Companies have put much focus on production systems to generate and maintain competitiveness which has contributed in less focus to logistics. The material flow is the process after the main processes and has therefore been regarded as “unimportant”. If the material flow fails, there can be consequences such as inventory-build ups or undersupply of material. Lean thinking is one strategy that may be applied to analyze and identify wastes, but the identification of problems has been harder to detect, while the ability to solve them has not improved at the same rate. Following two research questions has been asked to identify how companies should proceed to improve their inventory management but also what factors contribute to the inventory build-ups.  ·        What may cause excess inventory in manufacturing companies? <ul type="disc">How can a manufacturing company reduce WIP´s? The research method is based on a qualitative approach with an interpretivist research methodology to help answer the questions. A case study was done at a manufacturing company to help answer the research questions. The data has been collected by observations trough section B1 and unstructured interviews with both management and operators. The collected data was later compared to the literature according to the inductive reasoning to be able to make suggestions for improvements. The DMAIC tool has been a central point of this research regarding the mapping of the current state and suggestion of a future state. The case study was conducted at Company X AB in the middle of Sweden which is a company that manufactures components and complete solutions. The focus on production has resulted in less focus on the internal logistics. With the low focus on the internal logistics, inventory build-ups have occurred. The results point to the OEE being a contributing factor to the inventory build-up. The availability of both machines was low and therefore caused the OEE to be low. The low availability was caused by long changeovers, staff shortages, and emergency reparations. The conclusions are that Company X must make improvements so that the factors of the low availability decrease in frequency and severity to reduce the work-in-process (WIP). The improvements should be approached with different lean-tools such as SMED, KANBAN, FIFO and 5S.

In this thesis, an approximation is proposed to evaluate the steady-state performance of kanban controlled assembly systems. The approximation is developed for the systems with two components making up an assembly. Then, it is extended to systems with more than two components. A continuous-time Markov model is aggregated keeping the model exact, and this aggregate model is approximated replacing some state-dependent transition rates with constant rates. Decomposition of the approximate aggregate model into submodels guarantees product-form steady-state distribution for each subsystem. Finally, submodels are combined in such a way that the size of the problem becomes independent of the number of kanbans. This brings about the computational advantage in solving the combined model using numerical matrix-geometric solution algorithms. Based on the numerical comparisons with simulation, the exact model, an approximate aggregate model and another approximation in a previous study in the literature, the approximation is observed to be good in terms of accuracy with respect to computational burden and has the potential to be a building block for the analysis of systems that are more complex but closer to real-life applications.

This piece of work is focused on getting particular logistics management process streamlined and on reasonable recommendations leading to improvement of the current state in any logistics company. In accordance with the thesis objective, respective working hypothesis is defined: "The correct implementation of the replenishment method as far as inventory management in a logistics company is concerned contributes to the reduction of the stock." The application of results is performed on the manufacturing site Honeywell Brno. The first section of the thesis explains logistics and its tools, processes within material and inventory management and other related theoretical issues. Further, methods that have been applied are described. Main part is focused on the streamlining the production process in the company using calculations that respect factors directly influencing a level of the stock. The comparison of Kanban and Kitting system is provided too. Last part is discussing the obtained results, their expected economic consequences and recommendations for potential implementation in logistics chains elsewhere.

These diploma thesis are oriented on a analysis of quality management system in Fezko a. s. Strakonice and propose possibilities for its improvement. Quality management system is in this company on high level. Company is certified according to ISO/TS 16949. The opportunities for system improvement were detected particularly in production control area and material flow. I propose using of modern quality management tools and implementing of lean manufacturing principles and Six Sigma methodology in production, including kaizen and kanban techniques.

The innovation progress for municipalities is currently going slowly. Today most of the communication, decision-making, delegation and service of process are still handled via letter mail or phone calls. Companies and municipalities are starting to comprehend this and see opportunities. With the technology that exists today it is possible to speed up the processes when citizens and municipalities comunicate with each other. By migrating from the old way of applying and filing different matters by letter mail to so-called digital e-services, the citizen can apply, complement and get info on how their matter is going directly on the web. Abou AB works with optimizing information handling for municipalities and has recently made it possible for municipalities to eliminate their tedious way of handling matters by traceable web communication. They have a vision to take this to a new level of easement to the municipalities and their citizens by offering these services in mobile phones as so-called apps. One of these contemplated services is to file error reports. The service will offer the citizen to send in a report with attached meta data such as photo and the location of the regarding matter. This will be done by the mobile phones built in hardware in form of camera and GPS. This master’s thesis will describe the work to develop a prototype for filing an error reports in mobile phones that support Android and iOS operating systems. The goal for this thesis work is to develop this prototype by means of a process tool called Kanban and investigate if the tool fits the situation properly. The situation is that two persons will work in parallel with slightly different projects. Also the quality and usability of the resulting prototype applications is asserted with qualitative evaluations that results in higher awareness of the defects and suggestions on how to reform and improve the application in a usability point of view. The actual implementation work was planned according to a slightly loose Kan- ban paradigm. Kanban is all about improvements along the way and the im- plementation phase is divided into smaller phases with sub goals and recurring process evaluations. Suggestions of improvement regarding the work processes is a result of this. A Kanban board that helps visualize the workflow is used to help team members and project owners to get a good overview of current situa- tions. Several adjustments were made throughout the project and the so-called lead times, the time it takes to complete a task, was shortened in average from the beginning of the project compared to the end of the project. Each phase in the implementation part of the thesis work resulted in different functionalities in the application. A phase was two weeks long and ended with a demo were the new functionality was demonstrated. Prior to each demo session everyone at the company where the thesis work was performed was invited. The participants in these sessions were encouraged to give feedback on what they saw to help increase the quality of the applications. The prototype applications resulted in a more easy accessible service to citizens. By cutting out the process steps that previously needed to been done on a computer the 1application contributes to the possibility of an increased democratization grade for the citizen. The investigation regarding if the Kanban process tool was a suitable aid in the implementation part of the project resulted in that it was suitable for the specific situation. By measuring both lead times and other activities that did not concern the implementation work and plot them in a diagram explained why some weeks did not have as high productivity as others. To assert the awareness and quality of the developed applications in terms of usability a so-called heuristic evaluation was performed. This qualitative eval- uation resulted in a set of usability problems. These problems were all graded into different priority to be solved and some was given suggestions on how to be solved. The main purpose with this evaluation was to find the problems and document them to possible future programmers if the prototype will go into production. The result of this evaluation has increased the usability of the application and consequently the quality.

Abstract To gain competitive advantage and thrive in the market, companies have introduced Kanban in software development. Kanban has been used in the manufacturing industry for over six decades. In the software engineering domain, Kanban was introduced in 2004 to increase flexibility in coping with dynamic requirements, bring visibility to workflow and related tasks, improve communication, and promote the pull system. However, the existing scientific literature lacks empirical evidence of the use of Kanban in software companies. This doctoral thesis aims to improve the understanding of the use of Kanban in software engineering. The research was performed in two phases: 1) analysis of scientific literature on Kanban in software engineering and industrial engineering and 2) investigation of Kanban implementation trends in software companies. The data was collected through systematic literature reviews, survey and semi-structured interviews. The results were synthesized to draw conclusions and outline implications for research and practice. The results indicate growing interest in the use of Kanban in software companies. The findings suggest that Kanban is applicable to software development, software maintenance, and portfolio management in software companies. Kanban brings visibility to task and offering status, limits work in progress at any given time gives people greater control over their work and limit task switching. Although Kanban offers several benefits, as reported in this dissertation, the findings show that software companies find it challenging to implement Kanban incrementally. / Tiivistelmä Ohjelmistoteollisuudessa Kanbanin käyttö on yleistynyt vuodesta 2004 alkaen. Sillä pyritään tuomaan joustavuutta muuttuvien vaatimusten hallintaan, tuomaan näkyvyyttä työnkulkuun ja toisiinsa liittyviin tehtäviin, parantamaan kommunikaatiota sekä edistämään imuohjauksen hyödyntämistä. Kanbania on käytetty valmistavassa teollisuudessa jo yli kuuden vuosikymmenen ajan. Olemassa olevassa tieteellisessä kirjallisuudessa on kuitenkin esitetty hyvin vähän empiirisiä tutkimustuloksia Kanbanin käytöstä ohjelmistoyrityksissä. Väitöskirjan tavoitteena on parantaa ymmärrystä Kanbanin käytöstä ohjelmistotuotannossa. Tutkimus toteutettiin kahdessa vaiheessa: 1) Kirjallisuusanalyysi Kanbanin käytöstä ohjelmistotuotannossa ja tuotantotekniikassa ja 2) Empiirinen tutkimus Kanbanin käyttöönoton trendeistä ohjelmistoyrityksissä. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin systemaattisten kirjallisuuskatsausten, kyselytutkimuksen ja puolistrukturoitujen teemahaastattelujen kautta. Tutkimustulosten synteesin pohjalta tehtiin johtopäätöksiä Kanbanin käytöstä ohjelmistotuotannossa sekä niiden merkityksestä alan tutkimukselle ja Kanbanin käytölle yrityksissä. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat kasvavaa kiinnostusta Kanbanin käyttöä kohtaan ohjelmistoyrityksissä. Tulosten perusteella Kanban soveltuu käytettäväksi ohjelmistokehityksessä, ohjelmistojen ylläpidossa sekä tuoteportfolion hallinnassa. Kanban tuo näkyvyyttä ohjelmistokehitykseen, niin meneillään olevien tehtävien kuin portfoliotarjoaman osalta. Se myös auttaa rajoittamaan työtehtävien ruuhkautumista ja antaa kehittäjille paremman tavan hallita työtään rajoittamalla työtehtävien vaihtoa. Vaikka Kanbanin käytöllä on mahdollista saavuttaa väitöskirjatutkimuksessa esitettyjä hyötyjä, tulokset osoittavat, että ohjelmistoyrityksillä on haasteita Kanbanin inkrementaalisessa käyttöönotossa.

This thesis researches dynamics in projects managed by Scrumban. It describes the creation of system dynamics simulation model, which provides insight into the relationships between system components. It also presents data, that are further analysed with the purpose of discovering patterns in behaviour of project attributes in time, such as size of the product backlog, work in progress etc. The patterns are discovered and recommended parameter settings are provided so that there is no idle time or higher defect rate than necessary. Soft factors are also included in the model, namely the development team and the customer, which have a grand effect to the model behaviour. Managment flight simulator is developed, which provides the option to experiment even to users, who are not familiar with system dynamics modelling. The thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, necessary theory of project management, system dynamics and their fusion is provided. The second part is dedicated to the process of creating the simulation model, dynamic hypothesis formulation, mathematical modelling, testing and data analysis. In consideration of the analysis results, recommended policies are provided. Last pages of the thesis describe the user interface of management flight simulator and it's controls.

This diploma thesis describes the implementation of modern managing methods in a selected company. The aim of the thesis concentrates on helping with its implementation. The lean production plays a dominant role among these methods. The main aim is therefore to create the first sample workplace using modern management methods. The thesis is divided into two main parts, the theoretical one and practical one. In the theoretical part the lean production has been decribed, its individual methods and the principle of the constant improvement. The practical part analyses the present state of production management in a selected company. It further contains the proposals of possible solutions under the terms of lean production methods and as well as the own implementation of individual proposals. It is primarily the use of visualization and the 5S methods. The formation of the first sample workplace is desribed in detail which uses the Kanban system. At the end of the thesis other proposals and recommendations for increasing of company's productivity have been introduced.

This diploma´s thesis is focused on design of the logistics concept of selected production section in manufacturing firm with using logistics method Just In Time. In analytical part is analysed current situation of managing material flows for selected production sections, ways of supplying production units and amount of stock which is stored in production areas. In proposal part are suggested some changes in various spheres along with new design of the logistics concept and possible economical contributions in case of applying this logistics concept.

The content of this diploma thesis is an analysis of the current state of management of international projects in a multinational IT company, which should lead to the selection and implementation of an appropriate project management tool supporting planning and project management using agile methods Scrum and Kanban. The focus of this thesis is the actual implementation of the selected tool and its setting.