Finalist Research Spotlight of the ORSSA Honours/Fourth-Year Student Competition

Every year, the ORSSA Honours or Fourth-Year Student Competition celebrates the curiosity, creativity, and analytical skill of emerging researchers. This year’s finalists have produced outstanding work with fresh insight and methodological rigour. The prestigious Gerhard Geldenhuys Medal is awarded to the winner of the honours or fourth-year category.

In the post below, you’ll find the research abstracts for these projects. Each offers a glimpse into the questions that motivated the students, the methods they applied, and the insights they uncovered. Whether you’re an academic, practitioner, or someone who enjoys seeing new ideas take shape, we hope you’ll be inspired by the exceptional work of our finalists.

We are proud to introduce our two finalists, as well as their topics and research abstracts:

• Charlize Kriek, whose project is titled “Location Assignment of Stores on Picking Lines.” Her research was supervised by Prof S. Visagie.

  Abstract:

  Picking lines account for a large part of the expenses of a distribution centre (DC) and are labour intensive. Hence, methods to make the picking system more efficient help to reduce costs. In this project, a picking system in a third-party DC is investigated. The third-party component adds to the level of complexity by having multiple brands within a DC. Usually, a DC only serves one brand, hence the picking is done for one brand, but now the picking is done for multiple brands. The main question is how to allocate the brands in the picking lines and how to assign the stores within each brand to minimise the walking distance and congestion of pickers within the picking lines. An integer programming model is used to allocate the brand in the best way, by minimising the overflow of brands to multiple pick lines. The stores of each brand are then assigned using four heuristics. The stores are ordered in two ways when assigning, namely the Sorted-list and Mixed-list approach. These assignments are evaluated with a GI/G/1 queuing theory model to estimate the walking distance and throughput time. The throughput time measures the congestion. This model was validated and sensitivity analysis was done to see how sensitive the model is to parameter changes. After running results with randomly generated datasets, results showed that the best performing approach is when using Heuristic 3 with a Mixed-list approach.

  
  

• Hannah Boëttger (née Quass), whose project is titled “Statistical Mapping of Factor Relationships in the South African Public Primary School System.” Her research was supervised by Dr L. Venter.

  Abstract:

  This study investigates the community and socio-economic factors influencing learner grade progression in the South African public primary school system, focusing on the Western Cape

  and Gauteng provinces. The 2022 General Household Survey dataset is analysed using factor analysis, multilevel regression, and structural equation modelling to develop a statistically valid

  relational mapping of the factors describing the public primary school system. Predictive modelling and machine learning techniques are used to validate the resultant relational mapping and to uncover the most significant factors. The findings highlight the important role played by family stability and household resources to determine educational outcomes, giving insight into the most effective areas for policy interventions. This study lays a foundation for further quantitative research into addressing South Africa’s poor academic achievement and educational inequality.

This year the students presented their work at through a zoom meeting on Friday 21 November 2025. During this time they gave a 20 minute presentation, thereafter audience members were invited to ask the finalists questions. The result of the competition will be announced at the ORSSA Stellenbosch Social and Awards ceremony taking place on Thursday 27 November 2025.

Congratulations to both finalists. Many thanks to Marno Du Plessis, the 2025 NSC Coordinator, and all the reviewers.

For more information about the competetion you can read here.