Background: Service industries have grown extensively over the past few decades on the back of globalized business trends. With increasing competition, product firms are struggling on product sales alone. Hence, both products and services are being bundled into what is known as offerings. Moreover, firms are looking into how they can improve their offerings to meet customer needs with the help of smart products. Smart products are described as products able to communicate and interact with other electronic devices as well as being self aware. One of these examples is conditional monitoring whereby the product is houses built in sensors to communicate with a back end ERP system providing the supplier a transparent view and real-time update into the status and service needs for both the product and customer. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore how smart products can help leverage services for product firms moving towards a service focus. Method: In addressing the purpose a case study strategy was applied. An inductive approach was used, and interviews were conducted with two Swedish manufacturers, SKF and Atlas Copco. SAP, a software provider was also interviewed. Lastly, a qualitative approach was used and secondary data was collected through annual reports, as well as public company information. Conclusions: Smart products show the capability of being able to record, transmit and act upon their behavior and usage. One major finding from the thesis is that smart products enable product firms to extend their service portfolios from a transactional to a relational standpoint through real time information feeds. This includes asset maintenance as well as monitoring and visibility into client operations. In addition, traditional product firms help product firm’s move towards a service strategy. Another finding of the thesis is that information visibility shows a positive co-relation with the service provider’s ability to take on more risk increasing service revenues and customer lock in and increase value co-creation. On the other hand smart products show to be challenging to product firms new to service development. These challenges include increasing initial infrastructure costs and high level of maintenance and complexity of the smart products.

1 Abstract This master thesis examines linkages among bond and stock markets in Ger- many, Austria and Italy. For the purpose of analysis of return spillovers, we use Spillover index framework which enables us to describe development of inter- market linkages over time. The data used in the study includes the period from January 2nd, 1998 to May 23rd, 2017 which allows us to estimate long- term development of spillovers among markets. We find unequal link between stocks and bonds and increase in co-integration of markets during the financial crisis of 2007-2008 with significant persistence after the crisis. Mechanism of transmission of financial shocks among European countries is affected by eco- nomic and political integration of countries. We identify strong interlinkages of markets with substantial influence of Italian assets in transmitting shocks to German and Austrian assets, especially during periods of economic distress. On the other hand, Germany represents an open economy that is increasingly integrated to other markets. Scale of return spillovers is highly dependent on economic situation which is evident from clustering of high spillovers during recessions and a great deal of persistence of these interdependencies. JEL Classification G01, G12, G15, C63, C67 Keywords return spillovers, asset...

Master of Science / Department of Civil Engineering / Yacoub M. Najjar / Asset Management is a relatively new term in the transportation world. It involves a systematic approach to maintaining, upgrading and operating all transportation assets (including infrastructure) cost-effectively. With the Government Accounting Standards Board's Statement 34 (GASB 34) requiring all transportation entities to report all capital assets on their annual reports as well as the development of new software and technologies, Asset Management is becoming easier to implement and quickly becoming an important part of the transportation industry. In Kansas the Department of Transportation has developed and successfully utilized an Asset Management system for all assets including bridges, roadways, drainage structures and signs. Kansas counties however, do not have the funds and personnel to implement and maintain an Asset Management system similar to that of the KDOT. Asset Management systems have only been developed by counties with large populations, but even they have not reached the full potential of the system. This thesis discusses the importance of creating and maintaining an effective Asset Management system. Kansas counties were surveyed and asked a series of questions about their asset management systems, or lack thereof, as well as the successes and failures of these systems. The counties were asked how they prioritize maintenance, what software they are using, and what assets they have inventoried. The results of the questionnaire showed that counties with large populations have shown interest in implementing Asset Management systems and many have worked to implement such a system. Conversely, counties with small populations that do not have the resources have not implemented Asset Management systems. Recommendations for implementing appropriate Asset Management systems are made to counties in the three population ranges: i) less than 5,000, ii) between 5,000 and 50,000, and iii) greater than 50,000. These include software recommendations and creating inventories of all county assets including culverts, signs and pavements.

M.Ing. / This dissertation deals with the implementation of a Reliability Basis Optimisation Process for Eskom’s fossil fired Power Stations. This study comes about as a result of the situation that Eskom currently finds itself in. Eskom currently has a generating capacity of 41 000MW. It supplies 95% of South Africa’s power requirements and 45% of Africa’s power requirements. With the unprecedented economical growth that South Africa has experienced in the last five years, coupled with the economic recession of 2008/2009, Eskom has found itself in a precarious position in terms of power delivery. Eskom’s request for a 45% tariff increase in its Multi Price Determination (MYPD2) application to NERSA was turned down and a figure of 25% was awarded. Eskom’s current reserve margin is currently lies as less than 10%. With the funding restrains it now becomes difficult to replace machinery as it fails. The focus now shifts of carrying out effective maintenance. Eskom established the Asset Management Department with a view to ensure that the right maintenance was carried out. Within the Asset Management Department the Reliability Basis Optimisation (RBO) Process was established. The aim of the RBO stream is to improve the reliability and availability of the fossil fired Power Station. This dissertation looks at how the RBO process was developed and rolled out to the Power Stations. It also gives a brief overview of the Asset Management Improvement process to which the RBO process is the backbone.

In hospitals and clinics, medical devices incorrectly assigned to patients may cause various patient safety problems. Moreover, the unknown location of required mobile devices (intravenous pumps, cardiac monitors, etc.) represents additional issues for health providers such as unnecessary search effort, delays, and equipment underuse. To mitigate such issues, a patient-device connectivity management system that monitors and tracks patients and their assigned devices becomes an interesting option. Popular approaches for managing associations between patients and devices often involve bar-coding systems, which still require scanning time, are prone to errors, and do not solve equipment location issues. This thesis introduces a new system that exploits Real-Time Location System (RTLS) technology to track patients and devices and support simpler association by a nurse, until disassociation (voluntary or not) happens, at which point the nurse is notified. This system, called Real-time Patient-Device Association and Disassociation (RPDAD), interacts with nurses through their mobile device (tablet or phone). The system provides a new server-based application that interacts with an existing RTLS (hence enabling the reuse of current hospital infrastructure for mobile equipment tracking), a new Android mobile application for nurses, and a novel approach for automated disassociation tracking. The system was validated through proof-of-concept deployments in a university laboratory and in teaching hospital in Ontario, as well as with extensive testing for several configurations in a university laboratory. This thesis discuss-es the feasibility of the approach, its originality compared to the state of the art, and current technological limitations. We expect this system to help avoid usability and disassociation issues while increasing patient care quality and efficiency.

This diploma thesis deals with registration of hardware in the banking environment which is typical of its limitations. The goal of the thesis is to design a system for automated hardware management that complies with all aspects of this environment. The first step to achieve the goal is a selection of development methodology and its adaptation to the nature if the project. The chosen methodology helps to understand and to define the system requirements in terms of future users. According to the requirements there is performed analysis of the market. The result of this analysis confirms the need for designing of a custom solution. For its development is mainly used scripting language PowerShell 2.0, supplemented by SQLite database system. Fully functional system which should decrease the time overhead and improve the quality of the services provided to our internal customers, is the main contribution of the thesis. Finally, after deployment of the system to the operation, is assessed suitability of the chosen methodology and evaluated success of the whole thesis.

Investment decisions on electric power networks have developed to balance network functionality and cost efficiency by analyzing the main risks associated with network operation. Ageing infrastructures, like large power transformers in particular, aggravate the stress of management, because the failure of a power transformer could cause power supply interruption, network reliability reduction, large economic losses and also environment impacts. Transformer asset management is therefore aimed to develop a cost-efficient replacement strategy to get the most usage of transformers. The main objective of this thesis is to understand how UK National Grid transformer assets failure trend can be used, as the engineering evidence to help make financial decisions related to transformer replacements. The studies in this thesis are implemented via two main approaches. First statistical analyses methods are undertaken. This approach is realized to be non-optimal, because the transformer failure mechanism at the normal operation stage is different from that when transformers are aged. Secondly, the transformer physical ageing model is used to estimate thermal lifetimes under the ageing failure mechanism. In conjunction with the random hazard rate obtained by statistical analyses, the actual National Grid transformer population failure hazard with service age is derived. Statistical analyses are carried out based on the ages of National Grid failed and in-service transformers. Transformer lifetime data are fitted into various distribution models by the least square estimator (LSE) and maximum likelihood estimator (MLE). Statistics are however powerless to suggest the population future failure trend due to their intrinsic limitations. National Grid operational experience actually indicates a stable and low value of the random failure hazard rate during the transformer early operation ages. The engineering knowledge however suggests an ageing failure mechanism exists which corresponds to an increasing hazard in the future. Transformer lifetime under ageing failure mechanism is conservatively indicated by its thermal end-of-life corresponding to a specific level of insulation paper mechanical strength. By analyzing National Grid scrapped transformers’ lowest degree of polymerization (DP), these transformers are estimated to have deteriorated at different rates and their thermal lifetimes distribute over a wide age range. The limited number of scrapped transformers cannot adequately indicate the ageing status of the whole population. A transformer’s thermal lifetime is determined by its loading condition, thermal design characteristics and installation site ambient temperature. However, these input data are usually incomplete for an individual transformer.A simplified approach is developed to predict the National Grid in-service transformer’s thermal lifetime by using information from scrapped transformers. The in-service transformer population thermal hazard curve under ageing failure mechanism can thus be obtained.Due to the independent effect from transformer random failure mechanism and ageing failure mechanism, the National Grid transformer population actual failure hazard curve with age is therefore derived as the superposition of the random failure hazard and the thermal hazard. Transformer asset managers are concerned about the knee point age, since aged transformer assets threaten network reliability and the transformer replacement strategy needs to be implemented effectively.

The health of the transmission power transformers in the power system networks is critical to the reliability of electricity supply. Knowing the precise life expectancy of the transmission power transformer is of vital importance as it permits an optimised asset replacement. The traditionally regarded transmission power transformer’s life expectancy of 40 years is considered dated for the transformers in the UK according to the transformer life data in 2010. In this thesis, it is aimed to investigate the life expectancy of the transmission power transformer in the UK from three aspects: statistical analysis on historic transformer life data, thermal modelling of in-service transformers, and through the in-service transformers’ furan measurements.A detailed statistical analysis shows that deriving the transformer’s reliability at a certain age by calculating the hazard rate is inadequate, as the hazard rate at each age has a statistical range in which the confidence band width is related to the amount of the reliability data. The transformer life data in all ages are grouped together to derive a general hazard rate of 0.27%. It is concluded that the transformer life expectancy could not be derived via statistical approaches due to the limited data available at the older transformer ages.As an alternative approach, regarding the life of insulating paper as the ultimate life of a transformer, the thermal model published by the IEC transformer loading guide 60076-7 is reviewed and extended to estimate a transformer’s thermal lifetime. The model is improved in two aspects, such that Arrhenius equation is adopted to consider the paper’s practical ageing mechanism of oxidation and hydrolysis when calculating the paper’s ageing rate; and the model takes consideration of the paper’s moisture accumulation effect.The developed thermal model is used to reversely derive the generally unknown model input – hot-spot factor, by the means of regarding the scrapped transformer’s degree of polymerisation (DP) predicted thermal lives as a benchmark. Assigning the derived hot-spot factor to the field units with regard to the design family, the thermal lives of 106 in-service transformers have been estimated. To enlarge the life sample, the modelling lives are combined with the 79 scrapped transformers’ DP predicted thermal lives. The thermal life expectancy, defined as the median life of the sample set, is derived as 88 years. A series of sensitivity studies are performed to examine the derived life expectancy’s responses on the variations of load, winding-to-oil gradient, top-oil temperature rise, and the setting of winding temperature indicator.As a non-intrusive approach in transformer’s insulating paper assessment, the correlations between the 2-furaldehyde (2FAL) concentration dissolved in transformer oil and paper’s DP derived by different laboratories are reviewed which are found to differ significantly. As a first-time attempt to derive the 2FAL-DP correlation relationship for the field transformers, the paper’s DP is estimated at the age when oil was sampled using the thermal model, and is plotted with the 2FAL measurement. De Pablo’s equation is found to fit the plot of the DP estimates against the 2FAL measurements better than other function formats. The 2FAL concentrations corresponding to the paper’s critical DP levels are given using the developed 2FAL-DP correlation relationship.

The consolidation of the wind power industry in the last years requires companies to optimize their performance of the delivery of the wind energy asset’s lifecycle they cover in order to stay in the market. The Asset Management Standard ISO 55000 is a general framework applicable for companies which work with infrastructure assets. As the delivery of wind energy assets is very specific in all aspects of its lifecycle delivery, the Thesis identifies that there is a need for an Asset Management framework which is specific for the wind power industry.This Thesis uses the ISO 55000 and PAS 55 as a base for the development of a wind power industry specific Asset Management framework. The focus is on the lifecycle delivery of the wind energy assets which it traces back to the other Asset Management (AM) aspects. The different wind energy asset’s lifecycle phases Pre-Study, Planning, Construction, Operation and Maintenance and Decommissioning are explained and appended with related working tasks as well as their relation to the overall AM framework. The other AM groups AM Strategy & Objectives, AM Decision Making, Organization & People, Asset Information and Risk & Review are given an introduction to the specific topics.Asset Management is found to be a useful instrument to improve overall company performance and should be considered to be implemented by companies in the wind power industry to bring down the Levelized Cost of Energy of wind power and gain competitive advantage also against fossil fuels as sources of energy production to replace them in a near as possible future.

Nesta dissertação, discute-se o problema de otimização de carteiras de investimento para estratégia passiva de Index Tracking. Os objetivos principais são (i) apresentar um modelo de otimização de Index Tracking e (ii) a solucionar esse modelo com uso do método heurístico de Algoritmos Genéticos (AG) para formação de carteiras com número reduzido de ativos. O índice de referência utilizado é o Ibovespa, para o período de Janeiro/2009 a Julho/2012, com um total de 890 observações diárias de preços. A partir de uma amostra de 67 ativos, são formadas carteiras sem limite de ativos e limitadas a 40, 30, 20, 10 e 05 ativos; os intervalos de rebalanceamento das carteiras são 20, 40 e 60 períodos (dias úteis), ou seja, rebalanceamento mensal, bimestral e trimestral. É verificado que, para essa amostra, não é possível formar carteiras de 20 ou menos ativos via otimização direta com o solver Cplex com menos de 1 hora de processamento e gap abaixo de 5%. Com uso da heurística de Algoritmos Genéticos, são formadas carteiras de 10 e 05 ativos com tempo de processamento em torno de 5 minutos; nesse caso, o gap médio fica abaixo de 10% para ambos os tipos de carteira. E, com tempo de processamento do AG um pouco maior, em torno de 8 minutos, o algoritmo fornece soluções para carteiras de 10 e 05 ativos com gap médio abaixo de 5%. / In this master’s thesis it is discussed the portfolio optimization problem using the passive investment strategy of Index Tracking. The main goals are (i) to present an optimization model for the Index Tracking problem and (ii) to solve this model using the heuristic approach of Genetic Algorithms (GA) to create portfolios with reduced amount of stocks. The benchmark used is the Ibovespa Index (main reference for the Brazilian Stock Market), during the period from January/2009 to July/2012 (using a total of 890 daily stock prices). The sample contains 67 assets, and the model is used to build portfolios without limit in the amount of assets and portfolios limited to 40, 30, 20, 10 and 05 assets; the ranges of time to rebalance the portfolios are 20, 40, and 60 trading days, which means to rebalance monthly, bimonthly and quarterly. The results show that, considering this sample, it is not possible to build portfolios with 20 stocks (or less than 20) through direct optimization using the solver Cplex with computational processing time less than 1 hour and results with gap below 5%. On the other hand, using the Genetic Algorithms heuristic approach, portfolios limited to 10 and 05 stocks are built with computational time close to 5 minutes; for both types of portfolio, the solutions provided by the GA have average gap below 10%. Also, with a computational time slightly bigger, close to 8 minutes, the algorithm provides solutions with average gap below 5% for portfolios limited to 10 and 05 stocks.