This thesis was commissioned by Volvo Powertrain, where manufacturing and assembling of transmissions is performed, which is used in the company's trucks and buses. The thesis has consisted of a case study that intends to study the problem areas in the current proposed activities and continuous improvements in the assembly department in the Volvo Powertrain facility.In the current situation, the proposals that are submitted by the employees suggest mainly minor improvements. The proposals concern for example, labelling of materials boxes and holders for tools, which do not generate any significant profit for the company. Directors and executives want an increased amount of proposals with a more results-oriented type, in terms of reduced costs, time consumption and stops, and improved quality. The company would also deal with the problems that arise when implementing improvements in the production.

Åmotfors Bruk AB (ÅBAB) has today an inefficient production of steam for the manufacturing of paper. Unpredictable energy prices and modernisation of the current equipment has been the underlying factors to invest in a thermal power plant, mainly driven by garbage. This facility will not only use the steam for paper production, it will also generate electricity through a steam turbine. Today, when a fault on the supplying line occurs which leads to disconnection of the external grid, all the support of electricity to Åmotfors Bruk (ÅB) will disappear. This will lead to major interruptions in the paper production, which will cause severe economical losses.

By using industrialized building, pre-installed modules can be delivered to the construction site where they are easily mounted. This method has many advantages compared to on-site manufacturing, for example, the precision during the production process should be much higher than building each wall and floor on site. Furthermore, the quick erection procedure when using prefabricated elements and the possibility to use weather protection has the advantage of not being dependent on weather conditions, and many other factors.Masonite Beams AB is a Swedish company (a member of the Norwegian company, Byggma ASA) with a relatively new technology using light weight beams as bearing elements in the walls and a certain stiff board lamella slap which is mounted on the top of the floor structure creating an integrated stiff beam / board floor structure. The elements are flat which make it much easier to transport the elements from the factory to the building site where the building parts are easily mounted with special mounting stud.One of the main drawbacks of lightweight structure is the sound transmission. The main topic is low frequency annoyance, however the complex structural elements and their mutual sensitive connections other acoustical problems might appear.

The public sector is a major purchaser of goods and services. By setting requirements for environmental and social considerations in public procurement, an authority has the possibility to use consumer power to influence the actors in a market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public procurement of textile products in a municipality, in order to gain knowledge about factors that may be important for the use of environmental and social criteria. Håkan Hydén´s (professor in sociology of law) norm model was used as the basis of the analysis, where the conduct was investigated along three dimensions of the norm ? willingness, knowledge and system conditions ? in order to identify underlying factors that can influence the process.The results ? analyzed by using interviews and documents ? show that the procurer's willingness, motivation and knowledge are important factors in this context, as well as the political priority of the municipality.

Introduction: More and more companies have realized that keeping and using the knowledge in their companies is getting more important to get or keep a competitive advantage. The companies? organizational culture and knowledge management are essential to create knowledge transfer. Also that the employees and the leaders of the company knows how knowledge- and information transfer arknkoe done best for them. That is why we chose our purpose to be:The aim is to understand the differences between managers and employees perception about knowledge- and information transfer in a manufacturing company.

AbstractThis thesis was conducted by Jenny Jansson and Maria Madsen, students at the Faculty ofTechnology and Science and the Innovation and Design Engineer programme at KarlstadUniversity, during the spring 2008. The thesis covers 22,5hp for each student. AnnaHolmquist and Chandra Ahlsell at the company FOLKFORM were the ones who requestedthe theis, their company are located at Stora Skuggan in Stockholm. Tutor for this thesis wasLennar Wihk and the examiner was Monika Jakobsson of Karlstad University.The given assignment came from FOLKFORM and the aim for the thesis was to create afurther development of two already existing lamps from an earlier collection at FOLKFORM,?Jaipur? and ?Modern Times?.

Bakgrund: Många företag går i konkurs varje år vilket är förknippade med kostnader för de enskilda intressenterna och för samhället i stort. För att kunna vidta eventuella åtgärder innan konkursen är ett faktum är det av intresse att veta om någon av de modeller som forskare tagit fram för att förutspå konkurser faktiskt fungerar.Syfte: Syftet med denna undersökning är att ta reda på om det går att applicera någon av ett urval av etablerade konkursmodeller på svenska industri- och tillverkningsföretag.Teori: Studien kommer att testa tre olika forskares modeller och metoder: Altmans, Platts och Platts samt Pompes och Bilderbeeks.Metod: I denna studie kommer enbart en deduktiv forskningsansats att användas och datainsamlingen är kvantitativ då nyckeltal hämtas från de aktuella företagens årsredovisningar. Urvalet baseras på de företag som ansökte om konkurs under år 2011 och de som representerar kontrollgruppen har slumpmässigt valts ut bland de företag inom avgränsningen som inte gått i konkurs det aktuella året.Resultat och slutsats: Altmans och Platts och Platts modeller visar sig inte vara applicerbara på svenska företag. Dock är vissa av Pompes och Bilderbeeks nyckeltal tillämpliga till att använda för konkursprognostisering för svenska företag..

Följsam tillverkning är en relativt ny tillverkningsstrategi som myntades i slutet av 1990-talet och har fram till idag fått en allt starkare plats i den akademiska världen av tillverkningsteknik. Vissa säger att strategin är nödvändig för att uppnå tillverkning i världsklass. Det finns ett antal forskningsartiklar som föreslår ett taxonomiskt ramverk, inklusive drivkrafter och förmågor, som är associerade med följsam tillverkning. Den här studien har två huvudsakliga syften. Det första syftet är att etablera en sammanställning av drivkrafter och förmågor som diskuterats i tidigare forskning.

This thesis describes the development of a tank insert for diesel cars, from idea to a prototype. The idea is to design an insert which makes it impossible to refuel petrol in a diesel car. The insert shall be installed in the existing tank opening on diesel cars. The tank insert is designed for the Swedish company SverigeGrepen AB located in Vänge, just outside Uppsala. Their main product is a pitchfork that is ergonomically designed and durable.A pre-study were performed in which information relating to fuel caps, tank openings, petrol- and diesel nozzles were collected.

The company Olofsfors AB manufactures drive belts for forest machinery, known as ECO-Tracks, and abrasion-resistant steel and cutting edges for graders, excavators and tractors, known as Bruxite and SharqEdges. Manufacturing these products requires the steel to be heated and molded, then submerged in water and hardened. The water used in the hardening of steel is pumped to the process from pits below the floor and then pumped back to the pit after it?s been used. Since the temperature of this water rises after being used to harden the steel the temperature of the pumping pit needs to be adjusted to maintain its setpoint of 21°C.

To get the maximal output of your exercise in gym machines, there are different factorsto be considered. For example the strength of the muscle varies dependent on the positionof the muscles. To get the best results of the exercise the load has to reduce and increaseat specific positions.This study was made in cooperation with Caretaker Scandinavia AB, a company forsales, marketing and development in health care. They are general agent for Nordic Gymwho works with manufacturing of equipment and machines for gym and fitness.The aim of this study was to generate a method of measurement to evaluate and controlthe biomechanics of Nordic Gym´s workout equipment. A protocol for an ergonomicanalysis on the equipment has also been elaborated.One of the methods to measure the biomechanics was to measure the torque through thewhole movement.

Saab Aerosystems have had one dominating product, JAS 39 Gripen, and one dominating customer, FMV, for a long time. The operations management system at Aerosystems is adjusted for development of Gripen and as the business unit is trying to enter new markets with other products and customer the operations needs to be adjusted to fit the development and manufacturing of these products as well.The purpose of the master thesis has been to investigate how Aerosystems is managing requirements on operations from external customers and how to make improvements within this area. The aim has been to carry out a situation analysis to identify where improvements are possible and then produce proposals for improvements through studies of literature and other business units. The thesis also include a study of knowledge transfer within the business unit to investigate how this can be applied to improve the managing of requirement on the operations.An extensive interview study has been carried out in which interviews mainly have been conducted with employees at Aerosystems, but also at Saab Avitronics and Saab Aerostructures. The reason why these business units have been examined is because they have carried out a large number of successful businesses with external customers, which also are potential customers for Aerosystems in the future.The interviews have been analysed to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with the present way of working.

The number of firms adapting the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is constantly growing. It is no longer enough only to supply your customers with demanded products and services since todays? customers have an increased awareness and are demanding more transparence when it comes to the manufacturing and responsibility for society.Along with a growing interest in social, ethical and environmental matters, many firms have received critique, consequently forcing them to start taking more responsibility for their activities. The clothing industry was among the first to get critized and therefore early in starting their work with CSR.The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms in the clothing industry work with CSR today, and also how they choose to communicate this work, both internally and externally. The methodology of the paper is qualitative and aims to deeply investigate four different firms, along with an additional interview with a CSR-consult from one of the leading communication-firms in Sweden.The theoretical foundation includes a frame of reference around CSR and the communication thereof, and also a few relevant theories around CSR and business ethics.After analyzing the empirical material the paper have reached a few conclusions.

Examensarbetet har bedrivits vid Tekniska Högskolan i Jönköping och i samarbete med fallföretaget Solutions for Tomorrow AB. Arbetet har utformats efter ett syfte; att utveckla ett produktkoncept där alternativa material och tillverkningsmetoder leder till kostnadsbesparingar. Syftet har sedan brutits ned till fyra frågeställningar som arbetet kretsar kring. Två frågeställningar behandlar redan framtagna koncept och två rör ekonomiska aspekter för nya projekt. För att besvara frågeställningarna är arbetet utformat som en konceptstudie där hela utvecklingsprocessen har genomförts.

This thesis describes the work process and the results for the development of a newkind of ergonomic cleaning mop, ranging from basic concept to a virtually productionready digital prototype. The project was made in cooperation with, Ömer Altun, whowas also the project supervisor, and whose plan it is to launch this new product onthe market in a foreseeable future. The mop is meant to be used by both professionalcleaning staff and ordinary home users. What makes this product unique is that it hasa movable center piece that simplifies the cleaning under low furniture.The work began with the establishment of a product requirements specification andlater a study of similar products and existing functional models was conducted. Afterthese surveys the work began with refining the existing concepts in order to makethem more complete.