The following undergraduate research projects were carried out by the Chair between 2011 and 2018. If you require any of the Executive Summaries or wish to know more about any of these topics, please contact us via e-mail.

1. Principles and Practices of Energy Calculations and Energy Management in Maintenance
2. Quantification and evaluation of customer travelling experience using quality management tools
3. Scheduling Optimisation in a Maintenance Environment
4. The Measurement of Labour Productivity in a Maintenance Environment
5. Business Process Re-engineering of a Planning Office Facility in a Rolling Stock Maintenance Environment.
6. Facilities Planning of a Rolling Stock General Overhaul Facility
7. Implementation of Mission-Directed Work Teams in a Maintenance Environment
8. Investigation into Problem-solving Methodologies in an Engineering Environment
9. The Implementation of 5S in a maintenance environment
10. A Systematic Approach to Energy Saving in a Maintenance Environment
11. Business Process Analysis of Railway Rolling Stock Supply Chains by using Lean Thinking Principles
12. Facilities Planning and Layout Design of a Railway Station
13. Process Improvement Strategies in Maintenance to Improve Productivity
14. The development of a computerised train scheduling system
15. Business Process Improvement of Scheduled Maintenance Activities in Rolling Stock Maintenance
16. Decision support systems to improve financial management in a maintenance environment
17. Managing change and renewal of existing management systems in rail
18. Maintenance management to improve peak energy demand
19. Facility Layout Improvement in Rail Rolling Stock Maintenance
20. Comparison of Traditional Project Management (TPM) with Agile Project Management (APM) and Risk Management for use on small-sized projects in the PRASA environment
21. Investigate wheel wear in the rail environment (Iteration 1)
22. Investigate coil swelling of traction motors in the Rail environment (Iteration 2)
23. Optimising ventilation of passenger coaches in the rail environment
24. Development of passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment (Iteration 2)
25. Develop a method to calibrate a rail wheel profile measuring instrument
26. Investigation of flameproof materials for passenger coaches
27. Develop a portable method to measure rail wheel profiles using a 3D camera
28. Simulation of the brake system operation of a 5M/10M train
29. Reliability modelling of a motor coach in the rail environment
30. Investigation into the impact of support services on maintenance activities in a rail environment.
31. Investigating Possible Causes of Flash overs in the HT bay of the 5M2A trainsets
32. The development of a suitable model for occupational safety systems in a rail maintenance environment
33. Investigation into the possible hotspots and patterns of vandalism and theft of railway infrastructure in order to reduce disruptions in operational and maintenance schedules
34. Business Process Reengineering of the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Process of Rolling Stock at Cape Metrorail and the Salt River Maintenance Depot
35. Development of a Passenger Counting System for the Train Transport Industry (Iteration 1)
36. Investigation of coil swelling of traction motors in the rail environment (Iteration 1)
37. Optimization of Finite Element Analysis for Rail wheels
38. Investigation into the effect of normal and excessive braking on PRASA train wheels
39. Investigation into the stress relaxation and creep experienced during excessive braking on PRASA train wheels
40. Modular pedestrian bridges
41. Commercialising of the spring tester to accommodate more spring types and snubbers
42. Improving Response Time for Corrective Maintenance for Rail Infrastructure
43. An integrated vandalism and theft analysis for Rolling Stock
44. The Application of Process Planning methods and software in a Rail Maintenance Environment
45. The Redesign of the Layout of a Component Shop in the Rail Maintenance Environment
46. Development of a reliability improvement model for train sets in the rail environment
47. A proposed framework to be used in choosing simulation packages for transport exchange modes: Simio and Anylogic are considered
48. The use of vibration in railway condition monitoring
49. A Decision Support Framework for Outsourcing the Maintenance of Physical Assets: A case study of Rolling Stock Rotating Machines
50. Front-line supervisor effectiveness assessment in an engineering shop-floor
51. Development of a passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment
52. Investigation and upgrading of the 5M Motor Coach vacuum braking system to the modern compressed air operated disk brakes
53. Equipment Replacement Analysis in terms of Life Cycle Costing of Energy Intensive Equipment within the Maintenance Environment
54. Development of a passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment (Iteration 3)
55. Investigate wheel wear in the rail environment (Iteration 2)
56. Facility layout planning of a component refurbishment facility
57. Scheduling methods in a Rail maintenance environment
58. An investigation into the railway points machine to optimise operational functionality
59. Development of a passenger counting system for the passenger rail environment (Iteration 4)
60. Preliminary investigation into alternative materials for train wheels and rails
61. Improvements to the spring testing jig
62. Study of the Metrorail Business Express trains in Cape Town
63. Design, planning and testing of a board game that can be used for teaching rail awareness to rural communities
64. Improving supply chain communication efficiency through an online Kanban system
65. Improving Response Time for Corrective Maintenance for Rail Infrastructure
66. The Contribution of Maintenance towards Reliability Improvement
67. An investigation into the financial requirements of technology transfer in railways
68. Simulation of Real-World Railway Operations using a Model Train Scenario​