Benchmarking is an established method of working which is often used in order to develop the quality of the organization. However, almost 70% of the organizations with benchmarking fail due to the lack of planning and structuring of the benchmarking exercise. Maintenance sections in the paper and pulp industry are one of those who have decided to conduct benchmarking. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain knowledge of how the maintenance sections in the paper and pulp industry deliberately structure and plan to use benchmarking as a driving force for quality development in the maintenance sections.The study is a hermeneutic case study. Telephone interviews and document analysis have been used as data acquisition methods.The results show that there is a lack of both planning and structuring in the benchmarking process, and lack of management commitment for quality improvements within industrial maintenance.

Cross-suckling, i.e. when an offspring nurses a female other than their own mother, occurs in pig production systems where sows are group housed during lactation. As production systems where several sows and their litters are housed together during lactation are getting more common, the need of knowledge regarding cross-suckling increases. The overall aims with this thesis was to investigate how sow behaviour and productivity are associated with the occurrence of cross-suckling, and to investigate consistency in sow nursing behaviour related to cross-suckling. The study included information about the first 4 parities of 40 LxY sows kept in outdoor and indoor production environments. Sows were single housed the first 2 weeks after farrowing and group housed (4 or 5 sows per group) from 2 weeks after farrowing until weaning, 7 weeks after farrowing.

The company Västra Mälardalens Kommunalförbund, VMKF, wishes to revise and optimize their present data and IP-telephony network as of today consists of the three municipalities Köping, Arboga and Kungsör. As a municipal corporation, they seek consultation regarding internal as well as external review and investigation of the main structure of the network, its functionality and safety. By today?s increasing demands of Internet accessibility, availability of services and security far more extends the requirement of a complete network design. The foundation of networking rests on the balance between each of these necessities.

In cooperation with the Gislaved company Lerocon AB [1], a separation module wasdesigned as a further supplement to the Module System. The aim of theprojectimplementation was that the separation module could be flexible enough to feed themetal pieces, screws, nuts and other items with large variations of size, appearance andmaterial composition. The module should also be cost effective to manufacture.A separation module is a design which is ment to streamline the work in industries withautomation of the lineoperations. The module feeds the details such as screws, nuts, washersand pieces of metal in a continuous flow in which traps separate the details from each other.Traps may vary depending on the purpose and of the details that are fed. Perhaps it isimportant for the user that the detail-orientation is right after the separation module, whichmeans that all the pieces witch aren´t are fed back in return.For companies and industries in lineoperations that can be made more efficient withautomation, are production flow an important watchword.

This thesis was performed at Indusec ABin Stockholm. Indusec AB is a companythat develops security solutions.Together with the Police of Sweden theyhave gotten the assignment to develop anapplication based on one of theiralready existing product Inferno soundbarrier. This application is supposed tobe mounted on a ballistic shield thatthe police use, the application consistsof a speaker box (the sound barrier) anda trigger with wire. The trigger withwire is the part that will be addressedin this thesis. The application willthen be used as a tool to surprise atarget at various skirmishes.The project consists of three majorphases, pre-study, concept generationand modeling.

As technology have continued to develop over the latest decades and become more advanced the pressure on the general citizens understanding of technology becomes a essential part to live in our society today. The transition have affected our society in great ways and have made a great impact on different groups, one of them being the elderly population in our society. The purpose of this study is to examine how the fast technological development in the latest decades have affected the elderly in our society. This from their perspective by gathering empirical data through semi-structured interviews with elderly people involved in the Agnes-project, a research project focused on improving the general quality of life for older people and increase their knowledge about technology. The study has shown that after the older peoples time involved in the Agnes-project their quality of life had improved in different areas. Areas such as increased cognitive activity, increased interest in new technology and an improvement in their communication with friends and family.

Total protection is often the option chosen when protecting forests with high environmental values. An alternative to total protection is application of management regimes that do not interrupt continuity of tree cover. This study focuses mainly on continuous cover forestry (CCF) in forest stands already protected. All objects are situated in the county of Jämtland in northwest Sweden. The purpose of the study was to attain a greater knowledge about CCF practices.

The web has evolved much through the years. From being a place where author and reader were clearly distinguished, it now invites everyone to take part in the development of both content and technology. Social services are central in what is called Web 2.0. Wikis, blogs and folksonomies are all examples of how the users and their communities are key to the development of services. Collaborative writing, tags and API:s are central.

The title of this thesis is ?Accessible Landscape - boardwalks in nature areas?. The main purpose of this thesis is to show how you can increase the accessibility for disabled people by constructing boardwalks in nature areas. The platform for the thesis is a study of litterature on boardwalks, accessibility and disabilities. After defining these terms I made three excursions to three different locations in the south of Sweden. During the excursions I evaluated the boardwalks situated in each of the areas through preferences such as the construction of the boardwalk, its design and the accessibility. After the excursions I interviewed managers of the areas I visited, and people working with disability questions in the municipalities where the excursions took place. To know how to make a boardwalk accessible you need to have knowledge about certain concepts, rules and recommendations. My thesis deals with aspects such as: *Accessibility *Disability *Rules and recommendations when building boardwalks *Real life - evaluation from the excursions and interviews with the managers The result shows that accessibility is a hot topic in Sweden and a lot of improvement is being done with fi nancial support from the European Union.

User friendly and usable are two words that are often mentioned in the context of marketing new products. By doing so it adds an extra sense of quality to the product. The meaning of these words is therefore something that every product wants. But what is it that makes a product usable and user friendly? What methodology exists formaking sure that a product is usable? Does it exist applicable processes to ensure user centered development? These questions together with a practical example are parts of what will be addressed in this report.The thesis was carried out for C2 Management, a company that works with supporting other companies in their work with quality and constant improvements.

The environmental debate is more intensive than ever before and the demands on companies increase. There are a number of methods to make it easier for the companies to fulfil the demands. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) end ecodesign are some of the methods that can be used. Syntronic AB has the possibility to reduce the products´ environmental impact in the design phase. Therefore it is important for the company to make it possible to visualize the negative environmental impacts a product can cause in an easy way. It is also important to visualize for there clients if any improvement is possible. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a simplified model.

The number of people with another culture isincreasing in Sweden. This change in society bringsconsequences in health care that has not any methodsto manage. The Muslim woman?s meeting with thehealth care is one of those areas. The aim with thisstudy was to describe the nurses meeting with femaleMuslim patient.

In support to a decision to be made by the Swedish central competent authority on a minimal amount of straw for conventional growing-finishing pigs, a study using 168 pigs provided 7 different amounts of straw (20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 200 or 300 grams/pig/day) was performed. The straw was provided either once or four times per day. Detailed behaviour observations were made using focal animal sampling and continuous recording for one hour between 9 and 10 am and again between 3 and 4 pm. The data analysis is presented in three ways: broken stick model, polynomial trend line and logarithmic trend line. No method was suitable on its own but the use of all the methods simultaneously was found to portray the data in the best way.No significant differences were found when comparing pens provided with straw once or four times per day.

The possibility and the right to be able to communicate with municipalities or other state companies and politicians are natural for the Swedish citizens. However, they may be unaware that this communication process is called citizen dialogue.Today there are so many ways to communicate; one-way communication is not possible in the same way as before. It is above all social media such as Facebook, which has opened the gates one could only dream of.  Via a medium such as Facebook creates a strong citizen dialogue in which the municipality and citizens communicate openly and ask questions and give response.The purpose of this study is to find out how Karlstad?s municipality uses, and maintains, citizen dialogue on Facebook. What are the guidelines and how do the municipality use these? In this paper a qualitative expert interview and a qualitative content analysis has been used to answer the purpose of the essay.

Compressed air is a low efficiency media, and is thus very expensive to produce. This thesis work began by mind mapping how to create savings on the compressed air system at Billerud Skärblacka AB. Certain issues have been chosen for further studies.In order to identify the consumption of compressed air at PM 8 and 9, several measurements were made. At PM 8 there were not found any pressure drop, only large pressure variations for short periods of time. The causes of these pressure variations were not established.