The structure and performance of grocery distribution in Sweden has changed profoundly since the second world war. Increasing access and usage of the private car, in combination with an accommodating town planning has enhanced the exploitation of scale economies within distribution firms. There is, however, some ambiguity concerning the overall efficiency of the distribution system when the costs associated with travelling and purchasing performed by households are treated as an integrated part of the total distribution cost function. The purpose of this master thesis is to develop the foundation of a spatial optimisation model, which defines the most efficient distribution system. The underlying idea is that the optimal localisation and size of grocery stores is a function of economies of scale within the firms weighed against distributions costs within the households, such as transportation costs.

Konsumenterna i studien visar på en mångfald av beteenden när det kommer till hur de påverkas av butikskonceptet. Upplevelserna i butikerna är många och varierar mellan konsumenterna. Olika typer av konsumtion skildras, bland annat genomförs nöjesshopping och målorienterad shopping av konsumenterna i studien. Syftet med uppsatsen är att skapa en förståelse och ge insikt i hur konsumenters beteende kan påverkas av butikskoncept. Butikskoncept är ett bredare perspektiv av butiksmiljön som dessutom innefattar sociala faktorer.

When a combined heat and power plant produces heat and power it often faces a deficit of heat load during the summer or other periods of time. This heat is often unnecessarily cooled away or the power production has to be reduced or shut off. If it is possible to store heat from periods with low heat demand to periods with high heat demand one can get many benefits. Among these benefits are: increased power production, decreased operation with partial load, uniformly distributed load.To be able to store heat in situations like this long-term thermal heat storages are needed. In this thesis five different types of stores are presented: rock cavern storage, tank storage, pit water storage, borehole storage and aquifer storage.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how salesperson control can be exercised in a retail store environment. A case study has been performed on a Swedish fashion company emphasizing the relationship between the company?s upper level management and their retail store operations in order to describe, analyze and classify the prevailing management control mechanisms. The paper presents an agency theoretical approach to the relationship applying behavior- and outcome based control theory, performance measurement theory and incentives theory in order to give a comprehensive image of the control system. The main finding is that the company?s management control system as applied to the sales force in its retail stores can be categorized as mainly behavior-based despite several explicit outcome-based features..

Until the sixties potatoes have had a unthreatened position at the Swedish dining tables, but then different alternatives such as rice and pasta have become popular. In 2005 the Swedish potato-consumption have more than hafted compared with the sixties, we have gone from circa 90 to 40 kilograms per person and year. This paper aims to provide those who are involved within the potatoe business with an overview of the attitude and behaviour towards potatoes that are being held by Swedish consumers. In order to reach to the conclusion, in- store interviews had been held with customers in the cities of Stockholm and Malmö. The interviews showed that the typical potato-consumer prefers to choose and in pick their own potatoes to a bag in the store in favour of the pre-packed alternatives. Based on the outcome of the interviews a number of conclusions could be drawn. The consumers were of the perception that the pre-packed alternatives were too big for their households.

This paper is about the new methods and metrics used in industry and business today striving for better revenues and larger market shares. It investigates the relations between the old fordistic and tayloristic way of manufacturing and compares it to the models used in industry today for being competitive, seeking to please customers and becoming more flexible. More specific the paper is about if Six Sigma and lean production are the key for succeeding these days. SKF:s factory in Gothenburg and other companies will make an example for how these methods are used in practice.The aim is to try to answer if these systems with inherited tools and methods are the right way to get the flexibility that is needed for being able to deliver the right goods to customers and market. For a company to be flexible decisions must be made fast and needed changes must be able to be done easy and without too large costs and investments.

This report is written in the purpose to investigate the mechanical forces and characteristics related to a propeller driven aircraft in the Earth?s atmosphere. It?s written as a thesis project during the spring semester of 2014 and graded accordingly.Thanks Arne Karlsson for fruitful discussions. Also thanks to Simon Leijonmarck for help with useful discussions concerning structural batteries..

The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how the logistic and the configuration of the terminal buildings and the perceptions of the passengers at Stockholm Arlanda Airport are related to each other, and what effect it has on the passengers and their traveling within the airport.The focus will be on the logistic at all four terminal buildings that is within the Airport. To create a perception of the logistic at the Airport and how it is related to the passengers perceptions, the investigators need to make knowledge of the terminal buildings, and thereby try to link the logistic with the perception of the experience room.Swedavia is the company that own, operate at and manage Stockholm Arlanda Airport. The investigators will make an interview with employees at Swedavia to get a more profound understanding of how the company is thinking about the logistic issues that they need to overlook. There will also be interviews with travelers to get their perception of the logistic, design and atmosphere at the Airport.Observations will also be made at various times at the Airport with focus on all of the terminal buildings. The investigators use qualitative and quantitative methods to reach a result. To achieve a result, the investigators will use theories and scientific facts and other available facts that will be helpful to reach a result that will be analyzed..

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to the greenhouse effect, which is essential tolife on our planet. Furthermore, it plays an important part of the photosynthesis andrespiration of the world?s organisms. Since the start of the industrial revolution the amount ofcarbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased exponentially. The main source is theextensive burning of fossil fuels.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to study the interaction between seller and buyer in a mobile phone store. The specific research questions under investigation are:Are there any underlying factors behind mobile purchase, and if so, what are they? Are mobile purchases driven by lifestyle factors and do customers try and create identities when purchasing new mobile phones?Material/Method: The study employs an ethnographic method when trying to answer the posed research questions. I have under a period of two weeks studied the seller-buyer interaction in a mobile phone store. In order to further increase the accuracy of my findings, I have complemented my observations with a sample of buyer and seller interviews.Main results: The observations and interviews were initially studied in isolation, resulting in different themes.

The Swedish consumer electronic industry has recently experienced an increasingly intensive price war. The price war has forced some operators in the business to declare bankruptcy, as the only way to compete has been by driving down prices. A challenge that retail chains in the consumer electronics industry is facing is to increase their margins. If store personnel can success with upselling, the companies will increase their profits. The purpose of this paper is to examine if the sales people in the consumer electronic industry can influence the customer to buy a more expensive product and what the effects the upselling has on the customers' attitudes.

This thesis project has been written and accomplished in cooperation with HABO AB. The objective of the project was to develop a standard stated packaging system. The background to this is that HABO is not pleased with the system currently in use. The system which HABO is currently using consists of to many sizes. The largest benefit of a standard stated system is that it becomes much easier to organize the packaging with the aid of a computer program.

The purpose of the study is to examine how retailing trough brand owned outlet stores effectsthe fashion brand. The problem that the essay is aimed to solve is how the fashion brand isinfluenced by selling through outlets and what opportunities and risks it has on the brand. Thestudy has been carried out by qualitative methods using interviews to answer the questionformulation. Three empirical perspectives have been chosen; an expert-, business- andconsumer perspective which have been linked up with three applicable theories. The fashionbrand Acne and its two stores; the flagship store and the outlet store have been chosen as acase study.

IKEA HaparandaTornio employ some two-hundred people in its furniture retail store.Keeping track of staff statistics and employee information has previously been achievedthrough the use of a basic Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet. The store?s human resourcesdepartment requested an upgrade to this system with the hope of speeding up andsimplifying the administrative process, as well as to make it easier to monitor HR-relatedtarget statistics. The following report documents the development process of that upgrade ascarried out by the author. The project draws on research in usability design and cognitivepsychology to develop a user-friendly interface.

This paper focuses on traditional clothing enterprise IT strategies. The purpose was to investigate the correlation between traditional clothing companies IT strategies and their brand. In a market where the competition is high it has become more important that the company targets a customer segment. To reach their targeted customers the company builds their brand with different corporate strategies. This segmentation is necessary because of the high exposure to competition, and a well-established brand could be a prerequisite for profitability.  In today?s market, IT has a major impact on the clothing business.