Product development cycles become shorter and shorter. The time from idea to market has become an important competitive factor. Despite this, methods used for making the product development process faster are surrounded with uncertainty about their efficiency. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the pros and cons of ?best practice? methods for shortening lead times and how these methods effect the lead times in research and development.

A design methodology to mitigate timing problems due to long wire delays is proposed. The timing problems are taking care of at architecture level instead of layout level in this design method so that no change is needed when the whole design goes to backend design. Hence design iterations are avoided by using this design methodology. The proposed design method is based on STARI architecture, and a novel initialization mechanism is proposed in this paper. Low frequency global clock is used to synchronize the communication and PLLs are used to provide high frequency working clocks.

The aim of this project is to examine the needs and problems that exists amongst homeless people and to develop a solution that will help them in their everyday life. Since the homeless are a relatively large vulnerable group i Sweden, their everyday lives could be made easier in many ways.A clear definition of the target group is put together to create a good starting point. What state and help orginazations do to help the homelss and the society?s view of the homeless is also relevant and has been documented. Four personal stories have been put together to desicribe cases of clear problems existing in everyday life.Several interesting problems has been defined from the research and acceptance in the communtiy, desire to be seen and heard and a lack of confidence were the main needs.

In a society where adults set the conditions for children?s play and generate modern and at times technically advanced products, fundamental characteristics like simplicity, opportunities for motor skills training and learning tend to be neglected. Owing to this, the Linköping-based company Time In wants to introduce a new multifunctional product, which differs from other products in shape and function and lives up to the often overlooked, basic characteristics in a toy.With Time In as the assigner, the purpose of this master thesis has been to use simple means to produce a "learning by playing" concept. Since Time In sells toys and products suitable for children in nurseries and preschools, the development of the products has therefore included a study of nursery and preschool environments.The thesis has been carried out within the Product Design subject area at the Department of Management and Engineering at Linköping University. Concept development has been done in three phases: the Preparation phase, the Design phase and the Presentation phase.

Ocean Modules Sweden AB is a small business active in the field of underwater technology. Thecompany was contacted by the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) in order todevelop a new system that would conform to their specific requirements. Two students at theRoyal Institute of Technology (KTH) were consulted in conjunction of this project in order to aidthe development and conceptual design of the system.The primary users of the system are the divers of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal division (EOD)- a branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. The purpose of the product was to incorporate allnecessary functions required by the EOD divers into one single system. The main functions arecommunication between the surface operator and diver, video recording, still imaging, positioning,navigation and ocean floor mapping with sonar.

When different type of programs are developed one wants to make these adjustable to future changes and requirements. It must be done a good design of the program from the beginning to make it possible to continue development of it without having to redo big parts of it to high costs. In the area of object orientation there are design pattern, which can be used to design systems that can be adjusted to new changes in an easier way. I have in this thesis chosen to take a closer look at how to design a program that sends SMS to cell phones through a system of an operator. One requirement on the program is that it has to be possible to change what operator to send though in an easy way.

Denna rapport omfattar ett examensarbete på 22,5 poäng. Examensarbetet har utförts inom ämnet integrerad produktutveckling vid Högskolan i Skövde tillsammans med Jai Designpartner AB. Målet med arbetet var att utveckla ett fällbord som enkelt kan fällas ihop, ha en längre livslängd och lägre vikt än företagets tidigare fällbord. Samarbetet genererade ett fällbord som inte följer de generella principerna av infällning av bordsben. Resultatet blev ett fällbord med minimal klämrisk, med en längre livslängd då infällning av bordsbenet sker med en vridning och med en mindre vikt då ramverk kan elimineras..

Abstract This report is our bachelor thesis. Our work has taken place at a galvanising company in Sölvesborg. The company faced major changes, of which one was a computerisation process. The new system could involve changes in work practice and in specific tasks, affecting the workers. If the coming system was to support work, from the production personnel?s perspective, we felt a legitimate participation in the development and design of the future work practice, was a requirement that was not met.

Denna rapport är ett examensarbete inom maskinteknik på c-nivå (15hp). Då författaren ansåg att dagens hammockar inte utvecklats speciellt mycket sedan de blev populära i Sverige på 60-talet, valde han att ägna detta arbete åt att försöka ta fram en mer modern sådan. Projektet har huvudsakligen handlat om produktutveckling och design där mycket tid spenderats på att lösa alla de olika problem som de satta kraven på nya funktioner bidragit till. Arbetet startade med en omfattande förstudie. Därefter vidareutvecklades de olika idéer som framkom under förstudien ytterligare.

The purpouse of this study is to find out how and if a Content Managment System (CMS) can benefit from applied User Experience Design (UX). A work project has been executed where a client wanted the students to create a user friendly CMS for adding content to a global hotel review site. A prototype of a CMS was created based on literature studies about UX and CMS. The prototype of the user friendly CMS was then tested through user tests and interviews with key users. After input from the key users the prototype was changed until the users were satisfied with it..

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the UN millennium development goals have influenced Sweden?s development policy. The research method that I have used is a qualitative text analysis and I have studied the ideas in governmental texts and millennium development goals reports from 1995-2008.My hypothesis is that the basic ideas that has symbolized Sweden?s development policy has not changed much since the adoption of the millennium development goals in year 2000. This hypothesis is based on different ideas that the basic perspectives in international development policy are rather constant.My conclusion is that many of the areas that are affected by the millennium development goals already are prioritized areas within Swedish development policy, for example poverty reduction and gender equality.

Alfa Laval?s strategy is to focus on modularized product platforms. Several benefits areforeseen, reduced lead-time, less costs, shorter Time To Market and better quality.Development and verifying will be carried out on block level. Today the separators arebeing tested as a complete unit. A number of factors affect the test results and problemsthat are encountered can be hard to identify.

This master thesis covers the design of a special garden room, The Hardscape Room, in The Rehabilitation Gardens at Alnarp, in southern Sweden, as well as describes the design process. The Rehabilitation Gardens are intended to serve several purposes. It will offer horticultural therapeutic treatment programs for people diagnosed as having had burnout disease for an extended period. Research is also aimed at studying the possible impact of different garden design hypotheses as well as different forms of horticultural therapy. In The Rehabilitation Gardens at Alnarp the most extreme and demanding garden room focused on cultivation and horticultural therapy is The Hardscape Room.

Service Design is a relatively new, unexplored and exciting phenomenon that through an interdisciplinary work methodology designs services. A discussion has been going on for a long time regarding whether there is a difference between products and services. Services are often classified as immaterial, heterogeneous, non-storable and inseparable in relation to products. A question that arises is if something specific characterises the work methodology used regarding service design. The aim with this paper is thus to explain the work methodology when working with service design.

Scania is constantly trying to improve their product development process, the PD-process.The company, along with others, is optimizing their development process in order to gainadvantage in terms of shorter lead times and larger market shares. For this to happen, a wellorganized process is required.The PD-process is divided into three different phases that are linked together by a hand-overprocedure. Scania Bus has experienced problems that stem from a lack of hand-over routines,and as a result the product development process has been slowed down. This has a number ofconsequences, one of them being the complication of new project initiations.The main purpose of this master thesis was to review the hand-over procedure. Within thestudy the project directive was also to be examined, and a recommendation of how the start ofa new project could be made easier was included.To begin with, a detailed literature study was conducted with the intention of obtaining thebasic theoretical knowledge needed for this study.