This paper covers how a company must act to become ?greener? and yet still increase profitability with the main emphasis on the inner structure of the company. The research is focused on the Swedish security systems company Niscayah AB, part of the multinational corporation Niscayah Group with approximately 6000 employees. A company can be assumed to consist of seven parts (strategy, systems, structure, super-ordinate goals, staff, skills and style) that have to cooperate for the firm to be able to become more environmentally friendly. Also, the economic performance is of importance and therefore that too is examined.

Information regarding cows grazing behaviour and time spent grazing can be of great interest to dairy farmers, since this information can indicate how well suited the pasture is to the cows. Feed intake at pasture is however challenging to measure. Automated systems for monitoring the behaviour of cows within dairy production have become increasingly important and relatively common. The aim of this study was to validate an activity measuring device (HOBO® G Logger Pendant Data Logger, USA), a triaxial accelerometer that registers the cow?s head positions during grazing, in order to see if cows? grazing behaviour on pasture could be distinguished from their non grazing behaviour.

The EU has decided that it should be possible for consumers to get information about the origin of the electricity they buy. Therefore, there is a need to examine different systems for electricity disclosure. In this thesis two ways of disclosure have been studied:? Certificate system. A certificate system involves two parallel markets, one for trading electrical energy and one for trading certificates of origin.? Separated Markets.

The project was carried out in cooperation with the department of product development IOS at IKEA. The work included improvements of a new existing product that Ikea soon will release on the market, Observatör, a wall bracket for flat screens. The product is supposed to fulfil the needs within this market for IKEA. However, since Ikea was not satisfied with it, our work was to carry out the improvements that were specified in the beginning of the project. Another task in the project was to develop a side-product that is supposed to be used together with Obeservatör for storage of DVD/decoders.The project included labour as problem definition to final technical drawings and a prototype.

This master?s degree project concerns the combination of a multi dwelling passive house with solar energy for the generation of electricity and domestic hot water (DHW). Different alternatives with either solar thermal systems or photovoltaic (PV) systems are compared with two reference alternatives producing DHW from electricity or district heating. The economical comparison uses a life cycle cost (LCC) perspective based on the present value of expenditures for investment, energy and annual operating and maintenance.The energy yields from the solar energy systems were calculated by hand and with simulation software. Calculation and dimensioning of PV systems were carried out with a software called PVSYST.

This report is focusing on problems with introducing standard enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) in businesses. A study has been carried out on a service and support department at a Swedish heat metering company, SVM North Node. The study aims to help the company become a better customer in choice and customization of a new ERP system. We make a description of the department studied and the work carried out there, on the basis of learning, knowledge and cooperation. As a final point we present some ideas on how computer systems could support their work, hoping that this will result in them making adequate demands on a new ERP system..

Vår uppgift på Valeo Engine Cooling AB i Linköping har varit att förbättra produktionssystemet genom att utveckla internlogistiken mellan lagret och monteringsstationerna samt sättet att lagra material.Valeo är en grupp bildad 1980 genom en fusion av bilkomponenttillverkare. Totalt har Valeo 71500 anställda. De verktyg som Valeo rekommenderar för förbättring av internlogistiken är Small Boxes, Flat Storage och Linefeeder. Användandet av dessa verktyg stödjer de principer som finns inom Toyota Production System och Lean Production.Linefeeder är den person som förser monteringsstationerna med material. Han kör omkring med en dragtruck efter vilken han kopplar på olika vagnar.

An increasingly globalized market is leading to hard competition among manufacturing companies, which means that they are forced to become more customer focused to survive in the market. A Customer Relationship Management system is a system that will be of assistance to help companies succeed in building long term relationships with their customers. Best of Breed and ERP-based are two types of CRM systems. The study has focused on analyzing and examine the need for CRM systems at manufacturing companies. Our question formulation has been:? What need do businesses want to satisfy with a Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?? Are there any differences in the use of Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?In this study, we have chosen to carry out interviews and quantitative surveys with manufacturing companies to get their view of CRM-systems.

Corporate responsibility is a popular phenomenon of today. The interest for the subject is extensive and means for implementing corporate responsibility strategies within organizations are demanded. There are studies showing how management control systems can be used in order to implement general strategies into organizations. Still, management control systems designed for the implementation of corporate responsibility strategies, in particular, are not provided by the current academia. The aim of this paper is to contribute to studies within management control systems by studying the management control system specifically designed to implement corporate responsibility strategies.

In 1994 the EU directive of packaging waste was adopted. The result was that all EU member states developed different systems to manage packaging waste and recycling. This paper examines the various systems and the factors that affect the level of recycling. This is done by a cross-sectional study between countries. The results of my study suggest that take-back system generates less recycling than other systems, the mandatory deposit system can affect the recycling in a positive way.

Management control systems are a popular area of research and a lot of new research has been done over the past years. This development has been looking into new situations and circumstances, and interdisciplinary studies are being made to further understand the connection between different fields of study. A new field of study that has grown significantly over the past few years is the connection between management control systems and entrepreneurship. Leading researchers have proposed a number of questions for further research and one of them is the board of directors? use of management control systems in entrepreneurial firms.The purpose of this study was to examine the differences and similarities in the board of directors? use of management control systems between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms.The study was conducted as a deductive qualitative study through interviews with respondents from entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms.

This master thesis has been carried out at Scania R&D at the department for Powertrain Control System Development during the winter of 2010/2011. In the thesis the writer examine and evaluate the existing method for collecting information from the tests carried out during the development of the Powertrain Control Systems software. It also contains suggestions for how a new method that enhance the validation elements could look like.The master thesis uses Vicentes theories of the ecological approach and theories of how knowledge sharing of tacit and technical information works within an organization and between the organization and its customers. First a workplace analysis at Scania R&D is carried out to see how Powertrain Control Systems work and how they test their software. Second a control task analysis, where the aims decided on after the interviews, is compared to the existing method.

This essay sets out to compare political participation in two e-petition systems: The Malmö initiative in Malmö, Sweden, and Better Reykjavik in Reykjavik, Iceland. The main question of the essay concerns the aggregative and deliberative qualities of the Malmö initiative and Better Reykjavik, as well as the relationship between aggregation and deliberation. This main question is divided into four subqueries that lead the empirical analysis. These are: (1) Which similarities and differences in terms of design are there between the Malmö initiative and Better Reykjavik? (2) To what extent have these systems mobilized an aggregative political participation? (3) What similarities and differences are there concerning aspects of deliberation? and (4) What is the correlation between aggregation and deliberation like in the two e-petition systems?The method in use is a comparative cross-sectional study with a 'most similar research design'.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short range wireless communication technology that enables data exchange between devices. NFC is used in many different areas, from subway tickets to authentication systems. This paper presents possible security threats to Near Field Communication and documented attacks that have been used to target various NFC protocols. Weaknesses in different NFC protocols will be presented and suggestions on how to counter certain weaknesses will be discussed. This survey will be valuable for companies interested in protecting their data when using or planning to use NFC systems..

The capacity to extract information from vehicles has the potential to be very beneficial. Performing analysis on information about fuel usage, emission values and other driving properties of a vehicle can lead to great economic and environmental benefits.This report contains descriptions of two prominent systems for retrieving information of this nature from a vehicle, On-Board Diagnostics and FMS-Standard, and of an implementation of FMS-Standard.The conclusion drawn after this investigation is that these systems do indeed offer access to the benefits mentioned earlier, although to varying degrees and with differing prioritisation..