In 1993 the internal market within the European Union was formed and ensured free movement of goods, services, capital and people. This led to the removal of trade barriers between members of the European Union. When opening up for competition, price differences between countries decreased and more jobs were created. A single currency was introduced by eleven countries in 1999 with the goal of reducing transaction costs, eliminating exchange rate risk and to further simplify trade. In 2001 Greece joined the collaboration and introduced the euro.

In an ever more competitive environment Sandvik Materials Technology,SMT, runs a large-scale program to improve their processes for product development.The purpose with the program is to increase the company?s profitability by increasingthe number of new products in their product portfolio. The strategies SMT is usingfor reaching their goals are to change the way they work with product development byreducing lead time and learning how to prioritize products with the highestprofitability. In the R & D Department the work of improvement pursue by adaptingLean R & D to their way of working. Lean R & D encourages working withcontinuous improvements and eliminating waste.The main purpose for this Master?s Thesis is to develop didactic support to make iteasier to implement Lean in SMT R & D department.

A common assumption in marketing is the wider variety of product a corporation has, the better for the consumer: more product - more choices. Companies often develop a line extension to broaden consumer range through product attributes including quality, function and design. These developed attributes within the product are not always optimal for the consumer. As a result, companies often become entangled in having a price higher than the cost and benefit of the products. This essay aims to analyze the consumer value of line extension products and how these evaluations relate to extended line product pricing.

In relation to the development of IT-products it is very important that the software supplier is aware not only of the target group but also the field of application. Usability should characterize the whole IT-design process as, in relation to this context, design includes more than merely those aspects which are visible to and thus can be interpreted by the naked eye. The study examines the specific qualities and properties that substantiate the usability and the demands that a customer rightfully expects from an IT-product. The user and the customer are highlighted in the same context in order to demonstrate that it is through the customer that an IT-product is defined as being useful. Thus, from this perspective, the user and customer can be considered as being the same person.

Prosthetic leg can give a negative psychological effect to the user, which ends up in decreased self-esteem and that the user hides his handicap. xCover gives a more natural volume and a cool look. xCover changes the look of the prosthetic leg C-leg. The product is constructed by us, Patrik Svensson and Magnus Zetterqvist, for Christoffer Lindhe at Lindhextend AB. Christoffer has hired Martin Bergman at Smedjan 17 to make the design.

This thesis describes the universalization, improvement and further development of acompact crane support frame for flatbed trucks. The work has been conducted at Eloch Fordonsteknik AB (henceforth EFAB) in Uppsala.The aim of the work has been to shorten the assembly time of the product. By doingso, the product can be kept on shelf, which in turn results in shorter lead time. Thishas been done by universalizing the support frame to be compatible with most of thechassis EFAB works with. Additionally, the entire construction has been made lighter,which will make it a more attractive choice for customers.A pre-study was conducted and information was gathered internally, as well asexternally, in order to ascertain that no limitation or possibility was overlookedduring the course of the project.One such limitation has been the geometry of the truck bed that the support frameshall be compatible with.

The aiming with this project is to find out if a small scale chicken production can be profitable, from day-old chicks to a processed smoked product out to stores and consumers. The products will not be available in the stores all the time because we will give the customers quality rather than quantity, so when the product can?t be found in the stores the customers will ask for it. The conclusion I found out is that it might be hard to raise chickens in these scale from an economic point of view the costs for transport, logistics, slaughter and marketing are to high..

This work describes the process from sketch to functional textile. Starting points are thoughts about the transition from sketch to fabric, and the possibility to sketch before decisions are made about the quality of the final fabric. The first result of this study is the final product, a hand weaved clothing in thin wool that fulfils set demands. The second result is the knowledge that it is possible to make a purposeful sketch without knowing the final product..

With recent technical development computer aided design and manufacturing has taken amore important role in the product life cycle. New business segments such as Product/ServiceSystems and remanufacturing is emerging. This development demands better control of theproduct data throughout the entire product life cycle. Computer aided design is widelyrecognized and used within the manufacturing industries and in recent years the importance ofDigital manufacturing has increased. One part of Digital manufacturing is paperlessproduction which involves all orders and working instruction shown for example on a screenrather than on a piece of paper.

This report describes a project carried out in cooperation with Klippan Safety AB. The purpose of this project has been to develop a product that facilitates the living area in a truck cabin for the customers. To be able to develop, in a structured way, that kind of product, the project has been based on different product development theories. The project contained of following parts: marketing research, product generation, product evaluation and prototyping. After information from the marketing research and discussions with the company, the decision was made that the task was going to consist an improvement of the existing product referred to as 'the comfort module'.

Prosthetic leg can give a negative psychological effect to the user, which ends up in decreased self-esteem and that the user hides his handicap. xCover gives a more natural volume and a cool look. xCover changes the look of the prosthetic leg C-leg. The product is constructed by us, Patrik Svensson and Magnus Zetterqvist, for Christoffer Lindhe at Lindhextend AB. Christoffer has hired Martin Bergman at Smedjan 17 to make the design.

In relation to the development of IT-products it is very important that the software supplier is aware not only of the target group but also the field of application. Usability should characterize the whole IT-design process as, in relation to this context, design includes more than merely those aspects which are visible to and thus can be interpreted by the naked eye. The study examines the specific qualities and properties that substantiate the usability and the demands that a customer rightfully expects from an IT-product. The user and the customer are highlighted in the same context in order to demonstrate that it is through the customer that an IT-product is defined as being useful. Thus, from this perspective, the user and customer can be considered as being the same person.

The purpose of this essay was to examine how professional social workers work with follow up foster home placements. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten professional social workers from different municipalities in Skåne in an attempt to answer the following questions:* What routines exist for the follow-up work with foster care?* What factors have an impact on how the follow-up is formed in the particular case?* How can the follow-up affect outcomes of the placement?* In what way could the work with follow-up foster home placements develop?The theories we chose to analyze our material from was the ecology of human development formed by Urie Bronfenbrenner and the theory of civil courage formed by Lennart Lundquist. The interviews were semi-structural which gave the respondents a chance to talk in a free way about the questions we presented.The result of the study showed that there is a difference in the way social workers form the follow-up work of foster care. The greatest difference is in whom the social workers include in their follow-up.

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 Master Thesis has been carried out as a new product development project in collaborationwith G-Man Tools AB located in Edsbyn. The purpose of the project was to construct a newpruning saw there the blade is integrateble in the handle, thus a foldable pruning saw.The work has been performed on the occasion of G-Man Tools AB wanted to improve theirproduct range by creating a saw that complement their range of quality saws. They have a similarproduct today, but they do not manufacture this product by them selves and it is not directlytargeted against garden use, which is a disadvantage when it is one of their major markets.Even though almost the entire chain from the requirements of the users to drawings has beentaken into consideration, emphasizes has been put on generating ideas. However the first thingthat was carried out was to establish a productspecifikation from interviews with users and thecompany?s experience.