The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and propose improvements to the current procedure for cost estimations of purchased maintenance work at Banverket, the Swedish rail administration. This governmental institution is responsible for the procurement of maintenance services for the country?s railroad network through open tenders. Due to the generally low number of contractors, it is particularly necessary to establish accurate cost estimates in order to assess the offers and ensure that a fair price is being paid to the suppliers. Several flaws associated with the current practice are identified and analyzed according to cost accounting theories.

The Armed Forces is looking to improve control of where articles are and the monitoring of their condition within its clothing supply. That is why Försvarets Materielverk is working on a motion to tag the Armed Forces clothing with passive RFID-tags. A cost/benefit analysis has been made in this report in order to find out whether the investment is economical justifiable and what costs and benefits arose. The analysis tool that was used is based on the PENG-model. The analysis had three scenarios with the difference that each scenario included various amounts of clothing to tag.  There has also been made an analysis where only the benefits regarding decreasing amount of lost clothes and simplified inventory were included.The result of the first analysis was that none of the scenarios was profitable during the first year.

The purpose of the thesis is to compare Sweden's and Great Britain's Total costs for their systems regulating producer responsibility for waste packages. Producer resonsibility is a strategy implying that producers are responsible for their waste also after its use. Sweden and Great Britain introduced different systems systems after an EU directive was adopted in 1994 (94/62/EC), and they have resulted in entirely different recycling levels in the two countries. In the Swedish system, responsibility has been delegated to the industry who are responsible for reaching the determined goals. The economic instrument used is a fee, set and managed by the industry. The British system is more centrilised, and the economic instrument used to finance recycling of waste is a system based on transferable permits. The thesis compares the four different alternatives: delegated and centralised methods, and fees and transferable permits analytically.

This report will try to evaluate the use of rented concrete casting moulds, which are used to build walls and system of joists. The evaluation is only examining the economical aspects.The cost of using concrete casting moulds is a big part of the total production expenses. Therefore it is important that the calculated price not exceeds the final costs of the casting moulds. The calculated price is the price used in the process of making an offer.The evaluation consists of a comparison of the calculated price and the final costs for three building projects. It also evaluates the exploitation of the concrete casting moulds for each project.The report is made by Sven Gynne and Anders Alexandersson at School of Engineering, Jonkoping University, in cooperation with PEAB Jonkoping.

Construction waste from the housing industry includes all unnecessary consumption of building materials. The definition of construction waste is construction materials that has not been built in and becomes waste. Constructions waste can be divided into two types of contributions: operational and work site contribution. Some of the common construction materials in housing industry have such low usage level as 75 % and the rest becomes construction waste. Low usage of construction materials creates unnecessary costs and has a major environmental impact.

The arm?s length principle has existed in Swedish law since 1928 but has previously been given little attention. In 2007, documentation requirements were introduced, and the government began to do tax audits regarding transfer pricing. This thesis examines how the documentation requirements and tax audits affect the application of the arm's length principle. The research consists of nine interviews with a total of ten people at the tax authority (Skatteverket) and audit- and consulting agencies. The results of the interviews are analyzed using the agency theory. Many companies are risk averse and prefer having correct transfer pricing instead of taking on challenging strategies that can be risky in case of an investigation by Skatteverket.

 AbstractThe background for this study is that there were a great amount of buildings constructed in Sweden in the years 1965-1975 in a program designed to create one million apartments in a time-period of ten years. These buildings are now, somewhat forty years later in most cases in very poor condition and the need for renovation is great and urgent. This has become a growing problem and more and more voices are being heard pointing towards the vast and extremely expensive task of renovating these buildings. Lately, it has also been more and more important for buildings to be energy-efficient and sustainable environment friendly.In recent years there has been an atempt to solve these problems by renovating such buildings but at the same time making them very energy-efficient. This is in some cases being done by isolating the shell of the building and changing the ventilation-system and so forth.

In Sweden, the demand for bio energy has increased in recent years due to the current energy and climate debate. In 2008, the energy supply of Sweden was 612 TWh, biofuels accounted for 123 TWh of these. Stumps have been highlighted as a potential fuel in recent years and the Swedish Forest Agency expects a technically and biologically feasible potential of 20.7 TWh annually between 2010 and 2019. The idea of utilize stumps is not new. During the 19th century stumps were used for tar production and during the 70?s and 80?s attempts were made to use stumps in the pulp industry.

The effects from a planned wind farm on the grid utility Gävle Energis electrical grid have been studied. The wind farm is planned to be built in the forest 15 km north of Gävle and will have 23 turbines with rated power from 2 to 2.5 MW, resulting in a total installed power between 46 MW and 57.5 MW. The grid connection will be made at 70 kV. The aim of the analysis was to determine what effects the wind farm would have on the power grid in the form of electrical disturbances (flicker etc.), need for new investment and raised operational cost. To allow the connection of the wind farm technical solutions (new lines, power stations and grid reinforcements) have been constructed.

When planning new wind farms, the cost for the internal electrical grid is estimated to account for 8-9 % of the total investment cost. On top of that, the cost for accumulated reduced income over several years (due to electrical losses), has to be added. The economic lifespan is relatively long (about 20 years) which means that an error in the loss calculation could lead to a bad decision basis. The accumulated reduced incomes due to electrical losses can be higher than the initial investment cost for the internal electrical grid.Today, Statkraft Sweden is using a template number when estimating the electrical losses in a wind farm. The actual losses are probably lower than the template number which could lead to an unnecessary high loss cost when planning a new wind farm.The aim of this M.Sc.

The purpose of this report is to compile and examine the cost of renovation of moisture-damaged bathrooms, to derive a target price. The target price can then be used by insurance companies to estimate the ultimate cost of future bathroom renovations.       The method is based on the compilation and comparison of the cost of repairs of previous water damage in bathrooms. The calculations compiled based on repair estimates for different insurance losses from one of the leading insurance companies in Sweden.       The result shows the average price per square meter of floor area for different sizes of bathrooms. The average price is the basis for the estimate of future renovation costs of bathrooms. The results further show that the bathroom finishes, area and the distance between the entrepreneur and the location of the renovation have great impact on the final repairing cost.

The arm?s length principle has existed in Swedish law since 1928 but has previously been given little attention. In 2007, documentation requirements were introduced, and the government began to do tax audits regarding transfer pricing. This thesis examines how the documentation requirements and tax audits affect the application of the arm's length principle. The research consists of nine interviews with a total of ten people at the tax authority (Skatteverket) and audit- and consulting agencies. The results of the interviews are analyzed using the agency theory. Many companies are risk averse and prefer having correct transfer pricing instead of taking on challenging strategies that can be risky in case of an investigation by Skatteverket.

This study was carried out as a commission from Holmen Skog, district ?Egen skog? in Norrköping. During October 2006 several stands were inventoried by aerial photos from helicopter. The stands were those for which the next action proposed was plant inventory or plant check. The photos were interpreted and the number of stems was calculated.

This report is a thesis work for a B.Sc. in Forestry exam at the School for Forest Engineers, SLU. The work was an assignment from Sydved and the aim of the work was to investigate the economical output of removing understorey trees before first thinning. Four treatments were studied. - no cleaning before thinning - cleaning of all trees less than DBH 5 cm before thinning - cleaning of all trees less than DBH 7 cm before thinning - cleaning of all trees less then DBH 9 cm before thinning The result shows a decrease of the cost per m3 for the harvester with about 38% if all trees less than DBH 9 cm was cleaned before thinning compared with the un-cleaned area. At the same time the total net revenue increases with about 22%. .

A study has been conducted on how organizations in Sweden administer costs of facilities management services internally. There are three main theoretical methods for administering costs. In the first method, costs are maintained on a central level; in the second method, costs are allocated and in the third method, internal transfer pricing is used. The aim of the study is to identify which methods are applied in practice, to evaluate whether the methods fulfill their intended purposes and to study the relationship between the methods used and the cost level of facilites management services. In practice, a large diversity of methods are used for facilities management costs.