The sun is a huge energy source with great potential of providing energy to the heating of homes and other buildings in an environmentally sustainable manner. In order to provide buildings with energy from the sun it is necessary to transfer the energy supply over time to when the demand arises. By storing the heat in a seasonal storage, solar energy from the summer can be used in the winter when the demand for heating is greatest.Today's existing plants are mainly in Europe and particularly in Germany. These facilities are designed to supply heat demands greater than 400 MWh and covers about 40-50 % of this need which consists of energy for space heating and domestic hot water. How much of the heat demand that is covered, the solar fraction, is partly due to losses from the storage which in turn is connected to the surface area of the storage.

In today?s society there is an increasing demand for renewable energy sources such as sun and wind power. These sources are intermittent, and energy storage is therefore needed to ensure a constant power supply. This report compares pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), compressed air energy storage (CAES), flywheels, batteries, super magnetic energy storage (SMES) and hydrogen energy storage.The opportunities for further development are limited for PHES and CAES in comparison with the other technologies. Lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen energy storage are considered to have the most potential in the future.

Although Lean has received an increased amount of attention in the service context, research still has not established how successfully Lean manages to increase service productivity; since service productivity consists of both efficiency and quality. Research regarding productivity discusses the risk of a tradeoff between efficiency and quality in service production processes. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore if the tradeoff in a production setting with low variability in demand and low customer participation exists, after Lean has been implemented. With a qualitative approach, a case study has been conducted at Scandinavian Airlines Ground Handling to evaluate the effects of Lean in the baggage handling process. The result of the study shows that the tradeoff has not been overcome; efficiency has increased at the expense of quality.

The amendment of a law which is expected to come may well have a significant impact on the Swedish real-estate broke market. The law change will probably have an effect in the number of ways real-estate brokers will compete as a result of the increasing variety of services offered. In order to gain competitive advantages brokers must be at the forefront in the development regarding the changing market. To do so requires that the company chooses an appropriate range of peripheral services that are profitable. The problem is to choose the ?right? services to convey. The purpose of this paper is to describe the services that are in demand for transmission and how the agents can work to meet the demand of this new market.

Purpose: The Swedish correctional service is on the brink of its biggest expansion in history, due to political investments related to battling a rise in gang related criminality. The purpose of this thesis is to exam and understand the strategic competence supply work from an employer perspective and investigate the elements included in the Swedish correctional service competence supply form a regional perspective. The study specifically focus on what strategies the Swedish correctional service employ to attract, recruit, develop and retain workforce. Theory: The theoretical framework of the study includes among others, a model divided into three different phases (within, in and out) within competence supply, the demand-control-support model, push and pull factors, as well as the two-factor theory. Method: This study has a qualitative approach with semi structured interview as its specific method. A total of seven interviews were conducted with personnel within the swedish correctional service. Results: The main challenges are related to recruitment, staff retention, support of managers, and the fact that many correctional officers do not have time to complete their training before leaving. The latter is particularly significant are of concern.

Many researchers emphasize the increasing strategic importance of supply chain management, but there is still a lack of concrete guidance for managers faced with strategic decisions in supply chain. Within decision-making theories, the rational decision-making model is the most commonly used. This because of its suitable foundation, enabling a structure to the complex decision process. The rational decision-making model is today not developed to include the aspects of strategic decision-making made in supply chain. The purpose of this research is to adjust a structured rational decision-making model, making it applicable for strategic decision-making in supply chain.

This examination work aims to describe how a supply chain around the biggest pellets factory in Sweden will be configured in a logistic perspective. The plant and associated infrastructure are in the building phase and will have production start on the 2 November 2009. The key question that is set in this examination work is to recognize the logistic processes which are essential for an effective flow of materials and information that link the source of supply with the ultimate customer. In order to get the answer, a flowcharting of these supply chain processes is required for understanding the pipeline activities such as input and storage of raw material, the production system and the output of pellets to the customers. The basis for this supply chain map is a model-based representation of these logistic processes and activities that are involved around the pellets factory.

The amendment of a law which is expected to come may well have a significant impact on the Swedish real-estate broke market. The law change will probably have an effect in the number of ways real-estate brokers will compete as a result of the increasing variety of services offered. In order to gain competitive advantages brokers must be at the forefront in the development regarding the changing market. To do so requires that the company chooses an appropriate range of peripheral services that are profitable. The problem is to choose the ?right? services to convey. The purpose of this paper is to describe the services that are in demand for transmission and how the agents can work to meet the demand of this new market.

Purpose - To analyze the relationship between supply chain management maturity, supply chain performance and financial performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME:s).Design/methodology/approach - The data comprises 15 SME:s that participated in a local logistic study in Gävleborgs län. The levels of supply chain mature within these firms were based upon an interview study and the financial performance of the firms was then examined using financial reports-based data.Findings -The results of this study indicate that there is a strong relationship between SCM maturity and SC performance in SMEs, some relationships between SCM maturity and financial performance, as well as some relationships between SC performance and financial performance. This means that if firms use maturity indicators in the SCOR areas to improve their processes, they will most likely achieve a positive effect on supply chain performance and probably also on financial performance. The result implies that the supply chain maturities in these firms are higher than expected with no one at the adHoc level.While this study is based on a rather small number of participating firms, it would be valuable to further test the significance of the indicated correlations between SCM maturity and performance in a large-scale survey.Research limitations/Implications - The research is an attempt to understand supply chain maturity and it´s implication on financial performance. Developing supply chain maturity is an opportunity for a company to gain superior performance.

The prevailing food and energy crisis of the world, due to the declining reserves of fossil energy and a never ending rise of consumption, forces us to look into new fields to supply our energy demand. The boom of bio energy is criticized, as food crops are used to provide biodiesel and ethanol and the volumes are ridiculously small to supply world demand. Algae are one of the world?s oldest life forms and exist in many different phyla, providing a great variety to choose from, for different purposes. Cultivating microalgae offer a way to produce energy at great volumes without competing with food production and at the same time the algae offer a way to use our expensive nutrients in a more efficient way, besides this the algae are carbon dioxide neutral since their carbon source can be supplied by the atmosphere and the additional energy required can be supplied by algal oil or other renewable sources.

This thesis project focuses on the need for better tools for analyzing competition for forest fuels in Sweden, in particular how policy measures may influence the market and involved actors in different regions of Sweden. Raw materials from the forest have for long constituted important inputs in the Swedish forest industry. Today some of these raw materials are increasingly used as inputs also in bioenergy production, largely driven by bioenergy promoting policies, and there are signs of increased competition for forest fuels which may have various and uncertain effects on the industries in question. The thesis project explores the possibilities to adapt previously used forest sector equilibrium models into a new model suitable for analysis of Swedish forest fuel markets, called the Swedish Forest Sector Trade Model (SFSTM). The approach takes into account regional differences in supply and demand for 23 types of products produced and/or used by eight types of producers, plus consumers, in five different regions (four Swedish and one international).

Bakgrund: Begreppet Supply Chain management uppkom för att bättre kunna svara mot kundernas krav, på den föränderliga världsmarknaden. Konceptet förutsätter ett nära samarbete mellan företagen som ingår i en värdekedja, vilket gör att beroendet mellan medlemmarna ökar och relationerna blir allt viktigare. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att klarlägga makt- beroendesituationen mellan företag i en Supply Chain och därefter utreda hur dessa förhållanden påverkar relationerna mellan företagen. Genomförande: Datainsamling har skett genom personliga intervjuer och telefonintervjuer med anställda på Volvo Global Trucks samt fyra av deras leverantörer. Resultat: Makt används i Supply Chain relationer, men relationer av skiftande karaktär uppvisar skillnader i hur makt- och beroendeförhållandena ser ut.

Some theorist, like George Ritzer and Max Weber, claim that everything has its optimal process and that all companies therefore will strive towards standardization. Researchers like Paco Underhill and Pine & Gilmore on the other hand, claim that an increasingly global competition forces businesses to focus more on consumer demands, experiences and differentiation. This thesis challenges these statements with empirical data by looking at shopping malls and their strategies as well as consumer preferences. It arrives at the conclusion that output is primarily driven by customer demand, and that consumers value a certain part of predictability..

The prevailing food and energy crisis of the world, due to the declining reserves of fossil energy and a never ending rise of consumption, forces us to look into new fields to supply our energy demand. The boom of bio energy is criticized, as food crops are used to provide biodiesel and ethanol and the volumes are ridiculously small to supply world demand. Algae are one of the world?s oldest life forms and exist in many different phyla, providing a great variety to choose from, for different purposes. Cultivating microalgae offer a way to produce energy at great volumes without competing with food production and at the same time the algae offer a way to use our expensive nutrients in a more efficient way, besides this the algae are carbon dioxide neutral since their carbon source can be supplied by the atmosphere and the additional energy required can be supplied by algal oil or other renewable sources.

This Master Thesis is a part of PlymoVent?s business to customer plot, with the aim to investigate how the consumers receive the services that PlymoVent provides. With regard to PlymoVent's business strategy and reference theory, the demands of how to receive and monitor a supply chain for a better customer satisfaction where targeted. The findings refer to poor customer satisfaction due to obscure procedures in problem resolution and discrepancy handling, and vague transportation accuracy..