The construction and use of buildings in the EU accounts for half of the EU?s extracted materials and energy consumptions, and a third of greenhouse gas emissions. In the past decade, the construction sector has responded to such concerns by focusing on post production energy efficiency. However, new findings indicate that upstream construction processes influence emissions significantly ? necessitating a shift in focus to include material choices and building processes.

A prefabricated timber frame house previously built by Villafabriken AB has been modeled in Autodesk Revit Architectural, a 3D-program based on BIM-technology. This has been done tosee if it?s possible to produce the publications that Villafabriken demands from the designengineer?s work, and examine which possible extra values that may arise compared to traditional 2D-CAD drawing.BIM is short for Building Information Modeling. Everything is stored in a single database and a change in the project file is automatically updated across the project. BIM provides more than just drawings since information from the model can be retrieved in various ways such as lists and quantity schedules.It was possible to produce the publications that Villafabriken demanded using Revit, but BIM doesn?t only mean a new way of drawing, it also require a change in the company?s process were the information from the model is being used..

Title: Process description of round timber transports ? a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland ABAuthors: Karl ? Johan Tern, Christian Johansson and Andreas IvarssonTutor: Anders JerrelingExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonBackground: Today the profitability of forest haulers is unsatisfactory. Negotiations on prices are more about the relative strength of the negotiation parties rather than a discussion about actual costs. Adding extensive changes in the forest haulers cost structure has led to insufficient knowledge of whether the negotiated prices really correspond to their costs.Methodology: We decided to carry out a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland AB, a special interest organisation whose members represent the majority of forest haulers in Go?taland.Purpose: To describe the processes and underlying activities of round timber transports.

Title: Process description of round timber transports ? a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland ABAuthors: Karl ? Johan Tern, Christian Johansson and Andreas IvarssonTutor: Anders JerrelingExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonBackground: Today the profitability of forest haulers is unsatisfactory. Negotiations on prices are more about the relative strength of the negotiation parties rather than a discussion about actual costs. Adding extensive changes in the forest haulers cost structure has led to insufficient knowledge of whether the negotiated prices really correspond to their costs.Methodology: We decided to carry out a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland AB, a special interest organisation whose members represent the majority of forest haulers in Go?taland.Purpose: To describe the processes and underlying activities of round timber transports.

The purpose of this thesis is to ascertain the main determinable factors of Swedish SMEs capital structure decisions and to investigate whether existing capital structure theories are applicable on Swedish SME financing. We have used panel data to run regressions of various capital structure determinants on three measures of capital structure; short- term debt, long-term debt and total debt. We found that growth opportunities, profitability and age are the most important capitalstructures determinants for our sample. Firm size shows a small explanatory result but the effective tax rate and the asset tangibility do not seem to explain the capital structure at all. Thematurity matching principle is considered significant..

Modern sawmills are using the raw-material and the production-capacity more efficiently today, due to rising raw-material prices and higher production costs. Log sweepness has a negative effect on the sawn yield, for sawmills with straight-sawing. It is desirable that these logs could be sorted based on more criteria, if it increases value-yield and consequently the utilization of raw-material. Bow-heights over 1 cm have a negative effect on sawn yield, since the surface of the mantle cuts down in the sawn pattern. Some of these small bow-heights reduce the logs yield of value which affects the production planning negatively. Nearly half of all the Swedish logs have a bow-height over 1 cm.

Transportation represents 10-15 % of wood supply costs. It is therefore important to improve efficiency in the transport system to decrease these costs. The aim of this study is to map the timber vehicle routing processes used by a sample of timber hauling contractors and to identify possible links between the vehicle routing process and service and economic variables. The study was carried out at Södra Skog in autumn 2008. 15 timber hauling contractors were sampled and interviewed about their work with timber transports.

Title: Process description of round timber transports ? a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland ABAuthors: Karl ? Johan Tern, Christian Johansson and Andreas IvarssonTutor: Anders JerrelingExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonBackground: Today the profitability of forest haulers is unsatisfactory. Negotiations on prices are more about the relative strength of the negotiation parties rather than a discussion about actual costs. Adding extensive changes in the forest haulers cost structure has led to insufficient knowledge of whether the negotiated prices really correspond to their costs.Methodology: We decided to carry out a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland AB, a special interest organisation whose members represent the majority of forest haulers in Go?taland.Purpose: To describe the processes and underlying activities of round timber transports.

This study was performed in collaboration with Moelven Skog AB, Örebro district. The purpose of the study was to review existing literature in order to describe the current status of harvester based measurement technology as the way to provide information for calculating payment to the forest owners. In addition to this, a short survey was conducted to find out how a switch to harvester based measurement would affect the administrative workload on timber purchasers working for the district. The literature study shows that the harvester measurement technology is ready to use if it is combined with well-established routines for control of the harvesters, methods for automatic quality indexing of the timber and ways of creating pricelists specially adapted for harvester measurement. Pricing each stem seems to be the most promising method. Stem pricing has several benefits.

Thinning is the partial removal of trees in a forest stand prior to final harvest. The term can be divided in pre-commercial thinning where little if any volume is removed from the stand and commercial thinning where removals are intended to provide a positive economic result. From a silvicultural point of view, the goal of thinning is to enhance future crop tree quality by removing low-quality stems and providing sufficient space for the accelerated development of retained ones (Huuskonen & Hynynen, 2006). The goals of this study was to see if commercial thinning could positively affect the short and medium term timber supply (MTTS) in the Interior regions of British Columbia (BC), and whether or not Scandinavian forestry practices could be adopted in the BC context. The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) has created significant forest planning problems in BC. The annual allowable cut (AAC) was raised to capture beetle-killed timber while still merchantable.

Rundviks sågverk investerade vintern 2007 i systemet GPS Timber. Systemet som är GPS-baserat syftar till att underlätta timmerhanteringen och säkerställa att rätt timmerklass läggs i vältorna och på sågbordet. Dessutom samlar systemet fortlöpande in data angående truckarnas aktiviteter för att möjliggöra analys av vad som sker på timmerplanen.Studien syftar till att undersöka vad införandet betytt för truckförarnas arbete med timmerhanteringen samt vad systemet har för effekt på ekonomin. Med hjälp av insamlad data av GPS Timber ska analysen dessutom resultera i potentiella effektiviseringsområden rörande timmerhanteringen för att förbättra ekonomin i en relativt dyr process. Analysen har visat att truckförarnas arbete har förenklats mycket i och med införandet av GPS Timber.

Illegal logging and its related trade is of great concern around the world. The European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) is a regulatory approach by the EU to prevent illegal timber and timber products to be placed on the European Union inner market. This means the regulation affects both actors in the member countries as well as the actors exporting timber and timber products to the EU from non EU member countries. This study aims to study the implementation process of the EUTR in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B-H), and its preconditions. Institutional theory is used to understand and explain how the EUTR affects B-H organisations? business environment, and how the organisations choose to respond to the EUTR.

The governing set of regulations for structural engineering in Sweden used to be Boverket, BKR. However in the beginning of the 21st century a changeover to new regulations, the Eurocodes, started.The transition was completed in year 2011 when the Eurocodes became the mandatory design work policy for all countries within the European Union. The Eurocodes were implemented to simplify and remove potential barriers to trade that may exist when countries have different design rules.  Since the changeover it has been important for all construction companies to update their knowledge base and their design software.When comparing the two calculation processes they seem similar, but there are a couple of differences worth noting.  With the new regulations, engineers will find that the process when designing joints in Timber structures has changed.  What used to be a fairly easy and straight forward calculation procedure has now become tedious and time consuming.The objective of this degree project is to present a product, a dimensioning tool that will help structural engineers when computing lateral load carrying joints in Timber structures.The degree project is made up of two parts where the first part is the written report describing the background and theory behind load carrying computations. The second part of the project is the actual dimensioning tool which includes several worksheets in Microsoft Excel. The program treats single and double shear connections of the following:Nail jointsScrew jointsSteel plates (thick and thin types) The user can edit the following parameters:Type of plate/ number of shearsStrength class of timber membersMember and plate sizeType of fastenerDiameter of fastenerLength of fastenerYield moment of fastenerkmod and partial factors for design load carrying capacityThe dimensioning tool was created and developed in collaboration with structural engineers at the company Byggteknik AB.

Mechanical harvesting may result in timber damages leading to reduced saw log quality. The initiator of this study was VIDA ? a privately owned concern operating in the value-adding process industry of forest raw materials. The aim of this study was to examine the type and amount of damages on Alvestakubb caused by the harvester head during the cutting process. The aim was also to compare the damages caused by different types of feed rollers and to evaluate the effects of temperature on damage occurrence.

Ala sawmill in Ljusne, Hälsingland, has increased its flow through the sawing plant during the last couple of years. The problem now is the sorting plant, as this part of the mill is now slower than the rest. A close analysis of the sorting plant was therefore necessary to be able to increase the flow through. The aim of the project was to find solutions that can lessen downtime and increase flow. The goal was to increase the flow from 650 to 925 logs through the sorting plant per hour.