CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, has become increasingly important in a globalised world where the responsibilities of companies and governments are somewhat blurry. The textile industry is an industry where long supply chains and raw material production in developing countries are factors adding to the complexity and difficulties of solving ethical issues. Cotton production faces many environmental, social and financial challenges in the value chain. Therefore this case study takes a closer look at five Nordic home textile companies, Ikea, Hemtex, S Group, Moko and Finlayson, and how these companies choose their cotton related CSR tools and communicate their work on this area. These companies are of various sizes and therefore the resources for CSR work are also different, as well as the perceived values for working with CSR.

I dagens allt mer komplexa företagsklimat har vikten av en integrerad Supply Chain blivit allt viktigare vilket bidragit till ökat behov av integrationen inom och mellan företag. För ökad integration inom Supply Chain kan automatiserad informationsdelning användas och ett vanligt förekommande informationsdelningssystem är Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) som integrerar två företagspartners affärssystem med varandra. Den automatiska informationsdelningen bidrar bland annat till reducerad manuell administrering, minskade transaktionskostnader och mer korrekt informationsdelning mellan företag. Medelstora företag har en avgörande och viktig funktion inom dagens ekonomi, inte minst på grund av de arbetstillfällen medelstora företag genererar utan även deras betydelse för företagsutvecklingen inom Sverige. Vi har funnit medelstora företag intressanta att undersöka på grund av deras betydelse inom samhället och har i denna studie undersökt på vilka grunder svenska medelstora tillverkningsföretag inom B2B väljer att implementera EDI för ökad integration inom Supply Chain.

Since Sweden joined the European Union all Swedish fruit and vegetables are classified according to EU Quality standards. One important function is the product description and how it can facilitate the trade; for example in better comparing prices and also to guarantee the quality of the product. This quality standards or product descriptions are written as words of an Act and obligatory for all countries that has joined the EU. It?s often a demand from the customers to be certificated according to some of many certificating systems. One example is the common worldwide GLOBAL GAP-certification system created by the organisation EUREP which represents the leading European retail traders.

During the last decade, the construction industry has focused on improving and optimising its production process. The construction industry is now facing larger changes regarding efficiency in their supply chain for the next decade. Many companies are now trying to optimise its supply chain together with its supplier. JM AB, which is one of the biggest construction companies in Sweden, is looking at different options to improve its own logistics together with their suppliers. One option is to use a terminal between JM and the suppliers to solve problems such as quality, custom service and inventory for the in production.

Problem StatementAfter the hurricane Gudrun in January 2005 EON Elnät Sverige AB started the project KRAFTTAG, were 17,000 km of the airborne power grid shall be replaced with cables underground. The transformers in the airborne power grid shall be dismounted, renovated if necessary and then conveyed to stations, of type kiosk.Additional new transformers, more than planned, have been bought. This is due to the dysfunctional transformer flow from the demolished power supply to projects, were the new power supply is built, the general picture is complicated, since the reconstruction involves other companies and many employees at E.ON.PurposeThe purpose of this master thesis is to map and understand the existing transformer flow. The objective is to make a recommendation on how to increase the level of E.ON? s transformer recycling.Methodthe authors have worked with a system approach, including both qualitative and quantitative data.

Cycle time has a direct influence on number of returnable crates needed and therefore a crucial parameter for cost structure and pricing of the user fec in the pool system.For providing the growing market, number of crates has to increase as well as the utilization of existing crates. To accomplish this aim, cycle time for the whole supply chain has to be fully unravelled and understand.The purpose is to map cycle time and stock movements, to see how, where and when crates are being used in the supply chain. The goal is to make a method of cycle time calculation, together with suggestions of improving the pool system and decrease cycle time.The study has been a combination of qualitative and quantitative research and comprises the three biggest wholesalers in Sweden; ICA, Coop and Axfood. Furthermore have 65 grocery shops, connected to the wholesalers, been investigated and mapped.The study has come to a conclusion that cycle time for an average returnable crate is 19 days. The full-size and half-size crates have a bit longer cycle time, 21-22 days, while Dual Height-crates and shallow haif-size crates have 17-18 days.

The Swedish Textile industry has since the beginning of the 70-ties moved their production to countries with cheap labour further and further away. The production in the Baltic countries and Asia has become reality for many Swedish manufacturing companies. With today?s technology the communication with remote countries has ceased to be a problem. The difficulties have instead turned out to be more focused on transportation of goods and just in time deliveries to Sweden.

During the last decades the questions about environment and social ethics, so called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), have increased in importance. It is in the business world highly important for the corporations to show the public that the company care about these questions. A common approach nowadays is to outsource productions to other countries resulting in that suppliers have a great part of the work with CSR. CSR as a trend is a rather new phenomenon, and therefore interesting to see how the corporations handle these questions and how the approach looks like. The purpose with this study is to show how corporations which are recommended by CSR organizations for their handling regarding these questions approach CSR and how the work look like in the supply chain.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply.

Logistics and supply chain management in the construction sector is an area with great potential for improvements. Today, a lot of the workers time is spent on non-value adding activities. Research has shown that waste is a large proportion of the total production cost in building projects today.The purpose of this report is to analyze problems concerning logistics in the construction sector. Two of Skanska?s construction projects in Uppsala have been analyzed to identify problems.

The purpose of this thesis is to give an understanding of how grocery stores relate to local foods. Through a case study representatives for two groceries in Norrbotten have been interviewed regarding why they supply local foods, how they try to influence customers to buy this, and how they decide upon the assortment of local foods. The result shows that groceries supply local foods in order to supply a wide range of products and to mediate social responsibility, in order to create customer loyalty. Concerning how the groceries try to influence customers to buy local foods the result cannot give any clear-cut view. Instead it shows that a grocery that actively works to influence customers to buy local foods markets them in specific ways, while the opposite applies to a grocery that does not actively work for this.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply. Using theories of policy implementation and the municipal planning situation, possible explanations for the findings of the analysis could be a split in responsibility between the formulating and implementation of the policy for housing supply and its contents, a lack of resources of means for implementing or the prevalence of special interests when attempting to convert policy to plans..

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the driving forces and barriers which may exist at the implementation of green supply chain management (GSCM) within public organizations. Suggestions that may increase or reduce driving forces and barriers to public activities will also be provided, where such is found. The background of the study is that the public sector is such a major customer for many companies / providers, which makes the sector able to highly affect its suppliers. This essay is based on literature studies. The results showed that GSCM is a relatively unexplored area, especially applied on the public sector.

DinBox Sverige AB säljer fastighetsboxar på den skandinaviska marknaden och har produktionen utlagd till en leverantör Kina. Företaget startades i slutet på 2007 och är med andra ord relativt ungt. Den logistiska delen från beställning till leverans av produkt, är en mycket viktig och vital del av verksamheten som måste fungera. Det logistiska flödet fungerar idag inte helt felfritt och det uppstår problem med leveranser.Jag fick som uppgift i mitt examensarbete inom supply-chain management, att undersöka det logistiska flödet närmare för att hitta olika förbättringsförslag.Syftet med uppgiften är ta reda på vilka fel som uppstår, kartlägga vilka typer av kostnader dessa fel innebär och utreda hur man kan undvika fel i fortsättningen. Examensarbetet ska resultera i ett passande förbättringsalternativ som ökar kontrollen av logistikflödet från beställning till leverans.Resultatet i examensarbetet har uppnåtts genom en grundlig nulägesanalys, framtagande av ett flödesschema och identifiering av problem i processerna.

Today's global market means that raw materials are sought and bought from all over the world. This creates an higher demand for a well-functioning supply chain. In our thesis we have studied a large paper mill in northen Sweden which experiences issues with flow of raw material. Our aim has hence been to examine which aspects affect the flow of raw materials to the mill, and how these can be adressed using an IT-system. The question we sought to answer was; What factors are important to consider and how do these affect the ability of an IT-system which will support the flow of raw material at the paper mill? We have found that the problems are strongly connected to the low amount of information sharing between the mill and the suppliers.