An organization must manage its resource consumption and material flows in order to satisfy the demand of its products as efficiently as possible. Managing of the aforementioned requires a balance between the organizations resources (such as the capability of distribution and production) and the market demand. According to Gardner (1990), an estimation of future demand is a necessity for maintaining the balance. An instrument that is used frequently to estimate future demand is demand forecasting. The demand forecasting practice has been thoroughly studied and a plethora of academic contributions exist on the topic.

Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is: to determine key success factors for an organisation?s internal process of internalising future trends forecasting. Methodology:A qualitative approach has been chosen by examining three different companies (Electrolux, H&M and, Sony Ericsson) through interviews and other data. The empirical material have been analysed by using valid theory as a platform from where the analysis can be performed. This has created a conceptual analysis that enables the use of the conclusions in other similar companies.

Being able to predict the future had been an invaluable competitive advantage for any corporation. Forecasting is a vital part of any business, hence a good forecast allows enterprises to invest in a beneficial way. However, there are several ways to prepare forecasts and the forecast methodology can vary. An industry that is dependent on forecasts is the energy industry. By predicting consumers' energy consumption, Swedish energy companies can hedge on the Nordic power market Nord Pool.

Forecasting is an important part in attempting to predict how companies will perform in the future. The more accurate the prediction, the more valuable are the results obtained from the forecast. This thesis aims to investigate forecasts of return on equity, and whether a disaggregation of the leverage formula into its underlying components affects the forecasting ability positively. This is conducted by comparing a model based on the leverage formula's components with a model solely based on return on equity from previous years. The study includes manufacturing companies on the Swedish Stock Exchange over the period 1998-2011.

In this trial we used QualispermTM as an objective method of measuring stallion semen. Samples of semen were analyzed before and after centrifugation. Motility and concentration were statistically analyzed. During the trial all the objective mesaurments were compared to a subjective method. The advantages of QualispermTM compared to older CASA- systems is it´s ability of measuring a greater amount of spermatozoa while it also grades them into different subpopulations. These subpopulations have different qualities that decides their capacity of fertilization. The results showed that this objective method might be used practically. Although, there are still some disadvantages, such as high costs and the necessarity of accurat training of the handler. If it´s possible to prove further relevant results that also are statistically correct, this could prove the usefulness of QualispermTM as an objective measurment method in the daily work at gestuts and stallion stations, thus giving the staff a reliable instrument in assisting the work for an improved horse breeding in Sweden, improving both in quality and economically..

Prior studies have shown that earnings management can be used either to inform or to mislead investors about the future performance of a company. However, few studies have examined the impact of earnings management on forecasting return on equity (ROE). The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether the ability to forecast next year's ROE is improved when taking earnings management, measured as discretionary accruals, into account. This is examined by comparing a forecast model that takes the magnitude of discretionary accruals into consideration with a model that does not. The study is based on companies that were listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 2002-2012.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what opinions parents have of the after school-centre, if they know that it has an objective and what that objective is. This will be examined by surveying parents with children in after school-centre. The questions posed in the study are as follows: Do parents know the objective of after school-centre? What is the general view of after school-centre among parents? The results show that 41 percent know that there is an objective while 39 percent don't. Only 6 percent can describe what the objective is.

We have by Statistics Sweden (SCB) been given the task of using different dynamic regression models in order to forecast service price index for sea transport. The aim is to see whether these models provide better forecasts than those previously used. This essay aim to identify, estimate and evaluate the selected prediction models. Through our data material we were given access to 28 sightings of sea transport index during the period of 2004 q1 to 2010 q4. We have chosen to evaluate three different transfer function models, one ARIMA model and one naive forecasting model. The input variables we decided to test in our transfer function models were the price of petroleum products, the port activity in Swedish ports and the lending rate of Swedish Central bank. The results of our study suggest that transfer function models generally provide better models than the ARIMA model and the naive forecast model.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what opinions parents have of the after school-centre, if they know that it has an objective and what that objective is. This will be examined by surveying parents with children in after school-centre. The questions posed in the study are as follows: Do parents know the objective of after school-centre? What is the general view of after school-centre among parents? The results show that 41 percent know that there is an objective while 39 percent don't. Only 6 percent can describe what the objective is.

Background: An evaluation of analysts´ forecasting ability is interesting since their estimates constitute an important part in stock valuation and investment decisions. The recent years´ development in the stock market has lead to criticism of analysts? deficient forecasts. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate analysts´ forecasting ability concerning companies quoted at Stockholmsbörsen between 1987 and 2002. We also intend to discuss possible explanations for analysts? behavior in case of deficient accuracy.

The Swedish Transport Agency has for a long time collected data on a monthly basis for different variables that are used to make predictions, short projections as well as longer projections. They have used SAS for producing statistical models in air transport. The model with the largest value of coefficient of determination is the method that has been used for a long time. The Swedish Transport Agency felt it was time for an evaluation of their models and methods of how projections is estimated, they would also explore the possibilities to use different, completely new models for forecasting air travel. This Bachelor thesis examines how the Holt-Winters method does compare with SARIMA, error terms such as RMSE, MAPE, R2, AIC and BIC  will be compared between the methods. The results which have been produced showing that there may be a risk that the Holt-Winters models adepts a bit too well in a few variables in which Holt-Winters method has been adapted.

Abstrakt The yield curve as a forecasting tool for inflation has been thoroughly investigated. However, most of these studies considered only the major economies, such as the U.S. economy or the major European economies and not a small open economy such as the Swedish. The Swedish economy should be much more affected by the world economy then the bigger economies. The purpose with this study is then to investigate whether the Swedish yield curve, or the Swedish interest rate, can be used as forecasting tools for the Swedish inflation.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att försöka reda i litteraturen kring två välkända begrepp inom Affective Forecasting nämligen Impact Bias, som innebär att människor har en tendens att överskatta i vilken utsträckning de kommer att uppleva en viss känsla i en framtida situation än vad som senare visar sig vara fallet, och Empathy Gaps, som innebär att människor har en tendens att underskatta i vilken grad känslotillstånd kommer att påverka deras preferenser i en framtida situation samt pröva dessa begrepp i en och samma enkätundersökning. Etthundra sextiotvå studenter, slumpvist uppdelade i två grupper, Känslogrupp och Preferensgrupp, deltog frivilligt i undersökningen. Enkätundersökningen var en mixad design med grupp (känsla kontra preferens) som mellangruppsfaktor och förtest kontra eftertest som inomgruppsfaktor. I studien visade samtliga gruppers resultat i linje med Impact Bias teorin, dvs. att deltagarna i både Känslogrupp och Preferensgrupp skattade lägre i eftertest (actual) än pretest (forecasting).

Forecasting stock market returns is an interesting topic since more and more Swedes enter and invest in this market. Theory implies, however, that such exercises should be impossible. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the possibility to forecast future stock returns by looking at macroeconomic variables? history. The study is limited to the Swedish market as it is based on the OMXS30-index which represents the 30 most exchanged stocks on Stockholms¬börsen, the Swedish stock exchange.

The use of CAD, within the building industry came strongly, during the 1980?s and the 1990?s. The development has since then rapidly progressed and the using of 3D-models has in addition increased. We are now at the edge of next step of evolution. BIM, Building Information Model(ing), is here.