Abstract
M.Ing. (Electrical Engineering)
Successful projects are those that meet business requirements, are delivered and maintained on schedule, are delivered and maintained within budget and deliver the expected business value and return on investment. CE (Community Engagement) projects that are engineering focused, rely on the same strategy of success.
However, there are a number of CE projects that fail due to a number of factors such as a lack of funds to finance operations and purchase resources required for the project, poor management of resources and finances, poor management of the overall project, lack of youth involvement in community-based project, lack of monitoring and evaluation of community projects and lack of stakeholder participation.
Furthermore, CE projects conducted by engineers can suffer while being conducted due to the poor approach of engineers to such projects. Engineers believe in problem solving through the standard “hard” engineering approach. However, this approach frequently ignores the social aspects within these projects.
It was deemed necessary that in order to prevent CE projects (that are engineering focused) from failing, to target the root of the cause by encouraging engineering institutions to incorporate CE projects as part of the curriculum. This would cultivate engineering students into ‘community engaging experts’ and allow students to gain a “hands on experience” by physically participating in engaging projects and interacting with communities.
Therefore, it was hypothesised that the design and implementation of a CE framework, (CEF) designed for engineering institutions will assist in the successful conducting of CE projects and also allow for student teams to socially interact with communities and physically engage in these projects.
The CEF was integrated with systems engineering, project management and CE literature. The framework was built off the (South Africa National Standard) SANS-15288 Systems Life Cycle standards and incorporated processes from project management theory and CE theory, such as work breakdown structures and community selection procedures.
The framework was tested on an existing CE project (conducted by The University of Johannesburg), called The Gwakwani project, which ended off successfully with phase 1 in 2014. Phase 2 included the design and installation of a system solution to solve the community’s lighting dilemma. The installation of individual solar lighting units and the donation of hand held solar lighting units (sponsored by Schneider Electric), encompassed this community service initiative.
The implementation was tested and evaluated based on the project procedure and whether individual stakeholder requirements were met. The evaluation consisted of a survey analysis (through indicators) and the received data was analysed statistically. The survey revealed information of firstly the implementation of the lighting units and secondly determined the validity of the framework through implication.