In early January 2010 the authors participated in a meeting with the chief engineer for a company in which a central part is manufacturing of printed circuit boards (PCB). At this meeting it emerged that the machinery and production methods have changed substantially since the early 1990's. The spreadsheet for preliminary production time calculations by the company is today based on conditions from almost 20 years ago. The company has over the years been trying to adjust the spreadsheet template. The result of these adjustments has filled it with historical residue, something which makes the template difficult and time consuming when the primary user tries to handle it.The purpose of this study was to help the company increase its accuracy in the representation of the production times for the different PCB-based products by developing a new costing model based on an already existing but inadequate spreadsheet template. The company also expressed the wish that the new costing model would be less time consuming to work with.The methods used to achieve the goal are interviewing, participatory observations and meetings with relevant persons. The data obtained were analyzed using the theory on PCB production and visualization of data.

Marlot Company Limited is a company in the sector household services. It is a new company where the owners, and also the clients, felt that the company was in need of a distinct platform where they could communicate with their current and prospective customers. The assignment was to create a platform consisting of a graphic profile and a Wordpress site for the company. The graphic profile's task was to distinctly profile the company in the market, and visualizing the conceptions that the company wants to be associated with. The purpose of the Wordpress site was to create a showcase for Marlot towards their customers, and thecompany itself could manage after completion.These two products have been created with the help of a pilot study which included an analysis in which the competitors in the market has been scanned, and reports of the household services sector has been studied.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a small company manages its information, primarily the organization of digital documents. The two dominating themes are classification and information politics, the former in the context of a corporate environment and the latter to help us to describe the situation at the company. The method used has involved observation of the company's current computer network structure and also interviews with six employees at different levels in various departments at the company. The result of our investigation has been the realization that, although logical structure is important when organizing documents in a digital environment, it is also necessary to have rules regarding its implementation..

In the report "Män är IT-tekniker; kvinnor är i helpdesk", several women in different positions at a male-dominated IT company are interviewed. The company wants to be able to hire more women, and have started group meetings with the women at the company to discuss related issues.The purpose of the interviews was to hear the women's views on the company, relating to gender equality issues. The interviews are then analysed through organisational theory and gender theory.One of the conclutions is that the company has to question their essential views on gender to be able to see bigger changes through..

The purpose of this project was to design an adjustable gutter bracket for Lindab Profil AB. Lindab currently manufacture a gutter bracket that is adjustable in angle, however, this model has some drawbacks.  One of it´s shortcomings is that it is somewhat difficult for the customer to mount.  Another problem with Lindab?s current model is that the design makes manufacturing unnecessarily complex. The new gutter bracket, that we have constructed, does not have these problems. It is adjustable for different roof pitches.

Shock absorber units play a key role in establishing the driving dynamics and performance of automobiles. Öhlins Racing has manufactured high-tech automotive shock absorbers for over 30 years. Öhlins Racing?s advanced technology has contributed to over 200 world championships in automobile racing. Öhlin?s manufacturing process has long utilized automated fluid filling equipment during the final shock absorber unit assembly stage. The filling process consists of vacuum pumping the shock absorber unit and subsequent transfer of fluid. Vacuum pumping is necessary to remove residual air from the shock absorber unit prior to initiating the liquid filling stage. The presence of undesirable gases drastically compromises the performance of a shock absorber. The filling degree, defined as the final ratio of air to oil, is determined by the specific filling protocol as well as the specific equipment utilized.The current investigation aims to develop a viable technique to accurately determine residual air content in shock absorber units. If the filling degree can be appropriately quantified for a specific manufacturing process, then the air/oil ratio may be quantitatively related to shock absorber performance. The utilized measurement method must be completely integrated into the manufacturing process to guarantee shock absorber performance specifications according to the manufacturer?s standards. By utilizing the measurement method developed in this work, the manufacturing process, manufacturing equipment and product specifications can all be tailored to provide improved filling conditions.The developed measurement method provides accurate quantification of the filling degree under a wide range of processing conditions. The method establishes the relative quantity of air in the shock absorber unit by performing in-situ compressibility tests. The fill ratio can be controlled and varied by manipulating the vacuum pressure exerted during the filling process. Performance tests, however, indicate no correlation between filling degree and unit performance..

The purpose of this report is to examine what will happen with the financial control of a company if changes from a family owned company to a public company listed on a stock market. The expectations were that the control would have a more short-term focus with more financial measures. The result shows that the changes were experienced as minor. The rate and the work in the finance department showed to be the major changes due to the change of owners..

The increased interest in a sustainable environment puts pressure on companies in the manufacturing industry. Rexcell Tissue & Airlaid AB (Rexcell) in Skåpafors produces paper to be converted into tabletop and hygiene products. Rexcell is certified according to the environmental management system ISO 14001, gaining competitive advantages by showing that the company works toward a sustainable environment and that they follow current legislation. The activities at the company are classified as hazardous to the environment according to the Environmental code. Every year, the activities are inspected by an independent inspector.

 This study was conducted in autumn 2008 on the Company AB, which is currently in a growth phase. The company manufactures hydraulic systems for the heavy vehicle industry and has annual sales of approximately 250 MSEK with 165 employees.The rapid growth and unchanged planning is the starting point for this report. It all began in 2005 when the company received an unusually large order. During this period, the first priority was to satisfy customers and all other focus was disregarded. This has primarily resulted in a messy production and long throughput times.

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.

This report describes an bachelor thesis work which is performed in cooperation with SVIA that develops and sells automation solutions for the manufacturing industry. The thesis purpose was to evaluate the machine FeedLine to find opportunities for improvement in the product?s design that could lead to more standardization and thus improving the efficiency of manufacturing and assembly.Based on these basic issues suggestions for improvements were developed:How can the design of FeedLine be improved to facilitate the assembly?Can more standardization be imposed on FeedLine?s design to enable more stocking of standard components?An initial pre-study was conducted to evaluate FeedLine?s to find opportunities for improvement in its overall design. During the pre-study staff at SVIA and two of its clients was interviewed. Based on information gathered during the interviews and observations by the authors improvements was amendments.

The companies of today figures on a hardly competitive market. This makes it necessary for the company to find new way to create competition advantages. Since it is no longer enough to compete with the technical quality of the product the companies are forced to also enhance the functional quality. To accomplish this it becomes necessary for producing companies to be customer oriented. A customer oriented company culture can be reached with the help of internal marketing in which different activities work to inform and teach the employees about the company strategy and also about their own role as part-time marketers.This thesis examines Electrolux, a company which is currently striving to develop a customer oriented company culture.

The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the work with line extensions by companies in the media industry. To obtain this purpose a case study was performed to learn about Norrbottens Media?s actions regarding their new launch of the magazine Extra. Information was gathered through an interview and media observations and was analyzed and compared to previous studies on the subject. Results of this case study show that the main reasons for the company?s line extension were new trends on the market and that the company had unexploited recourses to make use of.

Background - Swedish trade and industry primarily involves small corporations, including small manufacturing corporations. Currently, most costing models that are used are based on studies accomplished at large corporations. This conveys to the fact that product costing that occurs at small manufacturing corporations is based on all complexities that large corporations bring, which rarely match with small corporations. It occurs that small manufacturing corporations unconsciously rely on incorrect information that has been calculated based on great corporations? product costing.

A manufacturing machine at the engineering company Sandvik Coromant has a positioning table which task is to move an item linearly. The positioning table has a linear motor capable of high velocity and acceleration. This makes it possible to achieve short cycle times and a more profitable production.The purpose of this thesis is to bring forward a new concept which is more adapted to the requirements of the positioning table. The reason is that the current positioning table provides an unnecessarily positioning accuracy of 0.01 mm, while the requirement for the positioning accuracy is just 0.1 mm. The goal is to reduce manufacturing and component costs.To develop a suitable solution an approach for the concept development process has been performed.