In order to evaluate the benefits and costs associated to investments in information technology (IT) managers need to be aware of the complexity in the nature of the task. Hence all the benefits that arise from the investment are not of pure economic character. The complexity of the task is even more obvious when managers also need to prioritize between a number of possible investments in order to fit a given budget.Stora Enso Skog AB is about to implement a new administration system to the organisation and due to that they will also implement a new standard system for the production planning process. In order to seek the modifications in the standard system that needs to be done to fit the organisations way of working, the managers have put together a reference group to seek out these modifications.The aim with this report is to identify a model that can prioritize these suggested modifications and test it practically with a group of future system users. The first part of the report is a literature study to map the existing models that are available.

Since the introduction of the European citizenship in the Maastricht treaty, social rights havetaken a back seat to the economic and political elements. Nevertheless, over the past yearssocial issues have been increasingly included on the agenda following the universalrecognition of challenges resulting from further economic integration and demographicchange. The extensive research on European social policy so far tend to focus on initiativesput forward by the European Commission, and offers little to explain the multitude of lines ofreasoning on how far EU social policy should be taken or why it still remains one of the leastdeveloped policy areas. By examining plenary debates in the European Parliament concerningfamily policy, this Bachelor thesis aims to describe the complex of problems connected to afurther development of the social dimension of the European citizenship.The analysis finds that the most imminent problems impeding an expansion of the EU familypolicy lie not only in the many clashes of opinions between advocates of the various existingwelfare models, but also in the conflicts of interests and the different levels of ambitionbetween EU institutions - most notably the Commission and the European Parliament..

Volvo Hauler & Loader Division in Arvika produces wheel loaders which they deliverthroughout the world. The factory which is situated in Arvika is the largest wheel loader plant in the whole world, with its 1 100 employees. The different models stretch from L60E all theway up to the brand new L350F, with a loader capacity from six tons up to a staggering 35.The assembly of the different models are divided into three different assembly lines, Small(L60-L90), Medium (L110-L120) and Large (L150-L220). The assembly of Heavy (L350)has just been started with an upcoming pre series.This examination paper gives recommendations of improvements and necessary modifications to rationalize the pre-assembly of boom units. Three different scenarios are presented in the paper.

Through a sociocultural perspectivethe purpose of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers look at quality development in preschool and how they perceive their participation in this development.I have used a qualitative method based on five interviews with preschool teachers from three different parts of Sweden. I used an interview guide with open questions. The interview answers were categorized in themes based on the responses which were most frequent. In the result I have been using an analysis based on these themes. The result showed that the preschool teachers consider that the leadership style affects their work.

Under framtagandet av nya produkter måste ett antal prototyper tillverkas för att verifiera konstruktionen. För en metodingenjör som tar fram reparationsmetoder innebär prototyptillverkning att tankar som växt fram under utvecklingsfasen kan provas för första gången på en fysisk produkt. Detta sker relativt sent i produktutvecklingen och eventuella ändringar som kan uppstå på grund av att servicevänlighet inte uppnås blir mycket kostsamma. Om däremot prototypen där metoderna verifieras för första gången är digital och detta sker tidigt blir kostnaderna för eventuella ändringar avsevärt mycket mindre. Modellen som ligger till grund för metodstudierna kan sedan används för att skapa ett utkast till service litteratur, detta medför att även den delen av slutprodukten kommer att vara i fas med övriga utvecklings avdelningar. Under detta projekt har en digital prototyp av en Scania motor använts för genomförandet av metodstudier.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in consulting companies develop their competence in order to perform their daily work. The focus is on informal competence development. The theoretical framework consists of theories concerning learning and competence development in working life, theories on organizational change and evaluation, a well as professional reflection. The methods applied are narrative research and interviews based on the assumption that knowledge about reality is only obtainable through language and communication.The main results show that competence is developed through experience, social interaction, communication and dialog with co-workers and customers. The post-modern conceptions of the rapid (technical) development and need to be up-to-date has a strong hold on the informants apprehension of working life, as does the notion of not having enough time for all the competence development they would like.

During the last decade working with competence has emerged as a more strategically important area. Today the human resources in a company are considered a competitive advance and the HR-units play a significant role when it comes to HR-management. Different motives for investing in strategies that promote competence development and learning also exist. The purpose of this paper was to examine how the process of competence development was managed at a large global company. The empirical material consisted of four persons who were interviewed and the analysis of the material was inspired by grounded theory.From the analysis four major themes or core factors emerged as central to the interviewed persons' understanding of the competence development process; solid preparatory work in relation to competence development, communication, awareness of responsibilities and finally the taking action and evaluation of the action.

Abstract Title: Enabling Smart Research and Development through Knowledge Conversation Seminar date: 2005-06-08 Course: Master thesis in business administration, 10 Swedish credits (15 ECTS) Authors: Andreas Johnsson, Johan Rosendahl Advisors: Lars Bengtsson Key words: Knowledge management, Knowledge conversation, Research and development, Ba, Trelleborg Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to create a model that shows how knowledge management aimed at research and development processes can be used and how the theoretical fields can be connected. Methodology: The thesis is based on abductive perspective where empirical and theoretical material has been mixed to create a foundation for the analysis. Theoretical perspectives: Theories concerning knowledge management and research and development have primarily been used. These have been complemented with material about team structures and incentive systems. Empirical foundation: The empirical material is based on semi structured, mostly qualitative interviews and strictly quantitative inquiries performed at Industrial Hose within the Trelleborg group.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the procurement of maintenance at SvK. Byunderstanding the process that has led to the current procurement strategy; providesuggestions to how the procurement of maintenance can be improved to ensure thequality of future maintenance of the national grid.A god client can be associated with a number of qualities, ?acquisition competence?.Vinnova describes acquisition competence as the ability to plan, formulate,communicate and monitor. Different businesses and industries have different needsand opportunities and operate in different economic structures which requireadjustments in their acquisition competence. A number of areas have been identified,called areas of focus, where clients can adjust their competences to their markets.The areas of focus are competition, competence/quality, control and communication.By defining the need of acquisition competence for SvK and identifying problems, anumber of suggested strategies have been proposed.

Finnhamn is a group of islands that are located in the middle north part of Stockholm?s archipelagos. On the main island Stora Jolpan there is a camp called Sommargården, which consists of eleven different buildings in various sizes. The assignment given by the Archipelago foundation (Skärgårdsstiftelsen) is to analyze if it?s benefited to replace Sommargårdens current heating system that consists of electricity radiators, with a more energy efficient heating system. This research is done with help of the literature review and a visit to Finnhamn in order to map Sommargården?s current state and its energy usage.

The Swedish energy system will be influenced by many future changes, such as energy and climate policy objectives. The installation of more renewable electricity could increase by using solar energy. Over the recent years, grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems have increased dramatically in Sweden, partly due to various support systems and compensation models. These support systems have been designed to make it easy for individuals and businesses to invest in self-generated electricity and thus contribute to the transformation of the energy system.The introduction of a higher proportion of solar energy may in turn affect the Swedish electricity system. This could mean that the electricity companies will be facing a number of changes in the near future.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to analyze what suitable hardware platforms there are on the market in order to build a low price control and information system for mobile applications, called small display module. The thesis will be underlying material for making a decision for further development. The result of the thesis consists mainly of a Windows CE kernel and a schematic for a CPU card, on which it would be suitable to build the display module. Another major part of the report is the introduction of different techniques that could be of interest when designing a processor based system. The processor architecture that was chosen is the x86.

In the western world, strokes are the third most common cause of death, hitting mainly the elderly population. Smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and overweight are known risk factors for causing strokes. Previous studies show that an increased level of particulate matter, PM, is also related to an increased number of strokes. The population in this study consists of patients over 65 years old who live in Malmö. Levels of particulate matter were measured from October 2004 to April 2005 at a central outdoor monitoring site in Malmö.

This master thesis is a study of how city cemeteries can be used and contributes to a socially sustainable urban development. Today sustainable development and sustainable urban development is something that more or less every organization is working with. Therefore it is also relevant to integrate our cemeteries in this work so that they can become a part of the sustainable urban development process.The thesis gives a basic understanding of sustainability as a concept and also defines socially sustainable (urban) development. The work then immerse itself in various types of park structures and how the relationship between the human individual and the public space work, to satisfy the needs that different people have.The literature study that has been made is also the base for the design of the walking interview that has been made for the two city cemeteries. The cemeteries that where studied where the Assistens cemetery in Copenhagen and the Eastern cemetery in Gothenburg.