The world gets smaller and smaller and goods, services, people and information are nowadays more and more able to freely cross borders. Half of the Swedish GNP consists of export and almost 70 % of that amount is goods. Because of today?s increasing globalization the Swedish companies are now faced with both new opportunities and threats. Companies with goods which are manufactured in Sweden gets challenged by increased competition from cheap goods produced in other countries and companies can no longer afford to entirely focus on the domestic market.

This thesis is performed as a summarizing project for the mechanical engineering education at School of Engineering in Jönköping. All knowledge necessary to complete this thesis was gathered from previous courses and education.This project was to develop a new product for the company TR Equipment AB in Tranås. The new product is going to be based on an already existing product, TR 1700. TR 1700 is a bathtub equipped with a height adjustable function. This product is used in retirement homes and in the care of disabled people.

The purpose of this thesis work is to formulate a model with methods that describe key success factors to get understanding and awareness in organizational change projects. We have used a project within the township of Gothenburg as a case and connected to this single project the purpose is to identify key success factors to get understanding and awareness among employees within the township of Gothenburg. We hope that our result will be useful in other large organizational change projects. Theoretic basis for our study have been models and methods, while our purpose have been to construct a model with suitable methods for anchoring. Theories about coaching and process management are examples of methods to get understanding and awareness among employees in change projects.

AbstractThis master thesis was performed at Scania transmission department in Södertälje, where the manufacturing of gears is done. Today a large amount of manual handling is performed between the machining and the hardening process. Most of the manual handling is done at the heat treatment department. The purpose of this master thesis is to give a suggestion on how to reduce or eliminate the manual handling at the heat treatment department. The possibility to use the same packaging throughout the processes will also be investigated.

IT-system utvecklas idag ofta i globalt distribuerade organisationer. Detta görs för att möta de krav som ställs från omgivningen samt för att finna specialkompetens. En global organisation kan medföra distribuerat arbete, alltså att utvecklingsgrupper sprids över flera platser. Ett problem med detta kan vara att få alla delar av verksamheten att arbeta mot ett gemensamt mål. Koordination ? att hantera beroenden mellan element i komplexa organisationer för att möjliggöra effektivt arbete mot ett gemensamt mål ? blir då en viktig aktivitet.

Abstract: Title: Communication of and around internal performance reports - A study in seven manufacturing companies based in Blekinge. Authors: Marcus Harrysson and Mikael Johansson. Supervisors: Lars Svensson and Carina Svensson, Blekinge Institute of Technology Department: Department of Business Administration. Course: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 10 credits Purpose: Our purpose with the bachelor thesis was to investigate if there is a connection between communication of and around internal performance reports and profitability in companies. Method: Our investigation has been made at seven companies in the county of Blekinge by making personal interviews with people in both production and business departments at each of the companies.

Metso Paper offers a front-running range of solutions and services for the pulp and paper industry. At the baling unit, design solutions are developed for manufacturing and handling of pulp bales. The machines are continuously developed to satisfy customer needs. One big step in the development of the baling line was to remove hydraulics from the machines and replace it with electrical motors and pneumatics. This was not done on the folding machine which is still driven by mainly hydraulics.

This report describes the results of the project "Concept development of jet engine inspection plugs" carried out in the spring of 2008. The work was done at the department of product definition at the company Volvo Aero in Trollhättan. The objective of the work was to develop concepts for a "Volvo-unique" inspection plug. The work is part of Volvo Aero's focus on proprietary (self-developed) technologies. Inspection plugs can be found on virtually all aircraft engines and gas turbines.

The manufacturing industry is currently in a short-term downturn while the competition is increasing. The result of this is that companies must find new ways to bring out their products. Traditional competitive strategies, such as low pricing, is not sufficient today as the customer is inquiring something more than just a good product. Higher demands are presented on an accurate, well functional, communication between customer and companies, as this has become an important strategic factor in achieving long-term profitability.The aim of this independent project was to analyze and evaluate the communication process between a company and its sales companies.In order to illustrate this process, a case study was carried out at Alfa Laval, their sales companies and employees at their distribution center in Tumba. In order to see the differences in attitudes between the management, the sales companies and the employees regarding communication and involvement a gap analysis were used.The theoretical part of the study considers theories about business mission, communication, involvement, quality and creating value.The result showed that a smaller gap exists between the sales companies and the management while a slightly larger one exists between the employees and the management.

The company Bergteamet, Boliden, Sweden, is installing ventilation shafts of the Garpenberg mine. For such work a platform is needed which you can stand on and work from. The Shaft Reinforcement Team at Bergteamet performs the installation work and is the sponsor of the platform. The project described in this report is performed at the department MEC, Mining Equipment Construction, which has been given the task to design and construct the platform, customized for the current shaft. After this the platform is manufactured and inspected at the workshop at Bergteamet.The design work was carried out as follows:- After an initial meeting a requirement specification was worked out, describing the problem and previous experiences of platforms and requirements for the design and equipment.- A concept sketch was developed with consideration of surrounding factors.- A constructed 3D model was presented along with the choice of materials.

AbstractThis master thesis was performed at Scania transmission department in Södertälje, where the manufacturing of gears is done. Today a large amount of manual handling is performed between the machining and the hardening process. Most of the manual handling is done at the heat treatment department. The purpose of this master thesis is to give a suggestion on how to reduce or eliminate the manual handling at the heat treatment department. The possibility to use the same packaging throughout the processes will also be investigated.

The production of cheese is in continuous development with objectives to in-crease productivity, achieve changes in shelf life and functional properties of the products. One concept in the development is to substitute milk fat with vegetable fats and oils in the manufacture of cheese. The objective of this study was to investigate effects on cheese yield and cheese quality of 4 different semi-hard analogue cheese products produced by substituting milk fat with vegetable fat, each analogue cheese with a specific mixture of vegeta-ble fat. As reference a cheese produced with anhydrous milk fat was used. The yield and recovery of fat and protein were determined by recording the weights of each cheese direct after press and after 20±2 days of storage and analysis of the composition of the cheeses after 20±2 days of storage. The cheese was fur-ther subjected for texture profile analysis in a TA-XT Plus Texture Analyser and analysed with Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to examine whether the fat behaves similar in the cheese as in pure form in respect to its thermal properties. The cheese yield was not significantly different when using different fats. Differ-ent amounts of water were absorbed during the water cooling.

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.

In the light of ever increasing international trade around the globe, affecting men and women in all countries, it is surprising that so little attention is given its gender effects. The effects of trade are said to be gender neutral, but could potentially act reinforcing on the existing gender patterns in a society. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether the implications for men and women in relation to trade liberalization can be found to differ. By stylizing some differences between men and women, this is done by examining the theoretical implications mainly via the Heckscher-Ohlin model and through a Beckerian approach. The implications found are then compared with the findings in existing empirical work.

Dimensional stability is an important aspect of fuel mechanical design and licensing of new fuel designs for nuclear power plants. Dimensional changes within the reactor can affect the safety margins against overheating of the cladding and the pellets, therefore it is crucial that the dimensional changes are kept to a minimum.The profits per produced kiloWatt hour continue to decrease for the Swedish nuclear power plants. Some reactors are even operated with a calculated loss. To reduce fuel costs and thereby improve the profit some reactors are operated with higher uranium enrichment, so that the assemblies can reach a higher average burnup. This increases the neutron fluence to the pellets, cladding an spacers.