Title: What drives the customer's choice of packaging and which factors influence the customer's packaging cost? ? in the automotive and manufacturing industriesAuthor: Lena AnderssonSupervisors: Annika Olsson, Division of Packaging Logistics, Lund Institute of TechnologyHelena Claesson, Volvo Logistics ABProblem: Which parameters are important for logistic people to think of when they are going to choose a package?Which cost factors are included in the packaging cost?What kind of added value can an emballage supplier provide their services with?Purpose: The purpose of the project was to study the parameters that drives the customer's choice of packaging and the factors that influence the total packaging cost. The study also consists of a valuation of what an emballage supplier can offer to add value to their services.Method: The study is based on interviews with people who are working at Volvo Logistics and Volvo Car Corporation. Volvo Logistics provide their customers with standard packaging material, which they own and administrate. Volvo Car Corporation is one of their customers.

This paper examines the reasons behind firms considering backsourcing. While firms experience problems with their outsourcing activities, backsourcing emerges as an alternative solution. Firms primarily take cost considerations into account when reconsidering their outsourcing practices, but this only scratches the surface. A deeper analysis is needed, since cost increases arise from issues such as quality defects and cooperation problems. Even though production costs are low, outsourcing always implies transaction costs.

This project was started within the Market-Design programme of Elforsk, with the aim of developing representative test systems of Swedish distribution networks. Using such test systems as a basis for reliability and customer interruption cost calculations makes it feasible to analyse the network tariff regulation of Swedish power  istribution companies. In particular, it enables studies of the incentives for companies to invest in system reliability. Until now, the available test systems are either not representative of Swedish conditions, or too small in scale and limited in function.Within this project we have created two test systems. In order to represent the diversity of actual Swedish distribution networks, we have created one test system for urban environments and another for rural environments.

This thesis, in the field of healthcare logistics, has been carried out at Hjärt- och Medicincentrum (HMC) at the University Hospital in Linköping during the fall and spring of 2012/2013. The thesis is done by two students at Linköping University at master?s level within the framework of Industrial Engineering and Management.As Sweden's county councils should not make a profit or loss, it is important that the councils are aware of how much care processes cost. Kardiologiska kliniken at HMC in Östergötland?s county council is one of the clinics that are profitable.

The economic analysis of building contracts is an unexplored field within Law and Economics. This paper makes an attempt to cast some light over the subject and encourage to more research within the field. The main purpose has been to describe why the actual price in a public construction project often turns out to be higher than the contract price and offer a way of handle that risk. In the paper a model is set up that shows an optimal contract given expectations on actual price and gaps in contracts. Cost increases for the buyer can mainly be explained by two situations.

This final project is an investigation about the responsibility in rooms where the walls and floors are exposed or partly exposed to irrigation of water, as a bathroom, laundry room and WC. The cost for all water damage is valued for 5 000 000 000 SEK each year. How is this possible with all information about the problem and good materials? Who is responsible? Incites had been made in the subject throw reading reports and participation in courses about how to make a room mention above. Discussions have been made with workers in the trade of making the walls waterproof.The conclusion in the rapport is about who´s responsible for the damages and will pay the cost of the renovation. The responsibility is discussed between the contractor and the insurance company.

This study looks into the possibility, and profitability, of expanding a pilot project that has been put into action at GGP Sweden AB in Tranås, a manufacturing company that produces front mowers. The pilot project is meant to give GGP Sweden AB a more precise control of the flow of goods from their suppliers, and its essence has proven to be quite similar to the Japanese Just-in-Time philosophy.The study has been divided into four separate areas; mapping, supplier selection, supplier evaluation and cost analysis. These areas represent a holistic perspective on the expansion of the pilot project and cover topics varying from methods of finding suitable JIT-suppliers, constructing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to reviewing costs and assessing profitabilities.In this report, the reader will initially take part in the works of mapping GGP?s manufacturing unit, pilot project and supplier base, which results in a list containing the most suitable suppliers for a Just-in-Time based collaboration. Afterwards, the reader will be led into the area of supplier evaluation, where five KPI?s are created with the purpose of ensuring that GGP will be able to evaluate their suppliers and pilot project in an effective way.

This paper discusses the strategy and strategic change in the Swedish freight forwarding business and analysis factors that influence the forces of the business. Three companies of various sizes are chosen to be investigated as a case study, outline that cost leadership and differentiation are both important strategies for companies to compete in the market. However, companies outpacing competition do not only pursue either of the two strategies, the need the ability to add one (cost leadership) to the other (differentiation) in relationship to environmental change over time..

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the needs of pre-commercial thinning on private owned forest properties, which is considered to be increasing. The reason is believed to be the high cost of labor that pre-commercial thinning brings. Furthermore thinning is costly, the revenue created through pre-commercial thinning are post-poned until the first thinning. The study was made through a survey among members of Mellanskog forest owners association. The survey was distributed by e-mail. The time to answer was set to two weeks. The answers indicate that the most common reason why the pre-commercial thinning is delayed, or not done at all, is the forest owner?s lack of time.

This paper deals with the opportunities for the technique of condensation, for wood fired household heaters, on the Swedish market. In this project the condenser is preceded by a scrubber and both energy exchange and separation of unburnt particles have been studied. The facility studied is connected to a wood stove at 30 kW. The tests would show that the effect from the stove never reached above 16 kW. This might be a result of the low temperature of the water going into the stove, from the condenser. In addition to this the wood was not of highest quality and the stove could have needed some maintenance before the tests.

In today's fast-paced, intense and complex media environment, it is hard for non-profit charity organizations to reach out and get their messages heard.In this study we examine whether the theories of advertising signaling also applies for charities. Past studies of the signaling theories indicates that higher perceived advertising expense leads to more positive effects on purchase behavior and brand perceptions. However, we believe that this does not apply for a charity organization. We argue that since charitable organizations have a fundamentally different mission than commercial companies, they will need different ways to signal quality and credibility, and therefore the common signal-theories will not hold for these organizations.To test our hypotheses, we conducted two surveys where the respondents saw one of five versions of the same ad for a well-known Swedish charity organization, or one of two ads for a commercial corporation. The ads had been manipulated to simulate different levels of perceived cost.Our results shows that perceived ad cost only affects attitude towards the ad if a charity was the sender, whereas perceived ad cost affects intentions, attitudes and credibility if a commercial corporation was the sender.

Specialarbete, 15 hpSvenska som andraspråk, SIS 133VT 2012 Handledare: Håkan Jansson.

This report is a thesis work for a B.Sc. in Forestry exam at the School for Forest Engineers, SLU. The work was an assignment from Sydved Energy AB. The aim of the work was to compare the operational productivity between two kinds of forwarders for extraction of harvesting residues, one forwarder with a special compression device and one ordinary, slightly modified forwarder. Two sites were studied for each forwarder. The study shows that the annual production was about 11,000 m3 higher for the traditional forwarder. The cost for the traditional forwarder was SEK 0.9 lower per m3.

Optimizing energy systems is, in Sweden, as in many other countries, of growing interest. District heating systems are no exception. In 2012, 285 out of 290 municipals in Sweden had district heating in use and the majority of these systems have a higher return temperature than that which is possible with an error-free substation of day current technology. To, when possible, lower the return temperature is a way of increasing the effectiveness of the district heating system.This study means to investigate, through simulations and calculations, how big of a reduction in production cost a lower temperature in the city of Ystad?s district heating system would correspond to.

Purpose There are almost infinite numbers of ways to build dairy farms in Sweden. When building a new free stall barn you have the possibility to affect both working environment and animal welfare for many years to come. The construction costs are influenced by which type of barn that is built and what functions it contains, for example one can predict that automatic milking systems are more expensive to integrate than milking parlours. But what is the real cost of today for the construction of free stall barns with milking centres and how is it affected by construction methods and functions? Is the labour time influenced by the building costs? These are some of the questions this report will try to answer.