This degree project concludes the Innovation and Design Engineering programme at Karlstad University. The project was carried out by David Brocker, Erik Hallberg and Andreas Hertzman during the spring of 2006 and corresponded to 15 weeks of work per student. Assigner was Martin Larsson at Arexor and instructor at Karlstad University was Monica Jakobsson.Arexor has a patent to a construction of an electrical skirting board with moveable wall sockets, called Electrical Track System. The lowest parts of the interior walls along the floor are today almost always covered by a conventional skirting board. Arexors patented product replaces that with the possibility to move and increase the number of wall sockets by choice along an electrical skirting board.

The design of packages is something that product manufacturers put great effort on. The package is often the consumers' first interaction with a product and consumers judge the product based on the package. A common way to evaluate a package design is to let respondents look at a package and answer which attributes they think the product has. This paper wants to take this evaluation a step further, i.e. it examines if consumers experience differences in taste between two identical products that have different package designs.

The purpose of the study is to explain whether the introduction of a new and different brand by means of a brand extension affects consumers? perceptions of the product category that the brand is launched in. An experiment was carried out to study the following aspects: associations and constellations of associations to the product category, interest, perceived variation, and the perceived similarity with the category from which the brands were extended. In the study, brand breadth in the original product category was used as moderating variable. Aspects found to be affected by the brand extensions were associations to the product category, the constellations of these associations and the perceived similarity with the category from which the brands were extended.

The thesis strives to answer the question whether there are any differences between how young customers, in comparison with older, are affected by brands when buying different products. The purpose is to get a clearer idea about the brands' importance in the future and in that way also to give guidance to companies about how to best market themselves and there products.To answer the question, an experiment was conducted with 480 respondents taking a survey where they had to rate a product after reading a short text about it. Some of the texts stated that a specific brand was behind the product while some said the product was produced by an unknown brand.The result of the study was that young people showed a greater propensity of rating products with a brand higher than products without brands, in comparison with the older respondents. This gives reason to believe that brands progressively will become an even more important tool for marketers and an unmatched asset for companies in the future..

In a society where adults set the conditions for children?s play and generate modern and at times technically advanced products, fundamental characteristics like simplicity, opportunities for motor skills training and learning tend to be neglected. Owing to this, the Linköping-based company Time In wants to introduce a new multifunctional product, which differs from other products in shape and function and lives up to the often overlooked, basic characteristics in a toy.With Time In as the assigner, the purpose of this master thesis has been to use simple means to produce a "learning by playing" concept. Since Time In sells toys and products suitable for children in nurseries and preschools, the development of the products has therefore included a study of nursery and preschool environments.The thesis has been carried out within the Product Design subject area at the Department of Management and Engineering at Linköping University. Concept development has been done in three phases: the Preparation phase, the Design phase and the Presentation phase.

This report aims to describing the work behind the development of a masonry heater.The masonry heater is developed in collaboration with the company Transient Design KB that is a product development company located in Alingsås. The company sees a possibility to cover a market segment where modern technology and design are missing.The report presents those methods and approaches that have been used and gives an overview to how the project has been carried out. It describes how the ideas behind the final results have produced and how they have been developed during the project's time. In the report you can also read about the final concept with its choices of construction and materials.The report is completed with a presentation of a final concept and a ground for possible future production..

This master thesis is an early concept development project about using plastic films and sheets as materials for shaping openings for Tetra Pak packages. It is also a technical introduction highlighting the areas of importance for the development of plastic film and sheets openings. The master thesis has been carried out as a co-operation between Chalmers University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Tetra Pak AB.The master thesis study presents an introduction that gives an understanding of the technical complexities and design possibilities of using thin plastic films and sheets in liquid carton openings. The knowledge is then transferred into five design concepts which points out the areas of opportunity. The technical introduction is widespread and extensive covering current packing trends, the liquid carton package and openings, thermoplastic material properties, and thin film and sheet manufacturing and shaping.

This report is the concluding part of the course national minorities, main focus on design, at Luleå University of Technology spring 2007. The purpose of this written examination is to produce a prototype to a product, which can be used both when marketing Kiruna as a student municipality and when recruiting students to the study programmes Kiruna offers. The product has been produced through systematic problem solving, where methods to fix the problem, gather facts, examine and come to a solution have been used. The product should in one way or another get the student to think of Kiruna as a student municipality and it should also appeal to the target group ? the students.

Emhart Glass is the world?s leading manufacturer of equipment, controls and components to the glass container industry. The goal of this project has been to identify improvements and propose cost saving solutions when moving one of Emhart Glass work cells in Sundsvall. The changes shall result in improved work environment and increased product quality. The method contains value stream mapping, concept selection and P-FMEA and complies with Emhart Glass goal to become a more Lean focused business.

The aim of this essay is to find some of the main developing tendencies in the advertisement genre during the period of 1930-2000. The analysis is based on three examples of Gevalia cinema and TV-advertisement. Research findings are the result of using theories from different but relevant sciences, which are media, linguistics and rhetoric. Media studies help to explain the influence of the society and technology development on the advertising business. Linguistics and rhetoric give the main methods and terminology for the basic as well as comparing analyses of the three advertisements in question.

Det har blivit allt dyrare att bygga i Sverige, den svenska byggnadsindustrin har halkat efter övrig producerande industri och byggföretagen måste börja tänka i nya banor om de ska klara de nya utmaningarna. Lean-tänkande har länge nyttjats inom den tillverkande industrin och byggföretag har på senare år börjat snegla på dessa koncept i syfte att öka sin produktivitet. Problemet är att byggindustrin inte har homogena produktionsmiljöer och därmed inte kan använda samma lean-koncept som exempelvis bilindustrin. Därför har ett nytt koncept som kallas Lean construction utvecklats som bygger på ett antal principer från traditionella produktionssynsätt (Koskela, 2000). Konceptet är relativt nytt och forskningen inom området har främst fokuserat på lösningar på specifika problem istället för att skapa förståelse för konceptets helhet.

Today's fierce competition means that companies constantly must develop their business and internal processes. Focus on processes and continuous improvement is something that characterizes Lean Production which ICA logistics are applying with their concept Leading Logistics. Standardized routines for handling damaged gods were insufficient at the ICA distribution center in Kungälv. Handling and registration of damaged gods were not performed uniformly, resulting in problems with controlling and monitoring the process.The purpose of this thesis was to analyze and make recommendations how the process of internal handling of damaged gods could be improved. Therefore a comprehensive understanding was needed of the entire material flow through the warehouse and important quality aspects such as product safety and delivery reliability.The methods used are literature reviews, interviews and observations to produce a comprehensive process mapping of the current situation at the distribution center.

Fallstudiens syfte är att skapa en förståelse för hur man kan identifiera ekonomiska förluster samt förbättra det interna produktionsflödet med rekommenderade förbättringsåtgärder. Målsättningen är att skapa en modell som kan hjälpa SMF att förbättra sin produktion. Modellen ska sen testas empiriskt i fallföretaget och tillsammans med den noggrant utvalda teorin generera en nulägesanalys som ska sammanställa faktorer som är väsentliga att studera för att förbättra produktionen.Nyckelord:Produktionsflöde, Kartläggning, Modellutveckling, Lean produktion, Produktionsutveckling, SMF.

Bakgrund:Företagens villkor utifrån ett konkurrensperspektiv ändras idag fortare än någonsin och möjligheterna att nå framgång bygger i högre grad på en förmåga att förutse, anpassa sig till och agera på omvärldens snabbt föränderliga krav. Flertalet forskare redogör för att företags lednings- och styrkoncept måste förändras för att tillgodose de behov som den moderna globala marknadens dynamik ställer. De senaste decennierna har Lean och Agile trätt fram som två lednings- och styrkoncept som vunnit i popularitet och anammats av många företag som önskar effektivisera sin verksamhet. Både Lean och Agile använts främst inom produktion och det finns relativt lite forskning kring hur dessa två lednings- och styrmodeller appliceras inom andra verksamhetsområden samt hur de kan kombineras.Syfte:Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur ledningsgrupper inom en global IT- organisation använder sig av och kombinerar Lean och Agile, samt hur ledningsgrupperna upplever att detta påverkar deras arbetssätt och leveransförmåga.Metod:Studien är genomförd i form av en kvalitativ fallstudie av företaget Volvo IT. Insamling av data har skett via intervjuer med representanter för olika ledningsgrupper inom Volvo IT samt genom att sitta med vid möten och föra anteckningar och via insamlad dokumentation från websidor och intern företagsinformation.Slutsats:Resultaten visar på att Lean och agila arbetssätt tycks fungera bra ihop och kompletterar varandra väl.

This report is the result of a thesis work in Integrated Product Development, regarding hygienic features in dishwashers and especially disinfection by the use of steam.The thesis is performed at Electrolux Primary Development Dishcare in Stockholm and in collaboration with the Department of Machine Design at the Royal Institute of Technology.The targets of the thesis are to prove the advantages of a technology suitable to implement as a hygienic feature inside a dishwasher and to realize a functional prototype of a differentiated hygienic feature that does not exist on the market today.The process followed to perform the thesis is the process defined for Electrolux Primary Development.The technology chosen for development is disinfection by heating the water on the surface of the dishware, by the use of steam.A number of tests on how steam behaves when injected into the dishwasher tub have been performed, providing the results that have been taken in consideration when designing the prototype.The prototype consists of a pipe system provided with nozzles to eject the steam into the upper parts of the dishwasher. Tests of the final prototype show that thermal disinfection of water in a dedicated area of the tub can be reached within 9 minutes. The operation requires 0,17 liters of water and consumes 0.2kWh..