For a long time Lean has been a well-known concept among manufacturers. Theinterest of understanding Lean and the ability to implement it is common amongcompanies. The concept of Lean, used in the right way, can help companies to reducetheir lead times, their complexity and increase the efficiency of the working processes(Hyer och Wemmerlöv, 2002). Unfortunately the work towards increased efficiencyhas primarily been focused on manufacturing and plant work, resulting in that Leanhas been adjusted to these areas. The conclusion of this is that companies don´tprioritize to improve processes such as administrative ones.

Arvika Fjärrvärme AB, a district heating company from Arvika, today cover 74 % of their total energy production with biofuel wich runs a 16 MW bioler giving process water at saturated liquid state.In recent years Vaporel AB has introduced a new tecnique that gives an external generation of steam after boilers. The concept is built on an adiabatic pressure drop of the saturated liquid in a so called Flashbox which makes a small part of the liquid to evaporate. The generated steam is lead into a turbine where electricity is in a conventional manner.The purpose with this rapport was to do a basic study for the specific system at Arvika where it?s possible to see the potential production of electricity that follows an installation of a flasbox.The final goal was to introduce an economic analysis of a flashox installation at given conditions.To reach our goals we have created a model in Excel where we used the given conditions at Arvika Fjärrvärme to do our calculations. The model has been tested at three different states, of process water returning to potboiler, to be able to decide the optimal operation for the system at present.The studies have resulted in a pressure of the processwater at 14,5 bar (at) and a pressuredrop to 9,5 bar (at) in the flashbox.

Volvo Trucks is the second largest manufacturer of heavy trucks, with factories in several countries and with around 21 000 employees. At the plant in Tuve, trucks have been built since 1982 and the activity mainly consists of producing side members and to assemble and packing kits of trucks. In 2005, the factory in Tuve launched the ambition to be the first carbon dioxide neutral vehicle factory in the world. This will be implemented by streamlining and investing in renewable energy. The aim of this degree thesis is to map the usage of energy within production, and also to prepare a method to measure key figures (use of energy per produced unit).

In the current situation a big part ofthe settlements that exist in Sweden isin need of renovation and energyefficiency in order to survive.Therefore, also many of the older houseswith a wooden structure are in a need ofenergy efficiency, which can be done ina variety of ways, including addinginsulation.This project deals with whether the useof a diffusion barrier or a vaporbarrier affects a wall structure byadding insulation to an older house witha timber frame. The insulation materialswhich are concidered in thisinvestigation are mineral wool and woodfiber insulation. Efforts are focused onthe effects of moisture on theseinsulation materials.To demonstrate the differences thatarise the moisture measurement programWUFI have been used to simulate avariety of wall designs. These designsare developed in consultation with theconstruction carers who are active inthe industry.Using WUFI graphs illustrating themoisture levels of the wall structureswere obtained and from these conclusionsvould be drawn. The work demonstratesthe differences that arise when using adiffusion barrier or vapor barrier inwall construction.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate how energy efficiently some of JM?s residential buildings can become in standard production. What kind of measures are needed to achieve the level of energy demand that is included in BBR12 (Boverkets Byggregler)? What measures are needed for achieving a lower demand so that the buildings could be classified as passive houses? The investigation has included a single family house and two different types of apartment blocks.The simulation programs Enorm and VIP+ have been used to calculate the energy demand of the buildings. The results from the programs have been compared with the measured energy demand for the three buildings.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there were any differences in how first-line managers within   municipal care   rated their management leadership qualities, and structural empowerment before and after the course in "leadership, learning and improvement". The study had a quasi-experimental design and 64 managers participated. There was a significant improvement in the LaMI factor ?Achievement orientation?, after participation in the course "leadership, learning and improvement". In other factors, there was no significant difference before and after training.

This report describes an bachelor thesis work which is performed in cooperation with SVIA that develops and sells automation solutions for the manufacturing industry. The thesis purpose was to evaluate the machine FeedLine to find opportunities for improvement in the product?s design that could lead to more standardization and thus improving the efficiency of manufacturing and assembly.Based on these basic issues suggestions for improvements were developed:How can the design of FeedLine be improved to facilitate the assembly?Can more standardization be imposed on FeedLine?s design to enable more stocking of standard components?An initial pre-study was conducted to evaluate FeedLine?s to find opportunities for improvement in its overall design. During the pre-study staff at SVIA and two of its clients was interviewed. Based on information gathered during the interviews and observations by the authors improvements was amendments.

This report discusses a method to detect divers in harbour environments usingpassive acoustic detection. The goal was to achieve as high detection as possiblewithout having too high false alarm rate. A short execution time was also desirable.By using the characteristic of an inhalation a band-pass filter was applied to the signalto improve the signal to noise ratio. After the filtering an energy estimation of thesignal was made. This energy estimation was later used in a frequency analysis, whichcould tell us if there were enough energy in the frequencies that correspond to adivers breathing frequency.

The primary function of a mixer is to keep a fluid in constant motion. All mixing applicationsrequire varying degrees of small-scale turbulence and bulk flow. The performance of asubmersible mixer is measured by the thrust that it produces, while the strength of the bulkflow is dependent on the total amount of installed thrust.In a mixer, the fluid quickly flows past the propeller, and as a result, the current is mainlyaxial. The fluid will also obtain a rotating velocity, or a swirl, though this is significantly lessthan that of the propeller. During the process, the total amount of energy increases in the formof static pressure and kinetic energy.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

In a time when milk producing farm businesses face decline in profitability it is of great importance to examine how the situation can be improved. This thesis is a study off efficiency in milk producing farm businesses represented by Swedish, Dutch and German farms. The aim of this study is to investigate whether any differences exist between companies in these countries. Moreover, the study includes a mapping of a number of factors that determine how efficient milk production can be managed. This mapping is based on a literature review on prior efficiency studies followed by qualitative interviews with milk production advisors as well as a questionnaire sent out to dairy farmers in Sweden.

The development within the textile industry is always ongoing with development of new andbetter textiles, which often mean the use of non-natural materials like polyester. This doesn?t lineup with the work shared around the world against an improved environment, so the idea came touse a form of linen fibers instead of polyester as the reinforcing material together with cotton.The idea was to use flax, linen of low quality, which is seen as a waste product and garbage inthe production of high quality linen and flax seed oil. This flax of low quality needs to beseparated before it can be used in cotton spinning machines. Fireball 2 is just that, a process toseparate flax fibers through the treatment of a technique called electrohydraulic discharge.The thesis works goal is to evaluate the Fireball 2 process ability to separate flax fiber.

Den här rapporten har skrivits som en del av ett examensarbete på energiingenjörsprogrammet på Högskolan i Halmstad under våren 2014. Examensarbetet har genomförts i samarbete med AB Färdig Betong samt ÅF Infrastructure AB i Göteborg.Syftet med projektet är att undersöka energibesparingspotentialen hos AB Färdig Betongs produktionsanläggning på Ringön i Göteborg.Projektet har inneburit en energikartläggning av en industriell produktionsanläggning för lösbetong. Utgångspunkt för energikartläggningen har varit energiledningssystemet ISO 50001, med målsättningen att ta fram en teknisk energikartläggningsrapport i enlighet med standarden.Anläggningen har analyserats ur ett energibesparingsperspektiv. Data- och informationsinsamling samt mätningar har genomförts för att ta fram indata som beräkningsunderlag. Genom beräkningar har sedan möjliga energibesparingspotentialer och åtgärdsförslag tagits fram.Den totala energibesparingspotentialen för anläggningen innebär en besparing på 223 MWh av anläggningens totala energianvändning på 857 MWh år 2013, vilket motsvarar en minskning med omkring 26 %.Allmänna slutsatser är bland annat att all produktionsutrustning bör placeras inom klimatskalet, att all uppvärmning bör vara temperaturreglerad samt att ett mer långsiktigt energiperspektiv behövs i anläggningen.Energibesparingsmöjligheterna för anläggningen är mycket goda och investeringskostnaderna är i allmänhet låga..

The ?civilized? world is in need of fossil fuel in order to function. Hybricon AB is a company in Umeå that is developing a technology that hopefully can reduce parts of this need. They are currently testing their two electrical busses (with Hybrid backup) in city traffic on the roads of Umeå in cooperation with the county of Umeå.                               The busses are originally diesel-busses, but the diesel motor has been replaced with two electrical hub-motors with a power of 145 kW each that are powered by batteries.The batteries are charged at the end station after each route. In case the batteries should run low on capacity during driving, they can be recharged by the so called genset.

In Sweden the real estate sector accounts for 33 % of energy consumption and just below 10 % of the emission of carbon dioxide. As a consequence of the external pressure from climate change it?s in everybody?s interest to reduce the energy consumption and thus reduce the emission of carbon dioxide. An additional incentive to reduce the energy consumption is the substantial increase of the energy price since the deregulation of the electricity market in 1996.In this study the techniques that exist to build multi-storey residential buildings with high energy performance will be investigated. Further the study intends to investigate the optimal energy performance from a real estate economic perspective.In order to investigate the optimal energy performance a model has been created with the parameters investment cost, rental revenues, operation and maintenance cost, discount rate and investment horizon.The result shows a relationship between a high investment cost and a high energy performance for newly constructed multi-storey residential buildings.