Internal communication is an important factor in organisations today. For many system development teams it?s critical that the communication works well. Without communication, success would be impossible. This study aims to highlight the effect communication has on the members of agile project teams.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their Suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at Suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their Suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what Suppliers they choose to audit.

The web has a broad affect on the global economy and can among other things be used for web based information systems (WIS). These systems have grown from being used as a market platform to support all activities in the work of an organisation of today. To survive in a turbulent competitive environment, companies must start to cooperate with their customers instead of just collaborate with them. Can an IT-consultant company use a WIS as a tool for keeping in contact with existing customers to attain this cooperation? A WIS could strengthen the relation between customer and Supplier and through that have a possibility to increase the customer use since it can facilitate business processes and imply that services can be offered in a new way.

AbstractBackgroundThe Swedish district heat market of today is a subject being discussed regarding the reasonableness of the heat district Supplier?s price settings. The issue is currently on a government level where a new investigation is being executed at the time of writing. Many real estate owners are growing tired of the situation where the heat district Suppliers are taking advantage of their monopoly position, thus feeling that the price of district heating has been increasing far too much for many years. The market can be described as a natural monopoly because the real estate owner has no possibility to choose another Supplier if they are unsatisfied with the present.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their Suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at Suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their Suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what Suppliers they choose to audit.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their Suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at Suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their Suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what Suppliers they choose to audit.

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.

Outsourcing means to contract out work previously done within the cooperation to a Supplier.This is an increasing trend today. Traditionally companies have outsourced manufacturing butwith the growing specialization they tend to outsource other activities as well.China?s economical reforms and entrance into the World Trade Organization, WTO, hasenabled international business connections. Since China offers one of the cheapest labours inthe world, many companies have an interest in starting up an activity in the country. Themany foreign investments in China have lead to an economical growth which in turn hasmade it possible for China to invest in the Chinese competence and innovative capacity.The commissioner of this master thesis, SMS, is one of the leading actors in retrieval ofamong other things mounts and stands for flat screens and projectors.

From the customer?s perspective the only reason for a firm to exist is the value it creates. However, a problem within manufacturing companies is that of the total lead time, only a small part can be considered as value adding. It has further been discovered that when working with improvements businesses often sub-optimizes single processes instead of considering what benefits the entire company. Thus, when improving processes and activities it is important to have knowledge about and understand which factors that affect how the flow can be designed.Several studies have been performed with a wide perspective on process flows in order to obtain a more resource-efficient and value added flow.

Studien har utförts på företaget Ericssons avdelning för strategiskt inköp och syftar till att utforma en inköpsportfölj som kan positionera maktbalansen mellan Ericsson och dess leverantörer. Undersökningen utförs på tre olika kategorier inom inköp; Hardware, Logistics och R&D Consultancy Services. Studien ger även förslag på strategier som kan appliceras för att flytta maktbalansen till en mer fördelaktig position. För att kunna utforma en maktpositioneringsmodell undersöker studiens författare vad som orsakar och kännetecknar makt i en kund- och leverantörsrelation, samt vilken påverkan de identifierade faktorerna tycks ha.Ericsson är ett globalt företag som är världsledande inom kommunikationsteknologi. Inköp av produkter och tjänster står för en ansenlig del av organisationens kostnader, varpå inköpsarbetet blir av stor betydelse.

The construction industry has not undergone the same logistical development as the manufacturing industry; this, in combination with increased material price, leads to the fact that the construction industry must be improved. This master thesis is a part of the research cooperation Brains & Bricks goal of reducing production costs for the construction sector by 25 percent. Brains & Bricks is a cooperation between Linköping University, Peab and Katrineholms municipality. The master thesis aims to identify improvements in the flow of material, the Supply chain operation reference, SCOR, model has been used and the work has been carried out on one of Peab?s construction sites. At present the business is characterized by bad communication both between the construction site and the office as well as between the construction site and Suppliers.

The aim with this paper is to elucidate the current situation of the Swedish glulam market. This thesis paper will also consider prospects for the future and analyse the relationship between customer and producer and what makes a specific Supplier attractive to their customer. The companies that are included in the paper are: Martinsons Group AB, Moelven Töreboda AB and Setra Group AB, Långshyttan. These three companies are the members of the organi¬sation Svenskt Limträ AB and produce the largest part of glulam in Sweden. Together they produce 140 000 ? 150 000 m3 a year. The study is based on interviews with all three producers and a customer survey, where I have interviewed five customer to each producer.

The contribution of biofuels to the total consumption of energy in Sweden must increase to 49 % in order to meet the goals for the year 2020 set by the European Union. In order to do so, improved information systems are needed to support the business processes within delivery scheduling between customers and Suppliers.Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a concept to enable the alignment of Business processes and Information Systems. EA is the framework for the architectures of business, information and applications. With a comprehensive view of the architectures, an Information System aligned with the Business processes can be enabled. The first step in the development of an Information System is documenting the business processes.The goal of this study is to clarify a generic sequence of activities performed within the delivery scheduling process and the information needed to perform the activities.Data for the study was collected through qualitative interviews, first through a meeting with the respondent and after that a following telephone interview with in total 5 Suppliers and 6 customers of biofuels.

AbstractIn the fall of 2003 a project was started in the Swedish building sector that is called BASTA (the building sectors’ termination of especially harmful substances). The project is operated by the building companies NCC, Skanska, PEAB and JM, the Swedish Building Industry and the Swedish Environmental Institute IVL. The purpose of the project is to create a common environmental assessment system for the entire building industry and with the help of this system phase out the use of especially harmful properties from building products.In a large sense BASTA works like this; On the BASTA web site there is a database, to which a Supplier can register the company and the company’s products. Only those products with a substance content that fulfil the demands of the BASTA system, is to be registered. As it is the Supplier himself that carries out the registration of the company and the company’s products to the system, the BASTA-organisation annually controls that the companies that are registered in the database, fulfils BASTA’s demands.Since NCC is one of the companies that operates BASTA, BASTA is probably going to be the environmental assessment system that is recommended for the company in the future.

AbstractIn the fall of 2003 a project was started in the Swedish building sector that is called BASTA (the building sectors’ termination of especially harmful substances). The project is operated by the building companies NCC, Skanska, PEAB and JM, the Swedish Building Industry and the Swedish Environmental Institute IVL. The purpose of the project is to create a common environmental assessment system for the entire building industry and with the help of this system phase out the use of especially harmful properties from building products.In a large sense BASTA works like this; On the BASTA web site there is a database, to which a Supplier can register the company and the company’s products. Only those products with a substance content that fulfil the demands of the BASTA system, is to be registered. As it is the Supplier himself that carries out the registration of the company and the company’s products to the system, the BASTA-organisation annually controls that the companies that are registered in the database, fulfils BASTA’s demands.Since NCC is one of the companies that operates BASTA, BASTA is probably going to be the environmental assessment system that is recommended for the company in the future.