Title: The customer?s contribution to the innovation-process ? a study of using customers to discover latent needs. Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Author: Robert Klein Supervisor: Agneta Sundström Date: 2014-06 Aim: The purpose of this study is to gain enhanced understanding of what knowledge costumers contribute with in an innovation-process lead by a producer of goods, and how that knowledge is used to fulfill latent needs. The area of research has formerly described which results customer-involvement lead to, but have been scarce in describing how results are produced. Method: From a qualitative onset, a case-study collecting data through observations and interviews capturing customer knowledge contributions, and producer use of fetched knowledge has been conducted. Data has been analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results have been processed in several steps in which material has been categorized and enriched continuously. Result & Conclusions: Customer-knowledge is broken down into market-knowledge, everyday-knowledge, and specialist-knowledge, which all are significant to a producer of goods.

The world gets smaller and smaller and goods, services, people and information are nowadays more and more able to freely cross borders. Half of the Swedish GNP consists of export and almost 70 % of that amount is goods. Because of today?s increasing globalization the Swedish companies are now faced with both new opportunities and threats. Companies with goods which are manufactured in Sweden gets challenged by increased competition from cheap goods produced in other countries and companies can no longer afford to entirely focus on the domestic market.

Today a lot of goods is transported on wood pallets because it?s practical and enabels a fast way to load cargo. The drawbacks with pallets are that they weight a lot, are big and are relatively expensive. Therefore IKEA has developed plastic lists that can replace the europallet in some applications. In this examwork an automatic handling equipment for plastic lists are design from a requirement specification to a finished machine.

Wood has always been an important material for people, and it is used for many applications. As for example, fuel for cooking and heating houses, construction materials and for constructing means of transport. Since wood also is a material that with time biologically degrades due to activity by micro organisms and wood fungi it is important to find ways to protect and further lengthen the life span of the material when in service. One method is to decrease the amount of water in the material by impregnation with an hydrophobic oil. The Linotech method which uses only pure linseed oil is one such possible method. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility to at the same time impregnate and stain/colour wood samples of pine and spruce by using the Linotech method.

The purpose of this report is to come up with possible improvement suggestions to the distribution central at Götene Stål & Verktygs AB (GSV). GSV is a wholesale dealer located in Götene. The company doesn?t produce anything it self, it buys in products and sells them to customers.The distribution central at GSV is the place where the products comes in and gets ready to deliver.To come up with possible improvement suggestions we started with process mapping over the main process and the distribution centre process. The main process here is from the point where the customer gives GSV an order to the point where GSV deliver the order.Our result shows that the major problem in the distribution central at GSV is the big volume differences in the incoming goods.

The aim of this thesis is to interpret and discuss the weapon-graves of Viking Age Birka. The weapon-grave phenomenon is deemed differential in relation to the rest of the grave-material of the site, and thus the questions that motivate the thesis is: who was buried with weapons and why? Further questions arise regarding the social aspects of individuals who were buriedalong with weapons. The theoretical approach will be to evaluate any differences in 'social class', 'social age' and 'gender' between the weapon-grave contexts. By conducting qualitativeand quantified analysis of the grave-goods, this thesis adresses both overall and detailed patterns in correlation and constellations between weapons, other grave-goods and terms of burial..

The purpose of this bachelor?s thesis is to examine whether there was an elite on Gotland during Roman Iron Age or not. To explain this focus has been put on the roman goods. The contexts in which the roman artifacts are found indicate that they can be tied to what might have been an elite on Gotland during Roman Iron Age. They might also have been used as means of expressing wealth and prestige.

The aim of this thesis is to make a comparison between solitary graves and graves in grave fields from the Roman Iron Age on Gotland, Sweden. Differences in burial customs, morphology, dating, gender, age, grave-goods and social status are compared between 19 solitary graves and graves in three different grave fields in different parts of Gotland. An attempt is made to explain these differences and to discuss which functions the solitary graves had. Discussions about whether it is possible to distinguish social status and gender with the help of grave-goods are also made in connection to the determination of status and sex..

This paper discusses an osteological- and archeological analysis of a cairn from the Bronze Age on Gotland. The osteological material consists of both burnt and and unburnt bones from both human and animal. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the individuals who were buried in the cairn. It is also to generate information about continuity in its use and patterns of distribution of the bones and grave-goods in the cairn. The osteological analysis show that a minimum of five human individuals is present in the osteological material.

Logistics is an important concept in the organizational context in which the planning of flows, services and products are treated. Logistics handles supplier management, supply of materials, production and distribution. The distribution of goods can be managed with different types of transportation depending on price and time aspects. The lowest transport cost for larger amount of goods is by maritime shipping. A common carrier used in transportation of goods is a standardized ISO- container.

Saab Component Maintenance in Linköping, Sweden, offers maintenance, repair andoverhaul (MRO) services for civilian and military aircraft components. Lately, thedepartment has struggled with slow throughput rates, despite various counteractingattempts. Studies show, that large parts of the delays derive from the logisticsdepartment where goods arrive and dispatch. Therefore, Saab wants to carry out anextensive analysis of the department in order to further investigate what is causing itsslow throughput rates.The thesis begins with extensive mapping over Component Maintenances whole valuestream to find out how departments interact with each other and which roleindividual departments have in the total supply chain. Out of 13 000 different partnumbers, components were divided into five product families.

Electronic article surveillance (EAS) is widely used in shops and libraries together with an RF-tag attached to the goods or books in order to prevent shoplifting. By implementing the addition of a moisture sensor to the RF-tag, other functions become possible, including the ability to use as an alarm with regards to frozen goods, which have been shipped but which have melted and have, subsequently, refrozen. In- relation to care for the elderly, one time-consuming step involves checking whether there is the necessity for a change of diaper and this can, instead, be based on an RF-tag with an EAS-system alarm. A preliminary investigation was made using the moisture sensors, which involved how the resistance changes when liquid and/or heat is applied. A simulation of the LCCR circuit (RF-tag with the sensor) was conducted in order to determine how the resonance frequency changes for different resistances levels.

This diploma work on D-level is made in cooperation with Varnäsföretagen AB in Eskilstuna. The company performs contract manufactured aluminium goods. This work is a continuation on earlier diploma work in Varnäsföretagen AB. Even if the industry process consumes much energy for melting the aluminium goods, they consume a great amount of oil to warm up the building. The purpose of this work is to examine some places in the building and the process to see how much energy it is possible to recycles to the heating system and reduce the costs for heating.

In this essay, I research and discuss new spirituality (or what is commonly known as New Age) within some congregations in the Church of Sweden, Gothenburg. I question how and why this new spirituality has come to be accepted in parts of the Church. My hypothesis is that the church is a part, and a reflection, of a larger change throughout society, and I claim that this change depends much on the individualization and globalization during the last decades.The research is conducted through interviews with representatives from the Church ofSweden who are in charge of new religious activities. During these interviews we discuss their views on the change that has already taken place and is going on today.The interviews are then analyzed by applying rational choice theory on them. I discusswhether the Church can be seen as a producer of goods and services and if the churchgoers canbe seen as consumers of these goods and services.

Executive SummaryThis final thesis has examined the effects of an increased centralization and better coord­in­ation of the distribution logistics at ABB in Västerås. The company is today strongly decent­ralized and there is a minimum of collaboration between the 20 business units. This is why the questions were raised; how could the business units coordinate outbound logistic activities and what effects would that provide. The obj­ect­ive of this final thesis is to provide basic data for a future decision-making which desc­r­ibe these effects.The report has mapped out the factors that are important to ABB in an evaluation of their logistic activities and how the outbound logistics work today. The four factors are cost efficiency, delivery service, environmental impact and logistics capability.