An increasing number of automotive supplier companies are investing in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in order to gain cost advantages. This has happened in a rapid pace since many of these countries did not have any foreign direct investments (FDI) at the turn of the century. The problem now is for how long these countries will be able to maintain the low costs. One purpose was to create a model of country advantages for automotive supplier companies when relocating further production to CEE. This dissertation was written in cooperation with the Trelleborg Group.

This thesis aims to examine the possibility of understanding social change by using new institutionalism approaches on a specific case, The case, which describes the implementation of new public management reform in the Swedish health care system, is analysed from two separate new institutionalismperspectives; the tool perspective and the symbol perspective. These approaches differ from one another in the sense that the first relies on a rational choice ontology, while the latter rather refers to a sociological tradition. In the analysis, causal explanations as well as aim related explanations are presented. Formative moments such as economic stagnation, non-socialist governments and ideological isomorfism are presented as important factors behind the reformation. By using the tool perspective, the motives of the idea spreading and reformation of the Swedish health care system, are connected to a strictly rationalbasis such as cost efficiency and quality improvements.

This report was performed in order to evaluate a new technological measure and focuses generally on a heat pump system to a HWC-washing machine. The client is Asko Appliances AB, a company well known for its environmentally friendly products. The goal of this study was to improve the energy efficiency of a washing machine by combining a heat pump device to the heater of the wash water, in order to reduce the energy consumed for heating the water. Besides reducing the energy consumption in heating the water, the washing machine was required to meet low noise and short operating time specifications. For that purpose, nine trials in three test series have been carried out.

What role does the state play in economic development? This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between a strong state and economic development. To define the concept of a strong state I focus on the relationship between the scope of state functions and the efficiency of which these functions are implemented. The concept of a strong state is in this thesis defined as the efficiency of the state functions. By using a database constructed by three economists; David Kaufman, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi as a measurement of a strong state I test the relationship with economic development empirically.

Previous research in the field of consumer marketing has confirmed the positive effects of divergence on advertising efficiency. Despite the coherent evidence, some industries lag in the adoption of these findings, one of which is the Swedish real estate market. Divergence has not been elaborately investigated within said context and this paper addresses the need of actionable insights for housing advertising. Starting with the proven success of housing firm Fantastic Frank who work with detail photos in contrast to the common wide angle, this paper examines theoretical implications of detail photos' characteristics. Besides being divergent, detail photos are also ambiguous which renders access to effects related to visual perception.

Vattenfall Heat Uppsala runs the waste incineration plant in Uppsala, which produces district heating, process steam, district cooling and electricity. Vattenfall Heat Uppsala has decided to introduce an energy management system with the aim to increase the energy efficiency of the plant. The basis in such a system is to make an energy mapping.In this thesis an energy mapping has been performed at the waste incineration plant with the aim to identify and determine the size of energy flows. The investigated energy flows are used fuel, produced and used steam, produced district heating and cooling. Also the use of electricity to run the processes has been investigated.

When models are used to describe physical phenomenon during development or modification of a technical system, it is often possible to reduce both the time needed and the overall development cost. With the use of models it is also possible to investigate the potential of the selected solution, without the need for any expensive details and testrigs. In many cases it is also not possible to test all the aspects regarding the functionality that are desired from the system, without using the complete and final product.In this case a model based approach has been used to optimize the different parameters in the new snubbing mechanism for the Nose Landing Gear Retract Actuator on the JAS39 Gripen.During the simulations, upper and lower boundaries were calculated for the length of the spring and the diameter for the restrictor. The governing constraints were given by the requirements for the retraction time during cold conditions and that the amplitude of the alternating loads in the uplock mechanism were brought to an acceptable level.The most promising results from the simulations were then used in a limited number of trials in the hydraulic rig to verify that the configurations comply with the requirements.The final parameters for the snubbing mechanism were chosen to 35±1mm for the spring and 0.4-0.5 mm diameter for the restrictor..

Sweden?s health care is continuously subjected to economical cutbacks, which results in enormous workloads. To prevent problems that arise in these situations, it is of great importance to take measures to increase the efficiency of the working process. This goal can be obtained by increasing our knowledge of the body, under both normal and sickly conditions. That is, by sharing knowledge of the various medical service units within Stockholm?s county council and thus elaborates diagnostics.

AbstractElectricity consumption is a globally increasing problem caused by the high share of electricity produced in coal power plants. These contribute to high carbon emissions when only about 1/3 of the heat generate electricity and the remaining 2/3 of the heat cools off. Combined heat and power plants (CHP) have high efficiency because they use the residual heat for domestic heating. The CHP plant often use fuels from renewable resources, giving them a lower carbon footprint, but are also depending on the heat demand. If electric powered products such as drying cabinets convert to heat powered products more environmentally friendly electricity will be produced by CHP plants, which can supplant electricity, produced from coal power plants and reduce carbon emissions.

Sammanfattning- ?Tids- och arbetseffektivitet i ett konsultföretag ? jämförelse mellan Lean och HighWay?Nivå: Magisteruppsats i hållbar verksamhetsutveckling och management, 15 HPInstitution: Akademin för ekonomi, samhälle och teknik, EST, VästeråsNyckelord: Tidseffektivitet, arbetseffektivitet och LeanFrågeställning: Hur skiljer sig effektiviteten i arbetet mellan de två systemen Lean och HighWay och skulle det vara en fördel för Hallvarson & Halvarson (H&H) att byta till Lean? Hur skiljer sig tids- och arbetseffektiviteten åt inom de två olika systemen?Syfte: Syftet med studien är att ta reda på om Lean, som från början var utvecklat för produktionssektorn, skulle kunna vara ett mer framgångsrikt system än HighWay för ett tjänsteföretag som konsultföretaget Hallvarsson & Halvarsson.Metod: Informationen har hämtats från vetenskaplig artiklar och litteratur samt internetsidor. Undersökningen bestod av två intervjuer, med system ägaren och VD på Hallvarsson & Halvarsson. Intervjuerna bestod av personliga möten.Slutsats: Förbättringsförslag för ökad effektivitet redovisas, där ett av förslagen är att HighWay skulle kunna införa en process- och kvalitetsövervakande roll med syfte att säkerställa ständigt och omedelbart förbättringsarbete för att uppnå perfektion likt Jidoka-principen..

Background: During the 2000s, there has been an increased interest in studying business management and strategy implementation with customer focus in public organisations. To achieve business goals it is important to continuously work with strategies to meet customerdemands for increased efficiency and service. Purpose: The aim of the essay is to examine how to work on strategy implementation in a municipal real estate company from a management perspective in order to achieve overall goals. Method: The study?s methodology is a case study based on qualitative telephone interviews that were conducted with representatives in managerial positions from various levels of the company. The choice of the qualitative data was considered relevant in relation to the chosen topic of the thesis. The empirical data was then compared to the theoretical framework of the thesis. Results: Strategies guide the company to achieve the overall goals, which are later on broken down into operational targets.

An Internet application, VEDAIR, for estimation of air quality in regions with small-scale combustion of bio fuel has been developed by Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute with financing from Swedish Energy Agency and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The model contains user interface and a coupled model concept where concentrations of atmospheric pollutions are calculated for regional, urban and local contributions. In this report the model is described and a first study of air quality considering PM10 (particles with a diameter less than 10 µm) in two Swedish municipalities, Vänersborg and Gnosjö, is introduced.According to the result, there are areas with poor air quality even in smaller Swedish municipalities, mostly due to high emission from buildings with older wood heating furnace without hydraulic accumulator.In Vänersborg three areas were analysed in VEDAIR for the year 2003: Vargön, Mariedal and the downtown district. In the whole municipality the upper evaluation threshold for PM10, which is defined as 14 µg/m3 for annual average, was exceeded due to background contribution of particles. In all areas, however, the concentrations of PM10 were less than the environmental quality norms.

The Swedish Armed Forces is a public institution and consequently obliged to follow Swedish and international legislation. Thus, they are subjected to contrarious demands from different actors operating in its high-technological and high-institutional environment: to be a legitimate institution and at the same time operate with a high level of efficiency. This thesis is conducted with the aim of investigating whether The Swedish Armed Forces' steering document for gender equality is used to achieve visible and quantifiable results or if the document constitute a medium for reverberating legitimacy. To answer the research question, we applied a critical discourse analysis on the relevant documents and on the conducted semi-constructed interviews with members from different levels and positions in the organizational hierarchy. Subsequently, we came to the conclusion that the Swedish Armed Forces manage the demands for efficiency and legitimacy, which are forced upon them from the technological and institutional environment, by talking about them.

Energy consumption is at present a major political issue, and numerous projects that comprise many nations are currently in process to increase energy efficiency and bring down energy dependency. As a member state of the EU, Sweden now faces the challenge of implementing substantial energy-saving measures until the year 2016. One of these measures is the project ?Green Islands? financed by the EU that intend on creating sustainable islands in areas around the Baltic Sea. The Archipelago Foundation leads the project that concerns the Stockholm archipelago, where focus has been placed upon decreasing energy usage in businesses and services on Utö among other islands.

Our Bachelor´s Thesis has been performed in co-operation with Bors Automation & Tool AB.Our task was to develop a servomotor powered tube cutting-machine with initial point fromtoday's hydraulic driven tube cutting machine Bors HYD 23. The purpose with the newconstruction was to achieve a more power-efficient tube cutting machine which could lowerthe power consumption, and also meet the market continued growing demand forenvironmental-conscious production.Bors Automation & Tool gave us relatively free hands in order to enable new thinking ideaswithout following their traditional constructional solutions.Our solution resulted in a construction based on a power source existing of a servomotordrivenrollerscrew, witch provides a more rational use of energy compared with the currentmethod.Bors Automation & Tool AB has decided to fabricate a prototype of Bors E 23 during theautumn of 2007, which they are planning to revile at the Tube 2008 exhibition in Düsseldorf,Germany.NOTE:Due to an agreement signed by the authors in the beginning of this project, no appendix is published at this time.If you want to wiew these documents, please contact the authors..