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.

The master thesis, conducted at Metrima AB, concerns the development of a non-intrusivedistribution meter as a basis for individual tap water billing in apartments.The project is conducted in response to the market interest in individual tap water billing inapartments as an answer to environmental concerns regarding water consumption. Due to thehigh installation cost of traditional water meters, a new method of determining waterconsumption, without having to cut water pipes, is proposed.The proposed method distributes the total water consumption for an apartment complex toindividual apartments according to distribution meters, measuring water run-time, in eachapartment. The water run-time is estimated by measuring the water pipe?s outward vibrationsand temperature changes.A test environment was established and a prototype built, using a tilt- and vibration sensor forvibration sensing and a precision temperature sensor to measure temperature changes. As bothsensors work well in the test environment, further testing was done in 3 apartments for aduration of 5 days.

When a company seeks to enter a new market, the multiple choices of possible new business relationships exist. Further, establishing new relationships is a time-consuming procedure associated with high uncertainty and high costs. Hence, if the firm does not succeed in pinpointing the most suitable business partners to collaborate with, the firm may both forfeit other possible good relationships, as well as resources invested. Based on this notion the aim of this thesis is to explore how a manufacturing company can base the selection of future dealership Business-to-Business partners by evaluating indicators of a possible business relationship?s potential to become successful. The choice of focusing on the Business-to-Business relationship between a manufacturer and a dealership company originates from being influenced by the issues facing the Swedish agricultural machinery manufacturer Väderstad-Verken AB, who is putting attention to explore the US market.

ADORABLE CHILD OF ITS TIMEThis text will describe a inovative project about material, traditions and someideas about furniture for work in an home inviroment. The content is partlyabout exploring ancient marine- and textile techniques to find somethinguseful for furniture of the twenty first century. It is also about the designprocess of creating a sustainable piece of furniture that questions the paradigmathicsabout usage and the context about manufacturing furniture.The text will briefly describe the design process and then reason about theresult in a deeper sense. Questions that has been considered from the verybeginning of the project as well as those one stumbled across during theevolution of the work will be objectives for the discussion. The result will bein focus as a foundation for the discussion and also the values and issuesabout that.

The project, Flexible Snowboard System, has been carried out by the project group independently and is a module developed for snowboarders, ski rentals and ski schools. The problems of today?s solutions are that they cause the user an inconvenient standing position when riding the ski lift or skating the transportation slope, also mounting, adjustments and disassembling of the bindings are time consuming and brings undesired wear to the screws and screw holes. In addition any adjustments require that the user steps out of the bindings and have tools at hand. Flexible Snowboard System is a universal module which means that it can be assembled with all of today?s snowboards and bindings.