Due to an increasing global market with a growing competition and an escalating technologydevelopment the demands on companies today are increasing. To maximise the output fromtheir recourses they need to be more efficient. The research on product development and how toensure the efficiencies in the process are extensive and companies could by adapting andimplementing the result of this research use its benefits.This master thesis is made for Knightec AB with the aims that through interviews anddiscussions with three companies investigate, collate, justify and give proposals for productdevelopment process together with supporting methods and procedures for technical projectmanagement. Besides Knightec AB three other companies located in Sweden has beenparticipating in this study. Through semi structured interviews and discussions in focus groupsinformation from the three involved companies were obtained.

User friendly and usable are two words that are often mentioned in the context of marketing new products. By doing so it adds an extra sense of quality to the product. The meaning of these words is therefore something that every product wants. But what is it that makes a product usable and user friendly? What methodology exists formaking sure that a product is usable? Does it exist applicable processes to ensure user centered development? These questions together with a practical example are parts of what will be addressed in this report.The thesis was carried out for C2 Management, a company that works with supporting other companies in their work with quality and constant improvements.

This case study has been conducted within the Swedish fitness chain World Class to explore the opportunities for knowledge development and transfers within franchise networks. We have interviewed the product manager at the World Class headquarter, the owner of a franchise club and a local product manager from the same facility. Our finding indicates that various forms of knowledge transfer occur within the World Class network, particularly in product development and sales. The transfer occurs within the framework set by World Class with regularly scheduled meetings. In addition informal networks provide other means of knowledge exchange between some units.

Although Lean has received an increased amount of attention in the service context, research still has not established how successfully Lean manages to increase service productivity; since service productivity consists of both efficiency and quality. Research regarding productivity discusses the risk of a tradeoff between efficiency and quality in service production processes. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore if the tradeoff in a production setting with low variability in demand and low customer participation exists, after Lean has been implemented. With a qualitative approach, a case study has been conducted at Scandinavian Airlines Ground Handling to evaluate the effects of Lean in the baggage handling process. The result of the study shows that the tradeoff has not been overcome; efficiency has increased at the expense of quality.

Den japanska industrins intresse under efterkrigstiden för ? denav Henry Ford (1863?1947) förädlade ? löpande bandsteknikenframbringade Toyotas Production System (TPS). Japanernasförfinade automationstanke väckte uppmärksamhet på denamerikanska bilmarknaden, vilket ledde till att TPS under 80-talet blev föremål för forskningsprojekt vars utkomst blev Lean.Från att ha utvecklats för fordonsindustri återfinns i Sverige idagexempel på alltifrån kommunstyren till sjukvården somassimilerat Lean som verksamhetsstyrande metod.Trots att några av de mer basala principerna bakom Lean ärenkelhet och tydlig kommunikation tenderar västerländskaföretag som implementerar Lean köpa konceptet, och med dettaanvändande av engelska och japanska termer eller akronymer iorganisationens vardag, rakt av. Arbetets syfte är att undersökahuruvida användningen av dessa termer på svensk- ellerengelskspråkiga företag på något sätt motverkar eller försvårarimplementeringen och förståelsen för Leans grundläggandefilosofi: Uppkommer det inom en organisation begreppsförvirringvid användandet av Leans terminologi?Studien är utförd vid tre Lean-implementerande organisationer avolika karaktär, genom intervjuer med Lean-ledare ochkvalitetschefer samt kortintervjuer av medarbetare.Resultatet visar att det vid en Lean-implementering, och arbetetefter det, förekommer förvirring och missanvändning av olikaverktyg och begrepp inom Lean.

In today's producing companies, there is a high demand on early integrated productdevelopment. One way to facilitate communication between departments and collaborationbetween people and thereby enable early sharing of product information within the companyis to use PLM, Product Lifecycle Management.The CAD environment at Scania is at the moment being upgraded from Catia v4 to Catiav5. In this stage it is important that also the interacting computer systems in Scania?s PLMenvironment are adjusted and in the future join the development. Scania has an idea of howthese systems will be developed as the transition from Catia v4 to Catia v5 is being carriedout.

AbstractOur purpose for making this study is to study the implementation, the use of and the effects of Lean within our case objects.  We chose to make this thesis by case studies. The three themes mentioned above is also the main research questions that we aim to find an answer to by this study. We have chosen to do a cross section analysis where we conducted structured interviews to find answers to these questions. The theoretical reference frame consists partly of traditional theoreticians within Lean but also more recent research within the subject as well as theory specifically for Lean within the Health Care sector.The result of this study shows in all our case studies that the Management has been supporting the implementation, but that the implementation process proceeds faster if also the professionals are involved in the process.  To succeed with the implementation there is a great need for good reasons and strives that can benefit the professionals. By the use of Lean our case studies have evaluated its processes, with the main intentions being to reduce waste activities and to create flows with ?pull systems?.

This essay deals with the principle of surprise warfare and its development as well as the adaptation of military action that had to be made to surprise the opponent in the modern era.The concept of surprise is divided into its components in order to clarify what is required to implement a surprising maneuver, to understand the complex concept and form a theoretical framework for gathering facts in the case study.Development and adaption are demonstrated by a comparative case study where Pearl Harbor illustrates an example of historical surprise and Operation Desert Storm illustrates a modern surprise. The product will then be analyzed in order to detect the development and how military conduct is forced to adapt in order to carry out a surprising maneuver. The results shows that the military action of performing a surprise attack has had a major development and is now carried out in a different stage of the attack..

From the customer?s perspective the only reason for a firm to exist is the value it creates. However, a problem within manufacturing companies is that of the total lead time, only a small part can be considered as value adding. It has further been discovered that when working with improvements businesses often sub-optimizes single processes instead of considering what benefits the entire company. Thus, when improving processes and activities it is important to have knowledge about and understand which factors that affect how the flow can be designed.Several studies have been performed with a wide perspective on process flows in order to obtain a more resource-efficient and value added flow.

This paper is about the new methods and metrics used in industry and business today striving for better revenues and larger market shares. It investigates the relations between the old fordistic and tayloristic way of manufacturing and compares it to the models used in industry today for being competitive, seeking to please customers and becoming more flexible. More specific the paper is about if Six Sigma and lean production are the key for succeeding these days. SKF:s factory in Gothenburg and other companies will make an example for how these methods are used in practice.The aim is to try to answer if these systems with inherited tools and methods are the right way to get the flexibility that is needed for being able to deliver the right goods to customers and market. For a company to be flexible decisions must be made fast and needed changes must be able to be done easy and without too large costs and investments.

Migrationsverket har sedan 2010 arbetat med att införa lean som arbetssätt i hela sin organisation. Lean härleds ofta historiskt till Toyotas styrsystem Toyota Production System, och har till största delen använts inom privata organisationer där effektivitet, produktivitet och ekonomiska värden varit de huvudsakliga målen. Ur ett statsvetenskapligt perspektiv är det därför av vikt att undersöka leans förmåga att även beakta de demokratiska värden som en offentlig verksamhet har att ta hänsyn till. Genom att intervjua handläggare och teamledare på Migrationsverkets mottagningsenhet i Boden om deras erfarenheter och upplevelser av lean som arbetssätt samt genom att studera deras interna arbetsmaterial har min ansats med denna uppsats varit att ge en bild av huruvida lean är ett lämpligt arbetssätt för offentlig verksamhet och om medarbetarna upplever att implementeringen av lean förändrar synen på värdena effektivitet och legitimitet i praktiken. Resultatet från denna undersökning visar att det finns ett starkt stöd för leans teoretiska förmåga att underlätta för medarbetarna att stärka rättssäkerheten samtidigt som arbetssättet ökar effektiviteten.

Statistik har visat att byggbranschens byggnationskostnader i Sverige har ökat de senaste åren. Dessa kostnader beror enligt Josephson & Saukkorippi på kvalitetsproblem och kostnader för omprojektering, samt att det i nuläget görs aktiviteter som inte tillför något kundvärde. Ett arbetsmoment som idag är en viktig del hos många byggföretag är arbetsberedning. Syftet med arbetsberedningen är att hitta den optimala metoden att utföra ett moment på. Grunden till uppslaget är att Peab anser att det råder brister i deras nuvarande arbetsberedning. Intervjuer och enkätundersökning har gjorts för att kartlägga eventuella brister i Peabs arbetsberedning samt deras synsätt på Lean..

The Toyota Production System (TPS) har utvecklats av Toyota och har varit ett medel för dem att förbättra effektivitet och kvalitet. TPS är både en filosofi och en uppsättning metoder och verktyg. Många tillverkande företag har valt att gå i Toyotas fotspår och TPS har i stor utsträckning konkurrerat ut de massproducerande systemen. Det här produktionssystemet har blivit känt i världen som Lean production. Sektorer bortom tillverkningsindustrin har börjat tillämpa Lean-principerna och bland annat så har den växande tjänstesektorn börjat arbeta med Lean.

This report presents the results of a thesis in which the department PL Hus at Grontmij AB isstudied. The study has been done in order to locate problem areas in order to streamline andimprove the quality of working. The study was done by an engineering student from theDepartment of Industrial Management at KTH on behalf of Grontmij AB. The project extendedover a period of 20 weeks during spring 2011.In addition to the Department itself has two project managers in two different projects beenfollowed. The method used has been participant observation and was used to be able to comeclose to reality and thus find problem areas where there are opportunities for development.Validation was made through comments and opinions from workers at Grontmij AB, afterreading the reports analysis.Based on a system and holistic approach has parallels been drawn to the production systems suchas TPS (Toyota Production System) and lean production.

I en allt mer globaliserad värld ställs högre krav på företagens effektivitet och flexibilitet, detta har bland annat medfört stora satsningar på produktionsutveckling, vilket till slut föranlett lean production. På grund av att de traditionella styrsystemen inte anses vara användbara för företag som arbetar med lean production utvecklades lean accounting, som är ett relativt nytt koncept som anses ha utvecklats för att ta hänsyn till lean productions påverkan på hela verksamheten. Däremot kan företag inte anta att det enbart handlar om att hitta ett koncept och för att därefter tillämpa konceptet. Denna studie syftar därför till att beskriva hur ledningsgruppen i tillverkande SMF mottar lean accounting och att beskriva det första steget i utformningsprocessen hos tillverkande SMF. Detta har genomförts genom observationer med hög närvaro och även sintervjuer med en ledningsgrupps medlemmar på ett tillverkande SMF.