Companies that are facing the global market are put in to new challenges in order to streamline its business. One industry that has realized that changes are necessary is the construction industry, it is an industry witch is far behind the development of introducing information technology-tools systems in there business. It has shown there is a relation between high IT usage and high productivity, which is one of the reasons to why companies in the construction industry should purchase a business system especially for procurement. However, companies that have purchased a business system are facing difficulties in having their employees using it for its purpose. People react differently to changes and that?s why variations in quantities exist for usage of information technology-tools.

The market for biofuels from the forests have had a positive development and the job initiators for this master´s thesis wanted to examine the profitability of a method for harvesting forest fuel, which was unfamiliar to them. The method was the ?long tree tops-method?, here called the LT-method. The LT-method is characterised by the fact that timber is harvested as the only roundwood assortment while the rest of the stem, which in other cases would become pulpwood, is harvested as forest fuel together with the logging residues. The method is based on the assumption that advantages in handling of the forest fuel assortment such as increased load weights for forest hauling and truck transportation, should compensate for the lower price for pulpwood when sold as forest fuel. The aim of the study was to compare the profitability of the LT-method with the GROT-method (harvest of timber, pulpwood and logging residues) and conventional logging without any harvest of forest fuel, and aslo to try to identify factors affecting the profitability of the different methods.

Wooden joist slabs is a common type of floor in residential buildings. Higher demand and production of residential buildings increases the possibilities of profiting by optimizing the system of joists in a variety of areas. Spring and deflection is something most people can relate to since it?s not that uncommon to hear furniture rattle when you walk over a wooden floor. To remove the presence of those kinds of vibrations the system of joists have to be made stiffer than the standard joist construction that is used in today?s constructions.

The study is based on a new approach on how Swedish healthcare is supposed to be controlled and organized. There is a renowned administration problem within Swedish healthcare, which seems to be an obstacle to exploit the resources to the fullest. The latest venture within the healthcare system is patient involvement, where the patients become co-producers of their own care, which aims to both improve and make healthcare more efficient. A few wards in Sweden have implemented this new approach whereupon the study intends to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency in some of these.The study is restricted to three wards, whereof two of these are inpatient wards and the other one is an outpatient ward, within the medical clinic in Jönköping County Council, which has implemented the patient involvement approach in their daily work. The methodology for this study is qualitative in its nature where a time study of personnel time allocation and supplementary interviews with managing nurses on the wards have been conducted.

This is a study on winter groups, ?siida?, of semi-domesticated mountain-migrating reindeers that move to lichen pastures in the lowland boreal forests during winter. The aim of the study was to determine reindeer habitat use in their winter ranges in a managed forest landscape. The reindeers use of three different types of forests was determined, 1) 100-130 year old, 2) 20-40 year old forest and 3) clear-cut areas. All sites were dominated by Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris, and had the same types of ground vegetation.

The cost of transportation has strongly increased in the recent years, transportations which are a major part for the construction companies. Skanska Asphalt which is a part of Skanska Sverige AB has noticed that there are significant cost savings to be made with the purchasing of transports. The transports in this case is about asphalt, where the costs are about 10% of the outsourcing business turnover. The purpose of this thesis is to study the working practice that Skanska Asphalt are using today in controlling and time-writing, for the asphalt transportations. Resulting in recommendations on how to improve the working practice at Skanska Asphalt.This study was conducted with the help of a number of interviews with Skanska?s employees and with suppliers of transportation to describe the practices which are being used in during the asphalt transportation.

The guest harbor on Utö, Utö Gästhamn, is currently using electricity for heating all of the water used in the showers and taps. Because of the large amount of visitors, especially during the summer months, the hot water usage gets very high and that is also the case for the electrical bills. During the year of 2011 the cost of electricity for Utö Gästhamn reached a total of 257 500 kr. Out of these 257 500 kr approximately 142 000 kr, 55 % of the total cost, were because of the water heating.The report is the result of a cooperation with Skärgårdsstiftelsen, the Green Islands-project and Utö Gästhamn where the mutual goal is to dimension a solar energy system, to promote the sustainable development.Initially the different techniques for the solar energy system are researched. The techniques are plane solar collectors, evacuated tube collectors, pool collectors and photovoltaic cells.

The moose is a keystone species in the boreal forest ecosystem, but the dense Swedish population do cause some serious problems. From a forestry perspective, their browsing on young Scot pine (Pinus sylvestris) causes extensive losses of revenue. Adjusting the cleaning along roadsides of low trafficked forest roads can favour the production of plant species preferred by the moose. This is thought to redirect the moose´s browsing to the roadsides and thereby decrease the damages on commercial forest.The aim of this study has been to present a first evaluation of the vegetation in roadsides, one year after wildlife-adapted roadside clearing has been undertaken. In the wildlifeadapted clearing operation, the roadside was widened by removal of some trees in the forest edge whereupon a complementary clearing with a conventional chain flail was conducted.

Det är allt vanligare inom tredjepartslogistik att kunder hyr en yta för lagring. För den uthyrande parten, i detta fall Delta Terminal, är arean den begränsande faktorn för hur stor yta som kan hyras ut. Idag använ-der sig Delta Terminal av beslutsunderlag i form av lokalernas area och erfarenhet vart gods ska placeras och har inget hjälpmedel för att beräkna vart och hur mycket gods som kan allokeras för att använda så liten yta som möjligt. Studiens syfte har därför varit att ta fram ett faktabaserat hjälpmedel som kan användas som beslutsunderlag. För att uppnå syftet har en matematisk modell utvecklats för att optimera hur gods kan placeras till olika lokaler för att använda så liten area som möjligt och även kunna simulera förändringar.

Examensarbetet har utförts inom ramen för forskningsprojektet Från spill till guld, som leds av forskningsinstitutet Swerea IVF. Forskningsprojektets mål är att minimera spill inom bland annat textilindustrin. Examensarbetet syftar till att identifiera och minska mängden avfall i form av spill från produktion. I examensarbetet har en fallstudie på Swegmark of Sweden AB:s fabrik Sia New Rosme gjorts och en miljövärdeflödesanalys utförts. Analysen visade att flera processer inom produktionen är kritiska när det kommer till uppkomst av spill.

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.

Road safety is the result of measures to reduce therisk of accident and injury. (Nationalencyklopedin,2008). In principle, road safety means to arrive saveand sound.Safe traffic in cities is mainly achieved throughappropriate speed. In Sweden, more than half ofall rides happen with a speed above the legal speedlimit (Holmberg, Hydén m.fl, 1996). To reducespeed in order to increase safety requires measureswhich influence a driver?s motives for his orher choice of speed even if these are not rational(Boverket, 2002).

Road safety is the result of measures to reduce therisk of accident and injury. (Nationalencyklopedin,2008). In principle, road safety means to arrive saveand sound.Safe traffic in cities is mainly achieved throughappropriate speed. In Sweden, more than half ofall rides happen with a speed above the legal speedlimit (Holmberg, Hydén m.fl, 1996). To reducespeed in order to increase safety requires measureswhich influence a driver?s motives for his orher choice of speed even if these are not rational(Boverket, 2002).

Public concern and the need of responsible way of doing business have brought forward the issue of sustainability at the forefront of discussion in the last decade. Even though, food retailers are playing an important role in the economy, they are exposed for criticism by media and consumers for any socially and environmentally irresponsible business practices because, the potential environmental and social impacts from their operations are significant. These impacts need to be recognized and properly addressed. The main objective of this study was to assess the sustainable business management of a cooperative food retail business in Sweden, known as Konsum Värmland (KV). The necessary data and information on history and status of KV, and its practical activities concerning the implementation of sustainable development programs as well as the motivation and challenges encountered by KV during the implementation were gathered via reviewing different documents, research papers and press releases; interviewing decision makers and other personnel in KV and other researchers from Swedish University of Agricultural University who have investigated KV.

In this report a study is carried out with the aim to identify added values of EPC projects implemented in schools in order to increase the interest of EPC projects on the market. The report examines how the planned maintenance, supervision, maintenance and corrective maintenance is affected, how insurance premiums and terms are affected, the indoor environment and how the tasks of the operating staff is changing. A literature study of energy savings, energy use in schools, maintenance and insurance as well as how energy efficiency improvements are related to the Swedish environmental objectives has been made. Visits were carried out in Ludvika, interviews were also carried out with operation technicians and local strategists in Ludvika as well as employees of insurance companies.Schools often have neglected maintenance and problems with ventilation and indoor environment. Schools also have a large energy saving potential due to their low Utilization, mainly because they are empty parts of the year.