles submitted, the winning chapter

(members) receive a small prize at the ORSSA conference or something similar. Suggestion

from Mark.

2. Emailing/requesting members well in advance (or just the executive committee) about need

for articles in next newsletters. Maybe mention set themes, or if anyone has any suggested

themes/articles they let me know and I notify all interested stakeholders. I have been doing

this lately.

I want to thank the Society for allowing me the opportunity of editing the newsletter, I really enjoy it

and I am learning a lot.

Addendum G – Newsletter business manager’s report

Addendum H – Webmaster’s report

Webmaster Report

I successfully gained access to our hosting instance at the start of my tenure and have made periodic

backups of the website. Our current hosting agreement entitles us to 2GB of storage space and we

have managed to reach this ceiling twice during the last few months. On both occasions I have

removed unused files; on the second occasion there seemed to be a runaway configuration file that

had grown to a healthy size. The orssa.org.za domain experienced three days of downtime in July on

account of a server migration that was carried out by the hosting company. I logged three tickets

with their support desk during this period and contacted their staff directly. Although the issue was

resolved, the fact that they had upgraded some of the libraries on the hosts meant that the website

was peppered with error messages. These have since been repaired by the hosting company. This

has not been an isolated incident unfortunately and we seemed to have suffered the same problems

again around the 16'th of August.

This year's conference website was hosted, once again, by SUNConferences using the Open

Conference Systems web publishing tool. The configuration of this website was very time

consuming and cumbersome. I'm also aware of the fact that many prospective conference

attendees also had trouble using the website.

Having been in this position for a year now, convinces me that there is much that we can do a great

deal better. To this end, I've enlisted the assistance of other ORSSA members in programming a

simple server that will enable us to interact with our member data directly. We will be working with

Dave to arrive at a succinct database schema and will gradually add functionality to the server,

thereby exposing these data to the website. This will take some time but we will approach this with

the intention of making the source code available online, and with the goal of including more people

as we go along. A prototype of the database is already deployed in Amazon's cloud infrastructure.

Lastly, I would like to thank members that notified me of inacuracies and broken links on the

website, it is greatly appreciated.

Addendum I – Johannesburg Chapter report

Addendum J – Pretoria Chapter report

ORSSA Pretoria Chapter Feedback 2014 - 2015

AGM and election of new executive committee 24 November 2014 at Lynnwood Bridge

The following people were elected to serve on the new committee:

o Chairperson: Quintin van Heerden o Vice Chairperson: Alwyn Moolman o Secretary: Leon Uys o Treasurer: Quintin van Heerden and Winnie Pelser o Additional Members: Winnie Pelser and Ntakadzeni Mudau

Event: GIS and Tracking Data in South African Supply Chains & Other Business Cases 2 December 2014 at Resolve Solution Partners

This event was a panel discussion between multiple panel members about the use of GIS, tracking data, and other technology in Supply Chain Management. The panel included representatives from the Aurecon Group, Yotta Zetta, Mix Telematics, DigiCore, Resolve Assets, and Pick ‘n Pay. There were 22 attendees at this event.

Event: Supply Chain Capacity Modelling and Decision Support 13 May 2015 at UNISA, Department of Decision Sciences

We co-hosted this event with the UNISA Department of Decision Sciences. Ludwig Furstenberg, a senior consultant at Hatch, presented a very interesting talk on Supply Chain Capacity Modelling and decision support through all project phases, with reference to optimisation, scheduling, and simulation techniques that they use. We had a good turnout of about 30 people.

Event: Structuring unstructured data 19 August 2015 at UNISA, Department of Decision Sciences

The internet allows access to vast amounts of data, particularly publicly available data on

social media and open databases. However, a large proportion of these data is unstructured

and seemingly unusable. Gaining insights into such data can be a complex and challenging

task. Dr Vukosi Marivate, a researcher at the CSIR’s Modelling and Digital Sciences, explores

some of the techniques used to structure data, mined from social media, and how one can

incorporate humans in the loop to wrangle the data into a useful and insightful format.

There was also a short introduction to the Intelligence Meetup Group. The intelligence meetup group is a new initiative by Benjamin Rosman, a researcher at the CSIR, and Harish Subramanian, COO at African Leadership Network, which aims to bring together people with interests in data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, visualisation, and applications. ORSSA Pretoria is trying to become more involved in this initiative, hence the introduction of this group at this event. This event is co-hosted by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Systems society as well as the UNISA Department of Decision Sciences and 35 people attended the event. There were very interesting discussions after the presentation.

Planned activities for the rest of 2015 o AGM before the end of 2015 o 1 more event before the end of 2015 o Strengthening ties with the IEEE society and Intelligence Meetup Group o Maintaining ties with UNISA and Resolve for venues for future events

Finances:

Amount Balance

01-Nov-14 Balance 28412.36

02-Dec-14 Function: GIS and Tracking Data 1939.93 26472.43

13-May-15 Function: Supply chain capacity modelling 1683.88 24788.55

19-Aug-15 Function: Structuring unstructed data 2327.18 22461.37

27-Aug-15 Balance 22461.37

Addendum K – Vaal Triangle Chapter report

The final chapter event for the Vaal Triangle Chapter in 2014 was held on the 27th of

November 2014. Marthi Harmse from Sasol gave a talk on sustainability within the context

of public-private programmes that aim to maximise the long term benefit for the targeted

stakeholders. The AGM coincided with the final chapter event and the following people

were elected to serve on the VT committee:

Fanie Terblanche (Chairperson)

Philip Venter (Vice chairperson)

Ester Vermaak (Secretary)

Patrick Reynolds (Treasurer)

The first chapter event for 2015 was held on the 25th of March and a presentation was given

by Fanie Terblanche on the topic of “Direct Marketing and pricing for retail credit”. The main

contribution presented was a mathematical programming model with the objective to

maximise net interest income for retail credit products by the targeting of existing

customers that will most likely top-up their existing loans. Computational results were

based on data from a financial institution. The talk was well attended and comprised mainly

of post graduate students from the Centre for BMI, North-West University.

The second chapter event took place on the 27th of August 2015. Philip Venter gave a talk on

“Off-gas power generation optimisation using a mixed integer linear programming model”.

The application of his work is set within a typical engineering plant where off-gasses are

utilised as energy resources. The mathematical model proposed takes operational aspects

into account such as the control of turbines and boiler houses given varying steam

production and consumption.

The planned 4th quarter event will be a presentation by Patrick Reynolds on “Collateral

optimisation”. In addition the VT committee is exploring the possibility of hosting a student

competition that will involve the solving of practical OR problems utilising SAS software. SAS

has indicated that they are willing to sponsor such an event and also expressed interest to

extend the initiative to a national level.

An AGM is planned for November that will give members the opportunity to elect a new

committee for 2016.

Addendum L – Western Cape Chapter report

Addendum M – Meetups report

Addendum N – Nomination form for the members of the 2016 Executive

Committee

Addendum O – Attendance register