Due to a constantly increasing competitive pressure it is of great importance to constantly strive for improvements in order to gain competitive advantages. Lean Production is a concept that has been introduced with the aim to minimize waste and increase profitability. The purpose of this report is therefore to investigate how to perform effective planning according to the principles of Lean Production, in companys with customer exclusive products, through a case study at Sandvik Mining and Construction (SMC), and to investigate how SMC kan improve their planning of drifting rods at the production unit in Sandviken.The study started by creating a theoretical framework, to describe the subject planning and planning based on Lean Production. This frame work constituted the base for the case study which took place at Sandvik Mining and Construction, and also for the model and planning tool that has been introduced.The result of the study is partly a general model with factors that contribute to a more effective planning. These factors has beed identifed as SMED, which focuses on reducing set up times and in the end to facilitate the planning.

Tourism and Hospitality Management.

The construction business is one of the most accident prone businesses in Sweden. In order to make it safer it?s vital that all employees of a company report all accidents and incidents that occur. This report intends through qualitative interviews, to analyze the knowledge and attitude towards incident reporting among the employees of the Swedish construction contractor JM.The goal of the thesis work is to hopefully contribute to an increase of employees? awareness on those issues.

This qualitative study treats the construction and maintenance of balance between work and private life and how flexibility in the workplace is perceived. The study was conducted using semi-structured interviews and these have been conducted in five large companies around Gothenburg. The analysis and results are based on the phenomenographic method approach and the final results were four themes: Balance, Flexibility, Combining family and work and lifelong learning with related subcategories. The result shows that the construction and maintenance of balance between work and personal life is something that is tied to the indi-viduals and the current situation in life. Two of the most common strategies to maintain a dis-tinction proved to be planning as well as other activities, in order to move the focus away from the work.

The purpose of thesis was to investigate and compare how two companies within pharmaceutical industry and nuclear power industry are currently working with quality development regarding continuous improvement and Lessons Learned in business processes. In addition, a simple comparison was made with the automotiveindustry.McNeil AB are improving their processes continuously and are according to the findings of this report performing well in their pursuit of world-class pharmaceutical production. They have a well functioning process regarding improvements proposed in weekly improvement meetings engaging all employees. However, during interviews it was made clear that the functionality of the process which administer improvement proposals generated in addition to, or beside the weekly improvement meetings, were inadequate. McNeil AB is proposed to administer this through an IT solution instead of by paper and e-mail, that simplifies the process of adding, implementing and follow up an improvement proposal.The nuclear power plant Ringhals AB recently made major improvements in their business processes as well as the plant itself.

Background: The Swedish fashion industry grows steadily, today it?s populated by many small and medium sized companies. Due to the big clothing chains dominant position small businesses risks to be ousted out of the fashion industry.Smaller companies may find it difficult to reach out to the customer by traditional advertising because their budgets are often smaller. It is therefore important for smaller companies to create loyal customers. If the smaller sized businesses in the fashion industry do not follow the rapid developments in society and focus on building strong brands and relationships, they will have problems with surviving in the long run.Problem definition: Which communicative factors are important in the choice of brand strategy to create a long-term survival for small and medium-sized companies in the fashion industry?Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to analyse and evaluate the brand as a communications tool for building a brand image.Method: The data which is being used in the essay is collected from interviews with companies and survey of each company's existing and potential customers.Theoretical perspective: Relationship Marketing Perspective and Transaction Marketing PerspectiveTheories: Brand Strategies, Total Communication, Brand Equity, Involvement Theory, Service Value Profit Chain.Empiric: The empirical data is primary data gathered from interviews with a representative for each company and from the questionnaires distributed to the customers of each company.Analysis: The analysis is an interpretation of the empirical material collected from interviews with each company and customers survey.

Every year the Swedish government invests capital in different projects. In recent years the Swedish government has chosen to invest in design. The reason for this is that the government wants industry to use design as a competitive source. Two organizations, Svensk Form and Stiftelsen Svensk Indistridesign, have been assigned to improve industry and society?s under¬standing of design.

Today there are many applications of digital terrain models (DTM) and the requirements of low uncertainty increases. Most of the DTM are produced with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), airborne laser scanning (ALS) and total stations. Guidelines for the preparation and verification of DTM are found in Swedish Standards Institute ? Technical Specifications (SIS-TS) 21144:2007 and SIS-TS 21145:2007. These were defined in collaboration between Swedish National Rail Administration, Banverket, and Swedish Road Administration, Vägverket, to satisfy the needs of requirement formulations in the production of DTM planning, design and construction. The purpose of this paper is to produce and control DTM over Åkermans kulle, located west of the University of Gävle, according to SIS TS 21144:2007 using GNSS with network-RTK, TLS and ALS.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if vacuum insulation panels are a competitive alternative to traditional insulation.Vacuum insulation has been used as insulation in buildings in Germany and Switzerland for a few years. In Sweden the high-performance insulation material is mainly used in refrigerators, freezers and vacuum thermoses. The development is proceeding well and vacuum insulation is becoming more common in the construction industry. Since it is a relatively unexplored material on the market there are many flaws and problems with the material.The questions we have chosen to answer in this report include an increased knowledge of vacuum insulation, various problems that may arise when handling/installation and the pros and cons of vacuum insulation compared to standard traditional insulation.The methods we have chosen to use in this report is a literature study, interviews with various suppliers and manufactures and calculations to show the differences between traditional and vacuum insulation. Vacuum insulation is 5-10 times better insulation than standard traditional mineral wool insulation, mainly at the beginning of its lifetime.Vacuum insulation panels (VIP) have a service life of approximately 50 years, whereas traditional insulation has a service life of approximately 100 years.

This thesis intended to examine how small enterprises within the retail industry work with brand building of their corporate name. More specifically it intended to examine how they do to choose corporate name and corporate logotype, and how they work to create a desired corporate image. A case-study was performed with three case-companies from different industries. The method was deductive as the empirics were brought in with starting-point in the theoretical frame of reference. The study showed that there are differences in the way small enterprises within the retail industry work with the brand-building of their corporate name.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has recently become increasingly important for companies to integrate into their ongoing work. CSR is about social, environmental- and financial responsibilities. The tourism industry often involves large impacts especially on environmental and social factors, which is why CSR-work plays an important role according to previous studies. One trend that has increased among consumers in the tourism industry during recent years is to travel to the lowest possible price. It has for example become increasingly common to book airfare by budget airlines.

This qualitative study involves the implementation of Lean and Kaizen methods in a Swedish service industry. Lean philosophy is based on a method to achieve more with less. In practical terms this means that the use of an organization's resources is improved. The origin of Lean is the Toyota Production System. Now, Kaizen methods give managers and employees a better more efficient system to reach their goals within the organization or company.

This thesis has evaluated environmental classifications of projects and the lessons learned to explore what the possible ramifications of implementing this in the construction and infrastructure are. Companies today are looking to develop methods to demonstrate their environmental commitments, but there is an uncertainty regarding the contribution of environmental classifications in this aspect.The literature review presents the theory of environmental classification, which provides a general knowledge of its function. The empirical data is based on an analysis of existing classification methods and qualitative interviews. The analysis shows specific environmental classification system for the area of construction and infrastructure. CEEQUAL is currently the only environmental classification applicable to Swedish projects and therefore serves as the basis for the continued analysis.

In the production of pulp, paper and cardboard, a large amount of water is used daily. The water has to be purified in the internal purifying plant before it reaches the receiving body of water. In the biological purifying stage at the Stora Enso Skoghall mill, an aerated basin is used where the microorganisms, using oxygen, oxidize the organic material to carbon dioxide. The air is pumped from the bottom of the basin and the oxygen can then be transported from the air bubbles to the water through diffusion. The problem with aeration of waste water from the forest industry is that wood residues, such as fatty acids, are making the transport of oxygen in water more difficult.

Detta examensarbete utreder frågeställningen om den såkallade "olyckskorpen" ? alltså yrkesarbetaren som är inblandad i flertalet arbetsplatsolyckor ? verkligen existerar. Frågan är lite av kontroversiell typ och har diskuterats sedan 1940-talet, utan något avsevärt utslag eller dokumenterat alster.Samarbetspartner blev NCC Construction och två av deras stora arbetsplatser i Stockholmsområdet valdes som mätfält; Söderby samt Frösunda.Undersökningen baserades på datainhämtning genom enkätformular till yrkesarbetare och ledning på de utvalda arbetsplatserna, genom erfarenhetsinhämtning från platschefer och lagbasar inom NCCs organisation samt från YTH-studenter på byggprogrammet. Författarnas egen erfarenhet från branschen har också vägts in i bearbetningen.Resultatet gav ingen olyckskorp att sätta fingret på, men en indikation från samtliga håll att egenskaper som kan knytas till olyckskorpen förekommer i branschen. Detta gav upphov till en teoretisk modell att användas för att ringa in olyckskorpar på individuell nivå i en vidare undersökning..