The purpose of this study is to examine which factors played an important role in the food price crisis of 2007-2008. Theories used are Microeconomic theory, explaining changes in supply and demand, and Macroeconomic theory, explaining the impact of changes in exchange rate on prices. A theory regarding speculation is also used to explain the impact of speculative activities effects on price. The method used is multiple regression analysis in order to determine the effects which ethanol production, oil price and dollar exchange rate had on the surge in the price of corn, rice and wheat.The data used is in monthly observations during the period 2005-2008. However, other factors are taken into consideration during the study, such as production quantity, stock size, economic growth, speculative activity and population growth.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

This thesis describes the new construction of a small house and it includes studies of three heating systems: geothermal heating, district heating and pellet. The purpose of this thesis is to project a small house which can manage Building Regulations, BBR conditions and then examine three possible heating systems for the small house. This thesis is a literature study which gives an understanding of the heating systems technical structure, properties and costs. An empirical study completes the literature study by giving a deeper understanding of district heating costs and pellet costs. The empirical study contains two interviews, one of which was conducted in a district heating corporation and the other interview was conducted in a pellet corporation.

A study has been conducted on how organizations in Sweden administer costs of facilities management services internally. There are three main theoretical methods for administering costs. In the first method, costs are maintained on a central level; in the second method, costs are allocated and in the third method, internal transfer pricing is used. The aim of the study is to identify which methods are applied in practice, to evaluate whether the methods fulfill their intended purposes and to study the relationship between the methods used and the cost level of facilites management services. In practice, a large diversity of methods are used for facilities management costs.

Costs of maintenance on agriculture machines is something that many farmers has a low knowledge of, it can depend on low interest or that the farmer don?t have enough time. To make it easier for the farmers they can use many computer programs which are available on the market. In this program they can calculate their costs of maintaince on their agriculture machines, for example STANK and JTI machine calculation program. Most of this program is using Svensson (1987) costs model whish was made in Sweden in the middle of 80 decade in a large study.

City of Malmö has ambitions for the district Hyllie to become a demonstrative area ofsustainable urban development. As a part of this the following report aims to investigate the potential in using noise barriers combined with photovoltaics along Annetorpsvägen to generate solar electricity. To quantify the losses that shadows from buildings along the roadmight cause, a 3D-model of the area was constructed in SketchUp. This digital model made it possible to simulate shadows and how they change over the year. A reference model of a photovoltaic noise barrier (PVNB) was constructed and used to find the dates on which the solar cells are shadowed depending on building heights and positioning of the barrier.The results show that two lengths with a total distance of 400 meters is appropriate for applying photovoltaic noise barriers.

To value the risk and opportunity for our production in Sweden it is necessary to understand the marketing development for beef cattle production in the world. We have chosen to look at the Brazil beef cattle production. They are one of the biggest producers, have good opportunity to develop further and have a big affect at the world market. The method of our work is to gather information from experts of beef cattle production, located in Brazil. We have also gathered information through studies of literature. The factors that will have a big influence at the Brazil beef cattle production during the upcoming years is more efficient land use, lower age of slaughtering and extended use of feedlot-system. Our conclusion is that the Brazil beef cattle will have a sharp increase during the next five years. The amount of pasture will not change during that time.

Because society?s demand for quality, efficiency at low cost is constantly increasing, companies are increasingly choosing to invest new methods to achieve these points. Those who manage to find ways to improve their processes are often the companies that have the greatest chance of becoming a winning player in the market. BIM is a new method that can reduce the internal costs while increasing communications between different parties. However there is disagreement about what BIM is and its purpose.

Göteborg Energi has a surplus of district heating during spring, summer and fall. The heat surplus is due to a constant production of waste heat from oil refineries and heat from waste incineration over the year. It would be desirable to increase the demand for heat and the uptime for the newly built combined heat and power generation plant, Rya Kraftvärmeverk. One alternative could be to integrate Rya Kraftvärmeverk with a pellet production facility. By producing heat, electricity and pellet in a joint process the energy use can be decreased.

Seabased Industry AB develops system for extracting electrical energy from ocean waves with a Wave Energy Converter (WEC). The components is bought from subcontractors and then assembled into wave energy converters, buoys and marine substations by Seabased. In the future Seabased will produce more of the components themselves to reduce costs and to have better control over tolerances. The production line will also include the painting of the WECs and substations, which is performed in a painting line.The purpose of this thesis work is to study what is required to build a painting line, regarding the types of stations, transporting types and the space needed. This will result in layouts for the painting line.To receive the necessary information about production theory and corrosion and surface treatment, literature concerning this area has been studied.

This report deals with issues related to construction waste. Building material that has not been built into the project is defined as construction waste. Cost of construction waste amounts to 4-12 % of the total cost of the project. Moreover, cost of construction waste is 1-3 % of the production cost. The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about the main causes of waste within the construction industry.

As a company it is required to work with strategies to minimize costs such as packaging and logistic costs. The increased market of industrial produced wooden buildings results that the time and the cost which the packaging of prefabricated building elements consume, is experienced to be in greater need of development than before and demands a better solution. The aim with this dissertation was to discover how the development of the handling of the packaging can improve the packaging process. The goal was to present improvement proposals for a simplified and thereby a more efficient production in time and cost perspective.The packaging process which includes packaging, handling, storage and transport were studied. Interviews were made with participants from the market for manufacturers of wooden houses and a case study was made at the company A-hus.

Titel: Value stream mapping in practice ? A case study at Light MyFireAuthors: David Rydman and Tomas ÖnnemarMentor: Veronica Ülgen SvenssonExaminer: Åsa GustafssonBackground: Companies push their prices in today's markets to be competitive, which means that companies need to find ways to reduce costs while maintaining profits. (Cudney, 2009) According to Bergman and Klefsjö 2007, the basic rule of quality improvement says "there is always a way to achieve higher quality at a lower cost". One way is to improve a company's processes to get a more efficient flow and improvements that may cut costs. (Bergman & Klefsjö, 2007) Why it's important to look at the processes are that they often contain waste that can be eliminated.

This report is based on a thesis that was carried out during spring 2012. The report covers the development of a preliminary study to Performance Sk8. The purpose of the study is to facilitate and contribute inspiration to Performance Sk8 to run an automation project to bring home their production to Sweden from China. The reason is to gain a greater ability to control quality, produce smaller batches and reduce the cycle time to reduce costs.The goal is that the preliminary study shall meet the requirements and wishes Performance Sk8 and other partners defined. The pre study will contain different cost proposals for the automation of selected process and serve as a basis for procurement of the equipment.The pre study has resulted in some proposed solutions to the various steps required to automate Performance Sk8 ?s production.

A future expansion of wind power in the Nordic power system makes the balancing for the transmission system operator Svenska Kraftnät (SvK) more complicated. Up to the hour of delivery the balance responsible parties? (BRP) makes prognoses and plans, for consumption and production, to help maintain the balance in the electrical grid. How well this is accomplished is affected by the setup of the market design. Therefore SvK has proposed the following possible changes in market design: Increase the imbalance costsIntensify the regulation of imbalancesIncrease the temporal resolution on the different marketsPresent the prices for balancing power in real-timeModify the balancing market to simplify auction of consumption bidsA mapping over the BRPs? processes within planning and trading on the day-ahead, intra-day, and the balancing market has been performed in this thesis.