Bakgrund: Globala och nationella krav i "det nya arbetslivet", påverkar individen till att försöka upprätthålla en bred kompetens, flexibilitet i ett alltmer individualiserat samhälle. Den ökade ohälsan skapas av problem som otrygga arbetsförhållanden, en stressigare arbetsmiljö för både fast anställd och tillfällig arbetskraft. Personalens arbetsätt utkristalliseras på många olika sätt i verksamheterna, vilket får konsekvenser för det gemensamma arbetet och dess mål. Följden blir att var och en arbetar utifrån sin troliga teori och det vardagliga "praktiska" görandet tar över arbetet alltmer i verksamheten. Detta försvårar arbetet mot gemensamma mål, visionen om den teoretiska kunskapen har gått förlorad.

Saab Training Systems (STS) in Huskvarna is manufacturing material for educationalpurposes to armies worldwide. They are now implementing parts of the Lean productionconcept in their organisation.One part of the work with Lean production is to eliminate waste. To be able to identify waste,value stream mapping is a good tool and also what we used in our thesis. To gain a betterefficiency in the production of Personnel Detector Device (PDD) flow was one of our goals.The PDD is a harness used during battle training which registers if the user is being hit by itsenemy.Our work with the thesis started up with a short education in Lean production and in valuestream mapping (VSM). The work proceeded with a VSM of the production flow of the PDD,interviews were made and studies of literature were done to gain greater knowledge of thesubject and solve the task.The VSM resulted in five areas which were followed up out of those six we identified.

Background - Swedish trade and industry primarily involves small corporations, including small manufacturing corporations. Currently, most costing models that are used are based on studies accomplished at large corporations. This conveys to the fact that product costing that occurs at small manufacturing corporations is based on all complexities that large corporations bring, which rarely match with small corporations. It occurs that small manufacturing corporations unconsciously rely on incorrect information that has been calculated based on great corporations? product costing.

The most dominating type of company in Sweden is the small-sized business and it usually lacks its own marketing department. The purpose of this paper was to analyze several small Swedish businesses which are specialized in different sectors of the Mechanic/Technology industry but they are similar in terms of having niched products and they are leading companies in the world. The objective was to do research about how small businesses work with marketing despite its lack of resources and capital.This survey has shown that customer contacts, customer relationships and especially for those investigated companies, it was very important to focus on globalization and product development in order to build a Point of Difference..

The Swedish real estate market has experienced an intense increase of demand during the last ten years. Thus, people regularly visit real estate websites, as well as home improvement and interior design have become extremely popular. However, the Swedish real estate agencies still have not developed a theoretical framework on how to most effectively market the properties. The main purpose of this study was to investigate how interior in apartment advertising affects the buyer's interest in the apartment, and furthermore to start building a framework for how to effectively use interior as a marketing tool. The study connects theory regarding social identity, advertising effectiveness and product personality in order to investigate consumer behaviour in the real estate market.

?If we consume the product as a product, we consume its meaning through advertising? ? Jean BaudrillardSyftet med denna studie är att identifiera och analysera bakomliggande myter om lycka i kommersiella reklamfilmer, utifrån ett konstruktionistiskt perspektiv. Analysmodellen, som bygger på semiotik och neoformalism, genererade kunskap om de olika berättarstrukturerna kring lycka i de undersökta reklamfilmerna. Resultaten indikerade framförallt att berättarstrukturerna om lycka grundar sig i myter som är starkt kopplade till den kapitalistiska ideologin. Studien avser därmed att blottlägga och analysera myter om lycka i reklamfilmer ur ett kritiskt konstruktionistiskt perspektiv..

Gastric and intestinal disorders are common and costly human health problems worldwide. Helicobacter pylori are a gram-negative, pathogen bacteria and the most common cause of duodenal and gastric ulcer in the stomach the intestinal mucosa. Prolonged infection and colonization can lead to chronic gastritis and stomach cancer. H. pylori are present in the gastric and intestinal mucosa of half of the world population and a relation between infection and low socioeconomic status has been shown.

The aim of this thesis is to identify and analyse the antagonism between conservation and development which occurs in historical towns.The base of the study is theories in destination development and cultural heritage tourism in historical towns as well as the consequences expressed in these theories concerning conservation and development. The standpoint was that an empiric study needed to complement the theory. This filed study took place in Dubrovnik in Croatia. The thesis identifies the antagonism between conservation and development based on the theoretical research. Moreover the study adds a perspective to the research through the identification of further dimensions of this antagonism.

Behovet av effektivisering och förbättring är ständigt aktuellt för organisationer och företag, inte minst inom den offentliga sektorn. John P Kotter (1996) har i över ett decennium studerat över hundra företag som genomgått förändringsarbete och utifrån dessa studier tagit fram en 8 stegs-modell för att hjälpa organisationer att genomföra lyckade förändringsarbeten. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur chefer upplever förändringsarbete utifrån Kotters ?framgångsrecept?. Ser chefer effekter av förändringsarbetet i sin verksamhet och finns det likheter mellan chefernas upplevelse av förändringsarbetet och Kotters ?framgångsrecept? för ett lyckat förändringsarbete?För att uppnå syftet har en kvalitativ ansats använts bestående av en fallstudie inom Strängnäs kommun som genomför ett stort förändringsarbete kallat Brobygget.

The characteristic of services as an effort carried out in a "moment of truth" implies a risk for failures. This study sheds new light on how alternative offerings that customers are initially exposed to can affect satisfaction and loyalty in the service failure and recovery context. More specifically, two aspects of the initial offering are studied: promised general service quality and the presence of a promise about a specific product attribute. Based on a presentation of the main theoretical perspectives, hypotheses are formulated and a scenario-based experiment in a hotel setting is designed to explore these. The results indicate that a higher level of promised service quality can result in more positive evaluations of satisfaction and stronger word-of-mouth intentions than for a lower level of promised service quality.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the possibility of integrating an item tracking systemwith a monitoring system currently under development at Fifth Generation Technologies (P) Ltd.A literature study of RFID technology and the networks ZigBee and MiWi was done. Based onthe literature study a concept for a distributed system was developed.The concept is to have several RFID readers placed in the area where tracking is to be performedand allow them to communicate with each other through wireless communication. The RFIDreaders shall be able to form zones and filter the data that is forwarded from the zones to theservers and thus perform some of the work that the server would normally have to do. Theconcept has been evaluated by prototype development and testing. The prototype uses an ultrahigh frequency RFID reader and a MiWi network.The test indicated some limitations with the selected technologies.

Detta examensarbete handlar om införande av Lean Administration i administrativa stödprocesser. Examensarbetet undersöker hur Leanverktyg kan bidra till att standardisera dokument och dokumenthanteringen och därigenom eliminera slöserier. Parallellt erhålls kvalitetssäkring och effektivisering, samt att kapacitet frigörs till värdehöjande aktiviteter. Studiens fokus och tyngdpunkt beträffande empirin bygger på aktionsforskning bedriven hos ett tradingföretag där den stödjande dokumenthanteringen till arbetet med utfallsprover studerats närmare.Bakgrunden till studien kan härledas till den globala konkurrensen som medfört att fler företag i större omfattning arbetat med att förbättra och effektivisera sin verksamhet. Fler företag har även valt att fokusera på sin kärnkompetens och har därför outsourcat delar av sin verksamhet.

This report is the result of a thesis work carried out on the Risifrutti production at the company Procordia Food AB. The thesis is at a master level and is the final work for the author to receive a Master of Science in Innovative production at Mälardalen University. The thesis comprises 30 credits and has lasted for 18 weeks. The thesis is mainly a research on whether it is possible to perform an Environmental Value Stream Map (E-VSM) in a food processing industry and an evaluation if the tools E-VSM and Green Performance Map (GPM) are useful in this type of industry. An extra part to this research is to use the results from the E-VSM and give Procordia Food AB information on improvement potentials in the Risifrutti production. The author has found it difficult to collect some of the quantitative data to the E-VSM, mainly regarding energy, but by using the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) tool and other Lean tools the author was able to identify and quantify several wastes in the Risifrutti production. Recommendations for improvements based on these wastes have been given to the company. In the research part of this report the utility of the Value Stream Map, Environmental Value Stream Map and Green Performance Map in a food processing industry have been analyzed. The author has found that the Value Stream Map has been a useful tool since waste and unevenness in the tact of the production has been identified. The Environmental Value Stream Map and the Green Performance Map are also great tools when a company wants to analyze their environmental impact and then invest in environmental improvements. However, no profound energy analyzes has been done in the Risifrutti production because of the lack of energy meters for steam, electricity and compressed air in the production lines..

This thesis is a feasibility study for a future product development project. The purpose ofthis project is to evaluate the possibilities and difficulties associated with the design of anelectric power assist servo for all terrain vehicles (ATVs). The project has been carriedout in collaboration with Nira Control AB. Nira designs and manufactures electric andelectro mechanic products mainly for the motor sport market segment.Nira Control AB is developing a fuel injection system for a new line of large ATVs oncommission. To be able to compete with manufacturers like Yamaha and Honda thecommissioner should be able to offer optional power assist steering.

This thesis focuses on the mass media cover of ?Smart textiles?. The Swedish?smart? textiles are developed in Borås and are a mix of ordinary textile and new technology.  I analyse the article with a text analysis method, looking at themes and the language?s propositions in focus. Context and the actors in the articles are also important in the analysis.Many women occur as developers of the new smart technical product, a field often knowed as a typical male subject.