This is a dissertation for a Bachelor Degree Project at the University of Skövde. The project is carried out in cooperation with the company Kinnarps AB.The objective of this project was to develop a new chair for café and lunch rooms, which should satisfy the markets expectations and demands and match Kinnarps AB?s assortment today. The project has contained everything from identification of user and customer needs and requirements to evaluation and building of a prototype.The result is a chair with a frame of tubular steel and there is nothing like it in Kinnarps AB?s assortment today.

Laser for material processing possesses a number of advantages which mean that it has been and will be an important component for a wide range of industries' future development. Cutting materials processing is the dominant use of laser technology and has revolutionized the manufacturing industry. The aim of this thesis is to describe the principles of metal cutting by laser, how laser cutting is applied in practice and to identify how Swedish companies are using laser cutting. For the theoretical and technical description of laser cutting literature studies are the primary source of information. The empirical basis for the mapping of the Swedish industry for laser cutting is grounded on a survey; this includes Swedish companies that use laser cutting in their production.

Norske Skog Jämtland AB is like many other companies in a situation where it has to increase its purchases to provide its industries with raw material. To increase the available amount of raw materials, many companies employ purchasers to cover larger areas. This study aims to find out how to handle the increasing competition for timber suppliers. An important input for defining such a strategy is to examine how the suppliers view their relation to the company today. For a company it is extremely important to have a good relation with the suppliers to secure long term supplies.

The ISO 9000-series is a set of quality standards created by the International Organization for Standardization. The series is intended to provide guidance to companies in the process of deploying an effective quality management system. The series includes the requirements standard ISO 9001. This standard contains requirements on how a quality management system should be designed and how companies generally must work with quality issues. When a quality management system is introduced, if wanted, a quality certification can be implemented.

To find competencies on a workplace with flex office structure.Companies today, 2012 are facing new opportunities and challenges. Information technology develops, competition is bigger today than ever, increased environmental requirements will be added and new patterns of life and values are occurring. This means that people who work in offices feel strong pressure of conversion, which is something that people experience differently. Therefore it is essential how the working environment is designed in an office. Working in an office means a lot of information processing and we can see large changes taking place.

Changes in the environment are affecting the world market, and pressures from several stakeholders? are forcing different enterprises to adjust to the current situation. Farmers? difficult working conditions and environmental impacts of the conventional cotton production in India have been highlighted. The small-scale production that is characterising India?s cotton farmers implies an insufficient competition power.

The Swedish market for vehicle inspection is re-regulated since June 2010. More than four years after the re-regulation there are eight companies in the market. Two of these companies are a result of the former monopolist's owners divided the business among themselves. The remaining six companies have entered the market through acquisitions or by building up their business from scratch, these are known as new entrants in the study. The competition has developed slowly and the former monopolist still has the highest market share.

What is a city? What do we mean when we describe something as urban? In what way should we build the city so that we can achieve a good environment for our own generation and for generations to come? These questions are constantly of interest and they are frequently discussed. It is also important to have considered these questions when working with city-planning. This essay contains a description of and reflections about the recurrent questions in today?s debate about the city and city-planning.

In Scandinavia today many old harbour areas are developed into residential and commercial areas. For example are both Helsingborg city and Malmoe city in south Sweden planning to restructure some of their harbour areas to accommodate shops, schools, offices, residences et cetera. In Copenhagen in Denmark new plans for Nordhavn is also underway. In almost every plan proposal to redevelope an old harbour area the harbour activities are set a side to give room for new development. In Reykjavik, however, this has not been the case.

This essay reviews the situation for real estate agencies within the Stockholm area. In this essay we assume that costumer loyalty is a requirement for survival on the competitive estate market. Two actors have been compared; A well known national Internet-based agency, Skandia Mäklarna, and a smaller local traditional agent Mäklarfirman Grönberg. These actors have been analyzed up on theories on loyalty, relationship marketing, service marketing, quality and involvement .The conclusion of the essay is that it is possible for small estate agencies to compeed with larger Internet based agencies by building loyal relationships with their customers. This can be achieved if the right strategic decisions are made.

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 growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

Bees are of importance for the global food security. In Europe 84% and in the World 35% of all the agricultural crops are dependent of animal pollination (Winfree et al., 2011:1). In agricultural production there is a huge lack of pollinators (Azien & Harden, 2009). A problem that is widely spread. In Sweden the problem becomes clear when looking at the statistics of the number of bee colonies during the last 20 years, where it has been a decline with 63 % (Statistiska Centralbyrån & Jordbruksverket, 2011).

Many tropical rain forests has been lost or degraded as a result of human activities and environmental factors. Since the level of biodiversity is high in the tropics, maintaining these areas is of great importance. Forests like these are often assumed to benefit from forest restoration and rehabilitation. The INIKEA project area in Eastern Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, aims to improve biodiversity and/or species richness in the degraded forest through enrichment planting with indigenous species. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate how different treatments (liberation, gap-cluster planting and line planting) affect the biodiversity of natural regeneration in different forest types in the Rain forest Restoration Experiment, located in the INIKEA project area.

This study is made in cooperation with Setragroup AB. Setra is Sweden?s biggest sawmilling company with a turnover of almost 6 billion SEK. 45% of the produced volume goes to the Swedish market where the customers are the DIY-sector and industrial customers. Setra as well as the other Swedish sawmilling companies operate in a very competitive environment.