Quality can be defined as the ability of a business to satisfy their customers? needs and expectations. Total Quality Management is defined as the way to prevent, appraise and improve the entire organization to increase the product quality. In order to systematically increase quality in an organization, there are different quality systems in use. One example is process management, which is to divide the activities of processes.

Since the 1980s, companies have taken a larger interest in quality and it´s economic impact within the company. Having the knowledge that it´s not quality that costs money, but it´s rather the lack of quality. The work immerses itself in the field of cost of poor quality and the development of key performance indicators.The thesis is performed at Bufab Holding in Värnamo. Bufab Holding is a trading company which mainly buys and sells C-parts. C-parts include fasteners, other small metal-, rubber- or plastic parts such as wires, springs and electronic fasteners.The aim of this thesis was to make a survey of the cost of poor quality and to find key performance indicators (KPI) for cost of poor quality that can be continuously monitored.

During the 1970?s the interest for quality management and the concept of quality costs increased considerably. Business leaders noticed that there was a great potential for reducing costs of poor quality. Since up to 10-30% of a company?s total turnover may consist of Poor quality costs some consider them as an unexploited goldmine.

This thesis has been made in cooperation with Forsheda Stålverktyg AB which develops and manufactures injection moulds and diecasting tools. The main concern has been their Trading-system which provides them with considerable amount of quality lost function.Focus has to however be put on the analysis of the Trading-system due to the fact that this has previously meant various quality issues for the company.This thesis treats quality assurance of the Trading-system, identification of the problems in the process and improvements of these problems.Quality assurance is carried out when a company detects that their quality based costs become too high. Quality based cost are? the costs that would disappear if a company's products and its different operational processes were absolute? (Sörqvist, 2001 p.30, free translation from Swedish). High quality based costs often result in increased quality problems, which can lead to substantial economic loss for the company.This work has resulted in a thorough review of the Trading-system whereupon problems have been identified.

Arbetet visar praktiskt hur en organisation kan utnyttja kvalitetsbristkostnader, för att sedan utifrån dessa identifiera möjligheter till förbättring. I arbetet används identifierade kvalitetsbristkostnader för att ta fram en projektplan för motortillverkningen. Projektets resultat ska medföra att kvalitetsbristkostnaderna vid motortillverkningen minskas. Arbetet börjar med att identifiera vilka kvalitetsbristkostnader som motortillverkningen har dokumenterat. Därefter tas en enkät med öppna frågor fram, vilken behandlar kvalitetsbrister vid motortillverkningen.

Construction companies in Sweden have for recent years seen an increase in the numbers ofwarranty complaints associated with the market of resident buildings and the cost for this hasbeen measured to over 1.2 billion SEK per year. Working with poor quality cost as a way ofcreating insight about defects within the company?s processes is a method developed and usedby the manufacturing industry for decades, but have not yet reached the construction industry.This study has been performed in collaboration with a Swedish construction company, wherethe author has been stationed at the aftersales division for residential buildings. Owing tocircumstances, this published report has been made anonymous regarding the company whowill further on be namedthe Company. The Company is aware that warranty claims producegreat costs and has requested a way of putting cost and cause to specific claims in order ofreceiving a more specific cost view and to make the reuse of knowledge more efficient.

All companies wants? to be as profitable as possible. The company in question is one of the leaders in it´s field in Sweden. In order to increase profits as much as possible it is important to identify and eliminate eventual quality defect cost as far as possible.This study was performed in Huddig AB, and the purpose of this study is to try to develop a routine for monitoring the quality defect costs, and to improve communication and create feedback between production and aftermarket.In addition to an extensive literature review on quality defect costs most of the work have been conducted at the company. Own observations and interviews have been done with the staff to get a picture of the current situation and to try to come up with improvement proposals.During the study it was proved that much of the quality defect costs in essence, derived from the production, which is seen as positive because it is the easiest part of the company to improve.

Construction companies in Sweden have for recent years seen an increase in the numbers ofwarranty complaints associated with the market of resident buildings and the cost for this hasbeen measured to over 1.2 billion SEK per year. Working with poor quality cost as a way ofcreating insight about defects within the company?s processes is a method developed and usedby the manufacturing industry for decades, but have not yet reached the construction industry.This study has been performed in collaboration with a Swedish construction company, wherethe author has been stationed at the aftersales division for residential buildings. Owing tocircumstances, this published report has been made anonymous regarding the company whowill further on be namedthe Company. The Company is aware that warranty claims producegreat costs and has requested a way of putting cost and cause to specific claims in order ofreceiving a more specific cost view and to make the reuse of knowledge more efficient.

The purpose of this thesis is to map out and investigate how the banking sector affects a customer?s willingness to change bank, and what the switching costs are for a customer when making these changes. A case study was performed through qualitative and quantitative questionnaires and interviews. The qualitative part was carried out to create hypotheses. The hypotheses was tested in a quantitative survey to be able to either accepted or rejected these them.

the most obvious problem at Traction today is the in-between handling that demands much time and resources. The reason is that the packages are not designed with handling in mind. Several of the packages of today also have a poor degree of utilization that means there is room for a fewer number of articles. That in turn means more packages, more transports, more storage space and more staff. On the basis of a specification of demands ? which take quality and environmental influence, as well as transport, handling and economy in account ? we have developed suggestions on new packages that will facilitate handling and lower the total costs, The time of handling will in some cases abbreviate to just a few seconds with the new packages.

There are problems with poor quality, poor scheduling and poor working climate in the Swedish construction industry. Many parts have been involved, trying to solve the problem.This spring a new planning and building-law becomes final. In this law, the requirements set on the controls are greater. Hopefully this will lead to fewer construction errors. The requirements set on the working environment have also increased, forcing consultants and contractors to focus on safe workplaces.For each project requiring a building permit, an inspection plan has to been drawn.

New method for measuring road quality- A statisticalstudy of the relationship between road quality andsocioeconomic development A new tool with implications for road maintenance has the potential to yield statistical data for road quality in a large number of regions. This thesis investigates the possibility to develop a method, from this data, for evaluating the effects of road quality on socioeconomic development.The thesis is essentially divided into two parts. Part one looks to qualitatively establish the link between socioeconomic development and road quality and the second part focuses on how to develop a method for evaluating the effects of road quality on socioeconomic development. A method was devised using categorical data and a multinomial regression model. This method provides a comprehensive overview of the complex relationship between a variety of different variables.

The essay that you are now holding in your hand is a survey about how different companies calculate their logistic costs and the activities which are included. We have examined five companies within the county of Kalmar. The research objective has been to study how aware companies are about their logistic activities and costs. The conclusion of the report is that they put their logistic costs together with other costs which they distribute among their products. The companies identify additional logistic activities than costs which regarding to us is one step in the right direction towards the awareness concerning future effectiveness in the business..

The aim of this study is to learn about the nineteenth century poor relief system, how itoperated in the rural parish Kristdala during the period 1881-1890, and not least, who was thesupported person? The poor are defined as the individuals that received public poor relief, but in onechapter this definition of poverty is contrasted with a definition based upon tax exemption:inability to pay taxes. Two villages have been selected for intensive study, namely Kroxhult and Calerum, and Calerum is the smaller one. The connection between age and the poverty ratio is clear, and tobe a lodger was especially disadvantageous with respect to poverty. Further the position ofwidow was the most unfavourable among the female poor people.

Many corporations turn to IT-outsourcing to focus more on their core competence or to cut the IT-budget. There is one caveat, the costs presented at a first glance does not always present the entire truth. Instead the costs run deeper and so-called hidden costs exist beyond the contractual cost. Reducing these hidden costs may very well be crucial to the entire IT-outsourcing endeavor. However many firms are not aware of these costs and as such they have a reduced chance of success.