From the customer?s perspective the only reason for a firm to exist is the value it creates. However, a problem within manufacturing companies is that of the total lead time, only a small part can be considered as value adding. It has further been discovered that when working with improvements businesses often sub-optimizes single processes instead of considering what benefits the entire company. Thus, when improving processes and activities it is important to have knowledge about and understand which factors that affect how the flow can be designed.Several studies have been performed with a wide perspective on process flows in order to obtain a more resource-efficient and value added flow.

This Master thesis has been carried out at Scania CV AB in Södertälje, in collaboration withKTH, The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. The focus of this Master thesis isSetBased Concurrent Engineering(SBCE), with the purpose of answering the questions: what isSBCE, how does it work, and for what purposes is it applied.It was early established thatSBCE is often included as a part of Lean product development,which in its turn is often related to Toyota?s way of working. TheSBCE method includesworking with multiple solutions in parallel, eliminating weak alternatives throughout thewhole process. In opposite to a conventional product development process, where it iscommon one at an early stage tries to identify and choose the most promising alternative.Despite the appearance ofSBCE as a resource consuming method, figures from Toyotaindicates the opposite, thatSBCE is in fact a very effective way of working compared to othermore traditional methods.The process of this Master thesis was divided into three phases.

Title: Territorial identities and fusions- regional identity by interregional fusions Level: Final assignment for Bachelors Degree in Social Science with specialization in Urban and Regional Planning. Major subject: Geography. Author: Mladen Krajisnik Supervisor: Carl-Johan Nordblom Date: 2009 May Intention: The main focus of this study is to verify the existence, or nonexistence, of local and regional identities. Considering the result regarding regional identities, this thesis will continue on to clarify if these identities are to be seemed as a threat or resource during fusions, and if so, how can one best manage these different identities.Method: Only secondary data has been used in this study. I've botanized amongst the literature that processes fusions, impact of culture, identities, regions, territory. Continuing on, the collected empirical resources have been compared to my theory, from which an analysis was able to be spawned and conclusions were drawn.Result & Conclusions: The thesis confirms different regional identities, although it does not treat the subject regarding the inner strength of regions comparing to one another.

Background: The growth of the venture capital industry has given birth to new relations between investors and entrepreneurial firms. Venture capital firms are by definition investors serving as an active partner which implies a deeper relation between investors and entrepreneurs than has been the case previously. This new situation leads to a number of questions. Do venture capitalists really act as active partners with a long term interest in the venture? Do they add any value besides capital? How important is their influence in the portfolio company's decision making process? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to give a deeper understanding of the relation between venture capital firms and IT companies in the start-up phase.

Over the last few years, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the aid sector have grown and become important economic, social and political actors in Sweden. However this sector has also been hard criticized in terms of aid effectiveness. Church of Sweden (CoS), a well established organization in this sector, has faced new challenges in form of demands from their environment regarding reporting aid work. These demands have pushed the International Department of Church of Sweden into a process for adapting the structure in order to meet the new effectiveness requirements. Using both, Contingency Theory and Resource Dependence Theory as theoretical framework and a single case study as research strategy, this master thesis goes in deep into the description of the change of the structure of the International Department. This work shows how the different parts of the organization functions and what impact will these changes in the structure mean for the future of the organization. The analysis of the empirical evidence related to the theoretical framework shows that the organization responds to external demands through a more centralized structure than before.

The group of elderly people in Sweden will increase significantly in the future and science point out that the future elderly people will not accept today?s standards and offers of assistance in today?s public elderly care. Therefore public elderly care stands before a significant challenge in terms of development that has to be sustainable. New research also points out that middle managers can be a great strategic resource, and a founder of success, in the challenge of sustainable development. The aim of the report was to increase the knowledge about what middle managers in public elderly care think sustainable development has to embrace, when it comes to quality and personnel administration, in order to meet the needs of the future elderly people.

AbstractSouth Africa is a country where apartheid has created a segregated population and the countrys cultural traditions affects the human situations in a unique way. Equalities between gender, class and ethnicity is a main focus for female activists in their work to give the exposed population tools and knowledges to stand up for themselves to cope with the unbalanced structure. This examination paper is done in a qualitative case study in South Africa. The content consists of thourough descriptions of how the society is percieved by four different people, explained by feministic theories and former research that is connected to the papers purpose and question formulations. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Sikhula Sonke, a women´s movement in South Africa looks at the female?s situation in the society and how they are going about their work to improve social equality.

Problemformulering: Hur påverkas och anpassas bankernas belöningsstrategi till deutmaningar och svårigheter som uppstår i samband med enlågkonjunktur, och vilka effekter har bankernasbelöningsstrategi på medarbetarnas motivation och prestation?Teoretisk referensram: Studiens teoriavsnitt innehåller teorier inom områdena; Ledning, Strategi och Personal. Kapitlet inleds med teorierinom Human resource management (HRM), vilket kandefinieras som ett strategiskt synsätt för att hanteraarbetsrelationer, inom vilket belöningssystemen spelar en roll.Vidare behandlar vi teorier kring motivation och olikamotivationsfaktorer, ledarskap i en kris och internkommunikation och knyter an dessa till den insamladeempirin.Metod: Denna studie bygger på en kvalitativ metod med kvantitativainslag, vilket beror på att vi i denna undersökning valt attinkludera både ledning och medarbetarnas uppfattning ombelöningssystemet och dess effekter i en lågkonjunktur. Vi hargenomfört intervjuer med personalchefer på tre olika banker i Umeå, vilka representerar ledarskapssidan. Dessa intervjuerkompletteras av enkäter till medarbetarna på de olikabankerna, vilka alltså representerar medarbetarsidan.Slutsatser: De slutsatser vi kunnat dra med hjälp av denna studie är att detinte är belöningarna och motivationsfaktorerna i sig som varitden avgörande faktorn för medarbetarnas motivation ochbankernas förmåga att hantera och ta sig genom krisen på ettbra sätt.

Syftet med den aktuella kvalitativa studienär att utifrån av empiriska datafördjupa förståelsen för äldre deltagares upplevelser av Må Bra TV(MBT).Metod: Sammanlagt sju äldre från Åboland skärgård som har använt sig av MBT har intervjuats. Data har analyserats enligt Corbin och Strauss modifierade version av grundad teori.Huvudresultat:Det centrala i MBT visade sig vara samvaron i de virtuella möten där deltagarna träffade varandra och studerandevid högskolan.?Att få och ge stöd genom interaktiva möten?framstod där med som en kärnkategori i analysen av data. I analysen av intervjuerna kunde ytterligare fyra kategorier identifieras som alla var relaterade till kärnkategorin. Dessa kategorier beskriver deltagarnas upplevelser av konsekvenserna av att delta i virtuella möten.

Dreampark AB är ett IT-företag som bland annat håller på att utveckla ett Internet Protocoll TeleVission (IPTV) -system. IPTV innebär att TV-signalerna som mottas av TV-apparaten sänds över Internet. Det kan jämföras med kabel-TV där signalerna sänds via en kabel som är nergrävd i marken. I IPTV-systemet, som Dreampark byggt, har det byggts en interaktiv meny med många olika tjänster. Det går t.ex.

The sun is essential to life on earth and no matter where you are, there is a constant need ofenergy. Nearly 800 000 years ago man learned for the first time to use fire in a controlled way.Since then, fire has given us the opportunity to inhabit places despite a cold climate. In Swedenthe resident sector accounts for a major part of the total consumption of energy. In a time whenenvironmental issues and greenhouse effects are increasing, we also see a future of rising energyprices. With this perspective, we have in this bachelor thesis in the Building Environment at theRoyal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Stockholm decided to focus on the renewable energysource, solar energy.The energy from solar radiation is a free resource and does not have any negative effects uponthe environment.

Today more and more municipalities interact across a wide range of sectors. The reasons tostart interacting are varying and for those who succeed with this form of work, there arebenefits in terms of efficiency and knowledge exchanges. But are the reasons that interactalways obvious? Sweden currently has 290 municipalities of varying size and allmunicipalities have basically the same mission, to deliver services to its residents.Information technology allows municipalities to digitize much of the workload, but theintroduction of the technique is not without problems. For small municipalities, there are greatdemands to deliver reliability and support for their internal and external services.

Studien tog avstamp i det senaste decenniets utveckling inom marknadsteori med avseende pa? samva?rdeskapande, tja?nstelogik och konsumenters resursintegrering. Efter att ha la?st forskningsartiklar och inla?gg i media om ett skifte i synen pa? konsumenters allt viktigare roll ville vi na?rmare studera hur den tar sig uttryck inom marknadskommunikation. Studiens syfte blev att bidra till den relativt outvecklade forskningen pa? omra?det och studera hur en fo?ra?ndrad konsumentroll tar sig uttryck i praktiken.

Background and problem discussionThe temporary employment industry has grown extensively during the past two decades since the market was deregulated. Companies today need to be flexible to meet fluctuating demand and economic climate in society which has made the market expand. When using employees not directly employed by the company there is a risk that long term effects appears that the companies have not thought of.Aim of studyTo create a model of what negative aspects companies should consider when making the decision to use temporary employees.Methodological frameworkThe study performed through an abdicative literature study and with an empirical data collection method of a qualitative approach where we interviewed five hiring companies and one temporary agency on the decision of hiring temporary employees.Frame of referenceProblem areas with the use of temporary employments were identified through four perspectives of the organization; the structural, human resource, symbolic and political perspective. The problem areas we address are organizational learning, motivation, risk of eroding human capital, belongingness and conflicts. These will be described and presented together with management control to counter the problems.EmpiricsThe empirics are focused on what aspects the companies of the study considered when making the decision to use temporary employment, what the companies? different reasons for using temporary employment are and what they do to minimize possible negative effects.Analysis and conclusionsCompanies use temporary employees mostly to become more flexible, both numerically and in their competence.

To reconstruct a building is a long-term investment for farmers and it is important that people with different qualifications are involved at an early stage for making the system adapted to the animals as well the animal keeper. Therefore, ethologists who can contribute with their expertise are needed to design the system and get it to function well for the animals.A Swedish farmer who planned to rebuild her stall for tied dairy cattle to a loose-housing system for recruitment heifers for milk production asked me as an ethologist to find a system which can be fit to her existing tie-stall barn for 30 dairy cows, considering the animal needs in terms of movement, social interactions and play behaviors, and to theoretically compare the system with other systems with respect to the behaviors mentioned.The theoretical comparison between different systems was made through a scientific literature review.In agreement with the animal keeper I set out to fit a system with feeding cubicles, a system with cubicles and a system with deep straw bedding to the barn. After measurements were taken and preliminary drawings were outlined it was found that only the feeding cubicle system was possible to fit to the barn.The space provided will limit the animals to perform some playing behaviors. To decrease aggressive interactions between animals even thought a limiting area it is possible to provide partitions between resources animals compete around to prevent that more than one animal can get success to the resource at a particular place at one time. To increase the animal movement in the system the water trays were moved to the outer wall instead of kept in contact with the stalls.Although this report provides guidelines for rebuilding, other competences regarding building construction and a pre-test of the suggested building solution according to Swedish legislation are needed before the rebuilding can start.The results are directed mainly to the owner of the barn, but the literature review can be used by other cattle farmers and might bring increased understanding of the possible effects of different building solution on the animals..