The cost of transportation has strongly increased in the recent years, transportations which are a major part for the construction companies. Skanska Asphalt which is a part of Skanska Sverige AB has noticed that there are significant cost savings to be made with the purchasing of transports. The transports in this case is about asphalt, where the costs are about 10% of the outsourcing business turnover. The purpose of this thesis is to study the working practice that Skanska Asphalt are using today in controlling and time-writing, for the asphalt transportations. Resulting in recommendations on how to improve the working practice at Skanska Asphalt.This study was conducted with the help of a number of interviews with Skanska?s employees and with suppliers of transportation to describe the practices which are being used in during the asphalt transportation.

Title: Management control of facility efficiency in municipalities - A case study of Halmstad municipalityLevel: BachelorSeminar date: 2012-05-31Authors: Markus Nilsson & Sara MattssonAdvisor: Sven-Ola CarlssonKey words: Control management in municipality, facility efficiency, management by objectives, internal rents and incentivesBackground: The public sector owns and manages a large property portfolio and in the municipalities, the properties are always a big cost item. Because of the outside world changes and the public interest, the properties should be used as efficiently as possible.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how control management of facilities looks like a municipality. The paper also seeks to explain how employees work to make the facilities more efficient in a municipality.Methodology: The authors use a qualitative method with open interviews.Theoretical perspectives: The choice of theory was made with the field of management control and facility efficiency in mind. The theory therefore includes management by objectives, internal rents and reward systems, motivation and communication within organizations.Empirical foundation: The organization has undergone a reorganization 2010/2011. There are no clear incentives to reduce facility costs.

The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate the effect of introducing the qualitystandard ISO 9001:2000 at Metso Paper Service in Sundsvall. The investigation has been focused on implementation of the new method of work, Continuous improvements. The implementation has been studied in a case study with both a qualitative and quantitative method. Continuous Improvements is a way of working focused on continuously increasing the efficiency and having the purpose of achieving the formulated goals. This is often accomplished by the organisation carrying out the changing process to a great extent in small but efficient teams.

Bygglovsprocessen är en vital del i den totala byggprocessen eftersom ett bygglov är nödvändigt i nästan alla fall av nybyggnation och större renoveringar. I dagens samhälle där byggprocessen är under utveckling och allt större tidspress finns så är bygglovsprocessen ofta en flaskhals innan bygget kan påbörjas. Därför behöver bygglovsprocessen utvecklas för att bli effektivare.Syftet med denna undersökning att utreda vad tidigare kunder hos Stadsbyggnadskontoret (SBK) Göteborg anser om bygglovshanteringen. Utifrån de resultat som erhålls presenteras vilka delar i bygglovsprocessen som kan förbättras och effektiviseras. Dessutom ges förslag på förändringar för att uppnå detta.Kundundersökningen genomfördes med en enkät som skickades ut via e-post till kunder som fått godkänt bygglov i februari 2014.

The purpose of this project is to study Partab's material distribution process, furthermore identify critical problem areas within the company. Further the aim is to provide suggestions to new work procedures regarding material distribution and related processes. Appropriate literature has been used as a support in this process. The main goal of a commercial company is to generate cash flow, and maximize the return on investment. Streamlining material supply and the use of material is a part of this process. Virum and Persson define logistics as: "Logistics is the approach and principles founding the process of planning, development, coordination, organisation, management, and control of material distribution from supplier to user".

This paper aims to examine how and to what extent, a transition of Sweden according to the principles of Omställning Sverige (Transition towns Sweden), have the potential to contribute to a society with increased happiness.The paper is based on a qualitative textual analysis of the key texts in the Swedish Transition towns movement, Omställning Sverige. In the first part of the study the most important transition principles of Omställning Sverige were identified. Four key principles emerged: An altered view of economics, a spiritual change, a stronger local community and increased awareness. These transition principles were then analyzed through the lens of the scientific fields position on happiness, followed by a summarizing conclusion.The altered view of economics which Omställning Sverige advocates, where sustainability and quality of life are priorities over economic growth, is even necessary to secure our basic physiological needs. Such an economy has also improved conditions for economic stability, high employment and higher efficiency in the sense of happiness promoted in relationship to how many natural resources are used.

Energy efficiency has become a very topical issue that has been discussed throughout the European Union for preventing negative environmental impacts that have been associated with the consumption of energy. In the residential sector have mainly municipalities set strict requirements for the reduction of energy consumption while the renewable energy has been asked. Different concepts of low-energy buildings have been developed to reduce the cost of operation and maintenance in existing buildings such as in new ones.This thesis has aimed to minimize the energy cost of a large building which has had low energy consumption features originally. Energy reviews has been initiated in order to be able for showing how the house electricity could be carried out even more efficiently.The work was initiated through a literature study to clearly increase the reliability on the energy subject. Different concepts of low-energy buildings have been treated in connection with its specifications, afterward those have been compared with the obtained results.

Title: Management control of facility efficiency in municipalities - A case study of Halmstad municipalityLevel: BachelorSeminar date: 2012-05-31Authors: Markus Nilsson & Sara MattssonAdvisor: Sven-Ola CarlssonKey words: Control management in municipality, facility efficiency, management by objectives, internal rents and incentivesBackground: The public sector owns and manages a large property portfolio and in the municipalities, the properties are always a big cost item. Because of the outside world changes and the public interest, the properties should be used as efficiently as possible.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how control management of facilities looks like a municipality. The paper also seeks to explain how employees work to make the facilities more efficient in a municipality.Methodology: The authors use a qualitative method with open interviews.Theoretical perspectives: The choice of theory was made with the field of management control and facility efficiency in mind. The theory therefore includes management by objectives, internal rents and reward systems, motivation and communication within organizations.Empirical foundation: The organization has undergone a reorganization 2010/2011. There are no clear incentives to reduce facility costs.

AbstractMaster thesis in Business Administration, School of Business and Economics at Linneaus UniversityAuthors: Patrik Larsson and Pontus GislénSupervisor: Håkan LockingExaminer: Sven-Olof CollinTitle: The index effect- a study on Nasdaq OMXS30 and OMXH25Introduction: A significant part of the financial literature is based on the Efficient Market Hypothesis which assumes that prices in the market reflects all available information. Anomalies, such as the index effect, indicate weaknesses in this theory as it has been proved that it is possible to outperform the market using public information. Hence, the index effect can be linked to market efficiency which makes it interesting to study from a theoretical perspective. The mapping of the index effect is also interesting from a practical perspective, as it leads to a better understanding of whether investors and firms should take this anomaly into account.Problem: Is there an index effect, how does it behave and what can explain this effect?Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the index effect.

The level of increased central government that we have experienced during the last decades in school, for the purpose of increasing equality and to adapt the Swedish school to a certain international standard, clearly shows that increased control scarcely leads to improvement.The aim of this paper is to examine whether teachers believe that national tests contribute to equivalent assessment and increased goal attainment. Furthermore the teachers? attitude towards and work with national tests is described. The paper is written from a school improvement perspective, where good examples from current research on what creates increased quality in school meaning increased goal attainment and equivalent assessment are related to research on school effectiveness and increased testing in schools. The study builds upon a quantitative survey among teachers in upper primary - and secondary school in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden.The result shows that the teachers have a somewhat more positive than negative attitude towards national tests, as a whole.

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.

With the end of the Cold War the number of conflicts where the United Nations have intervened has increased dramatically. This has entailed a need for a burden-sharing between the UN and regional organizations regarding management of conflicts. The aim of this study is to make a comparative analysis of the effectiveness and the efficiency in the efforts undertaken by ECOWAS and the UN during the civil war in Sierra Leone, through using theories on conflict resolution and the advantages of regional organizations in conflict resolution.My conclusion is that both ECOWAS and the UN were quite successful in managing the conflict and had an impact on the resolution of the war, although both peace operations suffered from internal problems. ECOWAS was effective in managing the conflict and in its mediating efforts as an insider from the region. The UN was more efficient in managing to attain their goals.

District heating covers around 80 % of the heating demand in apartment buildings and 10 % in single-family homes in Sweden. In the year 2010 the total input of energy to the Swedish district heating grids was about 70 TWh, which corresponds to 11 % of the total energy input to the whole energy system in the country. Through the combined production of heat and power the CHP-plants often reaches an efficiency of 90 % from energy in the fuel to produced heat and power. In order to keep the efficiency high it is important for the owners of the plant to have good knowledge about the plants performance at different operation points. Strängnäs Energi AB initiated this diploma work together with FVB Sverige ab in order to come up with a program for short term planning of the production of heat and power at the company´s CHP-plant.The work consists of three main parts.

The forests of Sweden are constantly changing. Map studies indicate that the amount of deciduous trees in Sweden has decreased in recent years in favor of the coniferous trees. The National Forest Inventory has since the early 1920s monitored the Swedish forests and in recent years has made the old data digitally available. In the present project, we have investigated how the numbers of stems in different diameter classes have changed for birch and other deciduous trees. The inventory was conducted in the same manner as in the first forest inventory.

Executive SummaryThis final thesis has examined the effects of an increased centralization and better coord­in­ation of the distribution logistics at ABB in Västerås. The company is today strongly decent­ralized and there is a minimum of collaboration between the 20 business units. This is why the questions were raised; how could the business units coordinate outbound logistic activities and what effects would that provide. The obj­ect­ive of this final thesis is to provide basic data for a future decision-making which desc­r­ibe these effects.The report has mapped out the factors that are important to ABB in an evaluation of their logistic activities and how the outbound logistics work today. The four factors are cost efficiency, delivery service, environmental impact and logistics capability.