The purpose of my task was to map the pallet flows at Findus and put together as well as analyze the problems. My work has also included finding out what alternatives there are to the present pallet exchange system and suggest measures to reduce the problems.The problems can be divided into poor quality and hygiene issues. The poor quality, for instance poor strength is due to arbitrary judgements and the fact that there are companies that make a system of manufacturing forged pallets of an inferior quality compared to the EUR-pallets. These pallets are marked with stamps more or less similar to the EUR-mark and taken into the exchange system. Of course there are rules how to judge a pallet but these rules are many and sometimes indistinct and there are a lot of marks to keep track of.The most dangerous part is when the pallets lack the prescribed carrying capacity.

The increased interest in a sustainable environment puts pressure on companies in the manufacturing industry. Rexcell Tissue & Airlaid AB (Rexcell) in Skåpafors produces paper to be converted into tabletop and hygiene products. Rexcell is certified according to the environmental management system ISO 14001, gaining competitive advantages by showing that the company works toward a sustainable environment and that they follow current legislation. The activities at the company are classified as hazardous to the environment according to the Environmental code. Every year, the activities are inspected by an independent inspector.

This study presents a holistic view of which factors small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have to consider, in moving their customer order decoupling point (CODP) further from the customer, thereby becoming more customized. The study also investigate whether SMEs and larger enterprises differ in the strategic questions relating to what influences an enterprise to become more customized, which prerequisites are required and which problems enterprises should anticipate and prepare for. These questions are important, given that strategic change is challenging, and can take considerable time to accomplish; it therefore needs to be based on the right decisions. This study is motivated by the fact that the markets SMEs are selling to tend to become more and more complex and harder to anticipate. Increased globalisation and use of IT and ICT have lead to greater uncertainty in customer demand.

Today's climate and environmental issues have now been up for discussion for quite long. Various environmental measures have been taken, but it is not always certain that those measures actually are for the better because of the complexity of our environment. Therefore, studies of whole life cycles are very important even if they are time and resource intensive.Real estate accounts for 15% of global carbon emissions, but also affects our environment in many other aspects. In Sweden this number is even higher. About 30 % of its carbon dioxide emissions originates from building sector and changes are therefore of great importance.

Today's climate and environmental issues have now been up for discussion for quite long. Various environmental measures have been taken, but it is not always certain that those measures actually are for the better because of the complexity of our environment. Therefore, studies of whole life cycles are very important even if they are time and resource intensive.Real estate accounts for 15% of global carbon emissions, but also affects our environment in many other aspects. In Sweden this number is even higher. About 30 % of its carbon dioxide emissions originates from building sector and changes are therefore of great importance.

During the last couple of years the focus for many businesses have moved from just being price oriented to include such factors as quality, flexibility, service, delivery precision and environmentally friendliness. The shift in viewpoint arises from the increasingly competition on the market and the hard economic atmosphere. It has become more important to differentiate the company and its products to be able to increase market share. The purpose with this master?s thesis was to get a better understanding on how companies (customer to DHL) are reasoning and prioritizing when choosing Swedish carriers.

AbstractTitle:The Impact of Management Control Systems on the Purchaser Function - A study of Scania and Sandvik Authors: Mohammad Reza Akhbari and Johanna Sullivan Svensson Published: 2011 Keywords: Management control, purchasing function, impact, control, control instruments, Key Performance Indicators, measurement, communication and organizational structure. Background and problem formulation: In order for a company?s business idea or vision to be fulfilled, the management of a company needs assistance from various means to intentionally affect the operation in the desired direction. Management control concerns activities of both financial and non-financial character in order to implement the strategy of a company and to reach profitability. Since the purchaser function is responsible of spending 50 percent of a company?s total revenue, the function has an optimal starting point to be a key actor in the shaping and execution of a company?s strategic plan.

AbstractOutsourcing is a business strategy that has developed over the last 40 years. Outsourcing means to let another company do some activity within the company, for example production.The thesis for this paper is: How is outsourcing used in a manufacturing company today and how is the resource efficiency affected by it? The research is divided into two parts, a theoretical part and an empirical part. The theoretical part consists of a study of literature. The works in this study is books, text books, bachelor thesis paper and scientific articles.

Examensarbetet är utfört på Volvo Construction Equipment Components AB i Eskilstuna. Där tillverkas transmissioner och axlar till hjullastare och ramstyrda dumprar. Uppgiften har varit att ge förslag på en layout med bästa potentiella monteringsupplägg på transmissionsmonteringen, baserat på prognostiserad volym år 2006. Stationsmontering är det rådande produktionsupplägget. Det faktum att monteringstiden är lång och att det förekommer dolt montage gör det lätt att glömma detaljer.

This thesis was conducted at Linköping University and SAAB Aerostructures, Linköping, and focuses on the automation of flexible fixturing in machining applications. At Linköping University a project called "Koofix" is conducted with support from Strategiska stiftelsen and several manufacturing industries including SAAB Aerostructures. The purpose of this project is to develop a more cost-effective, flexible, technique for fixation of workpieces during processing and assembly.Fixtures are an important part during the machining process, especially if you process the parts with high accuracy. Today a large number of fixtures are used at SAAB and they would prefer to reduce the number of fixtures by using flexible fixtures instead. SAAB uses one fixture for each article and this result in a high fixture cost and it also takes time to design and construct a new fixture.There are several advantages with using a flexible fixture such as that you can process workpieces with different length, height and thickness in the same fixture.

The use of bio energy in Sweden has increased during the last few years and with every passing year, bio energy produces 3-4 TWh´s more energy than the previous year. The increase in the use of bio energy makes it an interesting prospect for forest companies to produce bio energy from the forest. Sveaskog has a fairly extensive bio energy programme, mainly in southern and middle Sweden. Their activity regarding bio energy in northern Sweden has been very restrictive or even non-existent. Because of this, during the winter of 2003-2004, Sveaskog initiated a number of degree projects with the purpose of looking at the use of bio energy in northern Sweden.

Undersökningen äger rum på ett fastighetsbolag som vi har valt att kalla X AB och som harca 350 anställda. På två av X AB:s kontor har vi genomfört kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer med totalt åtta medarbetare. Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka hur medarbetarepå fö-retaget X AB upplever förändringen fråntraditionella medar-betarsamtal till agila medarbetarsamtaloch hur denna föränd-ring har påverkat den lärande organisationen.Med agila med-arbetarsamtalmenar vi situationsanpassade samtal som sker ofta, regelbundet och som är individanpassade.Undersökningen grundar sig i teoretiska utgångspunkter som bland annat belyser lärande och utveckling i relation till dia-log, relationen mellan medarbetare, ansvar, feedback och den lärande organisationen. Studien grundar sig även på teorier om arbetsmetoden Lean, eftersom Toyota och Lean manufacturing är föregångare till den agila arbetsmetoden. Resultatet av vår undersökning visar att övergången från trad-itionella medarbetarsamtal till agila medarbetarsamtal på X AB inte kommunicerats ut tillräckligt på alla avdelningar, vil-ket lett till att vissa avdelningar inte fått med sig alla medarbe-tare i förändringsprocessen och i de agila samtalen.

In early January 2010 the authors participated in a meeting with the chief engineer for a company in which a central part is manufacturing of printed circuit boards (PCB). At this meeting it emerged that the machinery and production methods have changed substantially since the early 1990's. The spreadsheet for preliminary production time calculations by the company is today based on conditions from almost 20 years ago. The company has over the years been trying to adjust the spreadsheet template. The result of these adjustments has filled it with historical residue, something which makes the template difficult and time consuming when the primary user tries to handle it.The purpose of this study was to help the company increase its accuracy in the representation of the production times for the different PCB-based products by developing a new costing model based on an already existing but inadequate spreadsheet template. The company also expressed the wish that the new costing model would be less time consuming to work with.The methods used to achieve the goal are interviewing, participatory observations and meetings with relevant persons. The data obtained were analyzed using the theory on PCB production and visualization of data.

Nätverks-RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) är en metod för positionsbestämning med Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) i realtid. Metoden kräver att en driftledningscentral kan kommunicera med de GNSS-mottagare som använder referensstationsnätet, för att bland annat skicka ut korrigerade GNSS-data. I Sverige erbjuder SWEPOS, ett nät av fasta referensstationer, en tjänst för nätverks-RTK-mätning, som förväntas ge en mätosäkerhet på mindre än 15 mm i plan och 25 mm i höjd (över ellipsoiden) (med täckningsfaktorn k = 1 i bägge fallen). Den teknik som idag används av SWEPOS för att utföra positionsbestämning av GNSS-mottagare är Virtuell Referensstation (VRS). VRS kräver tvåvägskommunikation eftersom mottagaren skickar in sin absoluta position till nätverks-RTK-programvaran hos driftledningscentralen, var beräkningarna av korrektionsdata sker, innan de skickas tillbaka till mottagaren.

Sweden is one of five nations in the world manufacturing fighter aircrafts. Highly advanced technology is needed in order to develop a fighter aircraft. When developing advanced technology, new applications, other than those initially intended occur, spin-off. Some of Sweden?s largest companies are spin-offs from the fighter aircraft industry.