For the last 50 years the amount of available consumer goods has exploded in number, due to improvements in production and technology. The problem is that the overall sales of many categories are stagnant and retailers are unwilling to grant the categories more shelf space. Therefore many categories are crowded with products and hard for consumers to navigate in. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of an assortment reduction on several variables relating to assortment perceptions, customer satisfaction and store choice. The study was carried out as an experiment with 127 participants.

Exposing products is important in the retail industry and the development is constantly moving forward. Shops usually have a special product, they want to sell more because of various reasons. How to expose that particular product sold most of there are various theories. What this report is about is a theory that seeks to stores use a "decoy". It carried out to see if this theory was still current was that three interviews took place with two store managers and a CEO for various grocery stores.

Existing studies concerning private labels are unclear as to whether private label manufacturers carry out product development themselves. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies comparing product development processes in private label companies and national brand manufacturers. This study highlights a set of critical product development factors and assesses their prevalence in four different companies in the Swedish retail business. The study is based on a number of qualitative interviews with key personnel responsible for various table fats. Findings indicate two levels of involvement in the product development process on the private label side.

Rapporten behandlar ett examensarbete inom integrerad produktutveckling vid Högskolan i Skövde. Projektet är gjort i samarbete med butiksinredningsföretaget Expedit retail solutions i Jönköping. Projektets syfte är att utveckla framtidens Gamezone, en enhet där kunder kan testa TV-spel i en butik med fokus på spelupplevelsen.Projektet inleddes med en förstudie innehållande marknadsundersökning, befintliga produkter och andra lösningar, ny teknik, ergonomiska aspekter samt framtiden för TV-spelandet. Därefter startade idégenereringsprocessen. För att få fram en stor variation av förslag användes flera olika kreativa metoder.

Background: The increasing competition on the market demand both companies and supply chains to find optimal solutions. The edeavour to reduce inventory levels is a part of this. Earlier, inventory was seen upon as valuable assets, but today they tend to be more and more negative in the eyes of the companies. Inventory demands capital, handling, and space. Therefore inventory creates unnecessary costs.

Hemoglobin is an oxygen binding protein in erythrocytes. Hemoglobin is composed of four polypeptide chains. During the fetal stage the type of hemoglobin called fetal hemoglobin (HbF) dominates. After birth HbF is replaced by adult hemoglobin (HbA). HbF persists in concentrations less than 1%.

There is a need for productivities data and data for different types of machines for comminution of logging residues. The lack of data and studies on GROT comminution makes it difficult to evaluate different chains for handling of residue fuels and make system analyses.Four types of machines with three different working principles were compared at six studies during winter conditions. Three to eleven trials during 9.5 to 30.7 minutes were made on each machine. Samples from the produced material at each study were sieved to determine the size distribution of the comminuted material. Samples were also taken from the studies for determination of moisture content.

Purpose: During the last years Real Options have been established in many areas of the day-to-day business. Recent literature also tries to address Supply Chain problems with option theory, since an efficient Supply Chain increasingly gains in importance as a significant competitive advantage. This thesis tries to answer the question, if Real Options can mitigate the costs induced by the Bullwhip Effect as one of the major problems in Supply Chains. Methodology: The authors of the thesis used a deductive approach. Based on a theoretical model utilizing Real Option contracts and under the usage of a randomly created dataset the influence of the Bullwhip Effect on the company?s business and financial structure is examined and subsequently analyzed.

Sweden is dependent on secure sea transport. Shorter disruption of imports of fuel and crude oil can be managed with an emergency stock, but a prolonged halt in imports creates problems. For industry, the vulnerability is greater. Fragmented production chains in combination with expenditure reductions in inventory causes a dependency on proper transport of intermediate goods in the manufacturing industry. A lengthy disruption thus involves disruption of production for both domestic consumption and for export goods containing imported parts.In order to secure shipping routes with a limited number of vessels, Mine Counter Measures (MCM) capacity is required, and according to the Armed Forces, developed with new sensors and autonomous vehicles.

It is widely recognized that the town of Södertälje, a small Swedish town of 85 000 inhabitants, has alone received more war refugees from Iraq than the US and Canada have put together. Whilst writing this thesis had nearly 6000 Iraqi refugees sought their way to Södertälje since the US invasion in Iraq 2003.Nevertheless, life is not what the media and the government retail. Six of these Iraqi refugees who resided in Södertälje share their life stories in the following thesis. They discuss their escape from Iraq and the difficulties of living in the segregated parts of Södertälje where they solely speak Arabic and Assyrian, whilst learning Swedish at sfi (Svenska för invandrare, Swedish for immigrants). Another distress is related to the unsecure future in Sweden waiting ahead.      The aim of this thesis is to engage in, and highlight the studies of six sfi-students in their endeavor to learn Swedish, whilst struggling through Swedish bureaucracy and experiencing despair due to their situation and uncertain future.       .

The aim of this study is to describe the market for Digital Signage in Sweden and give the reader an increased insight and understanding of the problems that suppliers and buyers of Digital Signage may encounter. The study is abductive and based on a number of qualitative interviews with representatives from potential buyers, an existing user, a supplier and a number of companies with insight into Digital Signage. Our findings show that the companies in this study have not yet reached the stage of being ready to invest in a system for Digital Signage, since the effects on for instance increased sales and potential savings on marketing communication have not yet been clearly proven. Furthermore the study shows that it is important that a supplier has a fundamental understanding of the business model of the buyer. In addition to this, service, support and IT-related issues are of great importance for the potential buyers.

I ett litet företag finns en risk att ledningen fokuserar så mycket på kärnverksamheten att övriga administrativa verksamheter åsidosätts. Exempelvis finns det risk att företaget inte har full kontroll på sina lager.Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att beskriva och analysera värderingen och styrningen av lagret hos ett litet handelsföretag med butik och i förekommande fall ge förbättringsförslag.Vi har dels studerat lagar och rekommendationer avseende hantering av lager samt litteratur inom området lagerstyrning i handelsföretag. Dessutom har vi intervjuat företrädare för ett typiskt litet handelsföretag.Det undersökta företaget uppfyller gällande lagar och rekommendationer, men inte så mycket mer. Vidare använder sig företaget mestadels av känsla och erfarenhet i sin lagerstyrning. Förtaget använder alltså inte formella analyser och metoder i någon större utsträckning, om ens någon.

Local politicians are key actors in the democratic system and their ideas concerning democracy plays a central role in local democratic politics. The study's point of departure is the notion that local politicians are dependent of coherence between practice and theory concerning democracy and in the study of their ideas we acquire knowledge about the democratic practice.This study examines the local politicians? view of Swedish democracy and explores the logic of the discourse that makes statements concerning democracy possible. Twenty local politicians have been interviewed and from the material a discourse have been established through the use of formulation of problems and cause, nodal points and chains of analogy which is compared with democratic ideals.The study comes to the conclusion that a hegemonic discourse exists, in which central nodal points are representative and listening. The idea of the representative system is hegemonic and is based in the liberal democratic ideal although the view of the citizens rather can be traced to the radical, communitarian and deliberative ideal.

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

Sweden is dependent on secure sea transport. Shorter disruption of imports of fuel and crude oil can be managed with an emergency stock, but a prolonged halt in imports creates problems. For industry, the vulnerability is greater. Fragmented production chains in combination with expenditure reductions in inventory causes a dependency on proper transport of intermediate goods in the manufacturing industry. A lengthy disruption thus involves disruption of production for both domestic consumption and for export goods containing imported parts.In order to secure shipping routes with a limited number of vessels, Mine Counter Measures (MCM) capacity is required, and according to the Armed Forces, developed with new sensors and autonomous vehicles.