Problem discussion: Long-term supplier relationships have become more common. Hence, Supplier evaluation is a critical activity for many companies. However, making a relevant Supplier evaluation is time consuming. Therefore, it is important to decide which of the suppliers to put an extra effort on. Should all suppliers be evaluated in the same way? Previous, focus has been on purchasing of direct material.

This study looks into the possibility, and profitability, of expanding a pilot project that has been put into action at GGP Sweden AB in Tranås, a manufacturing company that produces front mowers. The pilot project is meant to give GGP Sweden AB a more precise control of the flow of goods from their suppliers, and its essence has proven to be quite similar to the Japanese Just-in-Time philosophy.The study has been divided into four separate areas; mapping, supplier selection, Supplier evaluation and cost analysis. These areas represent a holistic perspective on the expansion of the pilot project and cover topics varying from methods of finding suitable JIT-suppliers, constructing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to reviewing costs and assessing profitabilities.In this report, the reader will initially take part in the works of mapping GGP?s manufacturing unit, pilot project and supplier base, which results in a list containing the most suitable suppliers for a Just-in-Time based collaboration. Afterwards, the reader will be led into the area of Supplier evaluation, where five KPI?s are created with the purpose of ensuring that GGP will be able to evaluate their suppliers and pilot project in an effective way.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the organizational buying behaviour in the purchase of travels abroad. We have conducted a case study of two companies, one medium sized and one larger. Our empirical studies have shown that the companies? buying process is divided into two types, the process of recruit a new travel supplier and the process of a straight rebuy of a regular travel service. In the recruiting process we found that the evaluation process of the purchase is an ongoing process that contradicts estab-lished theories.

Study objects: JM, Folkhem and ABB.Purpose: The purpose with this study are to examine how the supplier relations are in the construction branch and compare that result with how the supplier relations are for ABB a production company.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates important and relevant parts of supplier relations, purchasing and supplier strategies to give good overview. The theoretical review will combine information from different fields to consent with the research problem.Method: A case study has been made on three different companies, one of the companies was active in the production industry the other two were active in the construction industry. Data was mainly collected through semi structured interviews on each of the three companies.Conclusions: The size of the company decided which point of view the company had on purchasing, traditional or modern view. All three companies had a centralized purchasing organization but the construction firms were more decentralized than the production company. The reason was that the construction firms were dependent with more flexibility when every construction project is unique..

Background: Performance measurement as a management control tool has received considerable academic attention. As the number of inter-organisational relationships, such as customer-supplier relationships, increases, there is a new scope for performance measurement as a management control tool. In order for a company to assess the effectiveness of its supplier relationships it has to define, measure and evaluate variables that are critical for the success of the relationship. The role of management control, and thereby of performance measurement, has increasingly been discussed in theory. However, empirical research in this area is still somewhat limited.

This report explores how organizations act when they are choosing an Outsourcing supplier. The study was conducted through multiple interviews with managers of different organizations. The data from those interviews was then analyzed through the use of two theoretical models. Our findings indicate that most organizations share the same base factors (qualifiers) when selecting an Outsourcing supplier. What therefore become crucial are the key factors that the Organizations see as Order winning factors.

Purpose: To explore the purchasing function, mainly the supplier selection activities, in the fast fashion apparel industry. The purpose is 1) to explore the criteria associated with supplier selection for fashion products, and 2) to analyze the purchasing activities in order to find characteristics and trends which are considered to be strategic for the buying company. Method: The empirics consist of qualitative interviews with employees with responsibility for the companies' purchasing activities, as well as information gathered from articles, annual reports, and company websites. Result: The study indicates that qualitative criterias have increased in importance, and have become an important part of supplier selection for fashion goods. A number of characteristics where identified as important for purchasing fashion goods, which can affect choice of supplier; examples are increased collaboration, increased re-buys and increased use of logistics services.

This thesis evaluates the user board of the elememtary school in Veberöd, Sweden. In this process an evaluation model is developed. The model itself gets evaluated in a meta-evaluation to improve the model for future use.The starting point of the evaluation is the deliberative democracy theory. Although Sweden is a representative democracy an official desire exists to have a democracy with deliberative qualities. The evaluation model is constructed to fit this context and is therefore, not only, set out from classical goal-based evaluation but also from deliberative democratic evaluation.

This market study was written on behalf of Uni4 Marketing (U4M) and investigates the Egyptian softwood market. The objective was to identify what characterises a good softwood supplier according to Egyptian importers. In addition to this U4M?s competitiveness compared to their competitors was evaluated. The study also identified possible sources of competitive advantage possessed by U4M.

Evaluating and choosing suppliers based on price alone, has traditionally been the dominant strategy for supplier selection within the purchasing function. With the origin of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)-concept in the early 1990s, a new philosophy dawned that promoted the importance of knowing the effects of supplier performance on the buying firm?s internal costs. Since then, scholars have been arguing the case of TCO as a viable model for making purchasing decisions and conducting Supplier evaluation. Still, after two decades little is known about its penetration and impact on the practices of buying corporations, leaving the questions of which costs are included in the purchasing organisations? decisions unanswered, and even more importantly why certain costs are considered and others not.

This report looks at the possibility of designing a universal adapter for Flat Blade windshield wipers in cooperation with European Automotive Supplier AB.To understand and see if this is possible, a research and an extensive patent search where done. Then to add structure to the project a Ganttschematic were developed. To generate good and solid ideas, different methods for product development were looked upon.When a method was chosen and applied, a series of concepts emerged. Now the focus was to design and construct all the pieces. The desired manufacture procedures were looked upon as well as materials.

Making the work in the public sector more efficient is something that has been seen as necessary during the later years. One way to do this on municipal level has been to apply solutions former used mostly by private companies. The organisational parts have also been adjusted to existing conditions in this work of change. For example more and more municipalities have come to use the purchaser-supplier model since the beginning of the 1990's. Norrköping, Linköping and Motala have been chosen in this essay for a closer study of the effects of the changes of the 90's, from an efficiency point of view.

The main subject with this master thesis is to take a closer look on how some of the university libraries of Gothenburg have evaluated their electronic services (such as search-systems, Internet-based services, CD-ROM etc.). The information technology has made its way into the library field during the past century and needs to be evaluated and quality measured to ensure the best possible service to the users. Since evaluation of electronic services is a new area in the evaluation field, some problems has arisen in terms of choosing evaluation strategies and finding the appropriate performance indicators for the evaluation process. The main questions asked in the thesis are; - Which are the most common theoretical strategies for evaluation? - How do some of the university libraries of Gothenburg perform evaluation in practice? - How does the various strategies for evaluation apply to the context of this thesis? The results show that specific strategies for evaluation aren't used in the reports discussed in this thesis.

This thesis concerns the control of outsourced interorganizational buyer-supplier relationships in the low-price fashion industry. A qualitative case study has been performed on two supplier relationships of a low-price fashion company. By identifying specificities of the industry and relating them to control problems and their implications on control solutions, the thesis has established a relation between industry specific characteristics and the way companies in the industry control their supplier relationships. The analysis is based on a theoretical framework created by Dekker (2004). Amongst other factors, the difficulty to define, quantify and measure the design variables of a fashion good, the high heterogeneity between individual products and the difficulty to predict the trend based demand, create high coordination requirements as well as appropriation concerns solved through extensive formal control.

Background: Critical conditions to become an attractive supplier of knowledge based IT-services in the B2B market are many. Besides the fact of supplying a service of high quality one must as a supplier communicate values which are understandable and desirable for a new buyer. Buying a knowledge based IT-service involves several risks; the consultant might not have sufficient knowledge or have difficulties understanding the corporate culture and collaborating with other staff within the client?s organization. Since services are intangible offers and it can be intricate to put right price level for something which can only be evaluated when the project is finished, puts severe strain on suppliers competing with other companies in the same market when looking for new clients.