As infrastructure networks grow more complex, regulatory requirements become greater, populations grow, budgets become more limited, and the expectations of customers increase, municipalities are progressively being required to provide more for less. This is presenting some particular challenges to the long-term sustainability of buried water and wastewater infrastructure in Ontario. In response, municipalities are increasingly seeking to improve their business processes and asset management capabilities as a path to optimize the lifecycle of their infrastructure assets and ensure public safety, community development, and financial sustainability. This thesis presents an organizational performance measurement framework for municipal infrastructure asset management which was validated through interviews and surveys with international discipline experts. The resultant framework provides a high-level outline and suggestions for implementation of key objectives, 11 core critical success factors, and 135 quantitative performance indicators for municipal water and wastewater asset management organizations.

As infrastructure networks grow more complex, regulatory requirements become greater, populations grow, budgets become more limited, and the expectations of customers increase, municipalities are progressively being required to provide more for less. This is presenting some particular challenges to the long-term sustainability of buried water and wastewater infrastructure in Ontario. In response, municipalities are increasingly seeking to improve their business processes and asset management capabilities as a path to optimize the lifecycle of their infrastructure assets and ensure public safety, community development, and financial sustainability. This thesis presents an organizational performance measurement framework for municipal infrastructure asset management which was validated through interviews and surveys with international discipline experts. The resultant framework provides a high-level outline and suggestions for implementation of key objectives, 11 core critical success factors, and 135 quantitative performance indicators for municipal water and wastewater asset management organizations.

Uppsatsens titel: Utformning av ett balanserat styrkort - En fallstudie på Lindabs svenska filialer Kurs: Examensarbete, Civilekonomexamen, Controller, 30hp (4FE03E) Lärosäte: Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitetet, Växjö Författare: Martin Andersson och Stefan Kesak Handledare: Elin Funck Examinator: Lars-Göran Aidemark Datum: 2012-05-26 Nyckelord: Balanserat styrkort, Benchmarking, Prestationsmätning, Strategi, Försäljning, Filialverksamhet   Bakgrund: Lindab är en internationell ventilations- och byggkoncern som är uppdelad i de tre affärsområdena Ventilation, Building Components och Building Systems. Försäljning och distribution av Lindabs produkter sker främst via egna filialer. Studien fokuserar på de svenska filialerna och utgår från Lindabs önskemål om att få hjälp med att förbättra sin prestationsmätning samt öka jämförbarheten mellan filialerna. Syfte: Uppsatsen syftar till att utforma ett balanserat styrkort för Lindabs försäljnings- och distributionsfilialer i Sverige för att ge förutsättningar för en bättre kontroll och styrning av deras prestationer och öka jämförbarheten mellan filialerna. Metod: Vi har genomfört en fallstudie på Lindabs svenska filialer med en abduktiv forskningsansats. Det empiriska materialet grundar sig på intervjuer, filialbesök, samt externt och internt material. Resultat och slutsats: Vi har utformat ett balanserat styrkort som möjliggör bättre kontroll och styrning av filialernas prestationer genom att Lindabs vision och strategier har brutits ner i strategiskt viktiga mått i de olika perspektiven. Vårt styrkort skapar dessutom en balans mellan kortsiktiga och långsiktiga målsättningar, externa och interna prestations­perspektiv, finansiella och icke-finansiella mått samt mellan utfallsmått och drivande mått. Genom att måtten som ingår i styrkortet är jämförbara skapas ytterligare en styrka. Jämförbarheten möjliggör för Lindab att finna de bästa processerna bland filialerna och applicera dem på alla filialer. / Title: Designing a Balanced Scorecard - A Case Study on Lindab’s Swedish Subsidiaries Course: Master Thesis, Business Administration, Controller, 30 ECTS (4FE03E) Institution: School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University, Växjö Authors: Martin Andersson and Stefan Kesak Supervisor: Elin Funck Examiner: Lars-Göran Aidemark Date: 2012-05-26 Keywords: Balanced Scorecard, Benchmarking, Performance Measurement, Strategy, Sales, Subsidiaries Background: Lindab is an international ventilation and construction corporation that is divided into the three business areas Ventilation, Building Components and Building Systems. Sales and distribution of Lindab’s products is primarily handled by their own subsidiaries. This study focuses on the Swedish subsidiaries and is based on Lindab’s desire for help to improve the performance measurement and increase the possibility of internal benchmarking of the subsidiaries. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to design a Balanced Scorecard for Lindab’s Swedish subsidiaries to enable better control and management of their performances as well as internal benchmarking. Method: We have conducted an abductive case study on Lindab’s Swedish subsidiaries. The empirical material is based on interviews, visits at subsidiaries, internal and external written material. Conclusion: We have designed a Balanced Scorecard that enables better control and management of Lindab’s subsidiaries since their vision and strategies have been translated into the strategic measures in the different perspectives. Our scorecard also provides a balance between short term and long term objectives, external and internal performance perspectives, financial and nonfinancial measures, and between outcome measures and driving measures. Another strength is created as the measures in the scorecard are comparable. By using internal benchmarking Lindab can find the best processes among the subsidiaries and apply them on all subsidiaries.

Abstract   Title: Importance of estimation of market potential- a case of Sandvik Tooling   Level: Bachelor Degree in BusinessAdministration, 15 ECTS-Credits in Marketing   Author: Mi Tegnér   Supervisor: Akmal Hyder   Date: 2011-05   Aim: The aim of this thesis is to study in which waySandvik Tooling and certain other international companies’ measure and estimatethe market potential   Method: I have used a qualitative method. This meansthat I have focused on the big picture rather than solely on parts from thecollected material. The qualitative method was based on interviews with 12respondents, both within Sandvik AB and with employees from other internationalcompanies. Furthermore, I have made an interconnection between my empirical andtheoretical part in order to draw conclusions on the findings.   Result & Conclusions: The study shows some importantfactors, which may affect a company´s effort to measure and estimate the marketpotential. They are; gaps may easily appear when customers and companies havedifferent views on quality, price and productivity, too large amounts ofinformation, the importance of new ideas and perspectives. A company canminimize their problems and any errors within the collected material if theywork after similar framework, consisting of clear structures and methodologies.   Suggestions for future research: Future research could be to do asimilar study, to identify methods to measure and estimate market potential forSandvik Tooling but within an international setting. Then compare this resultwith my result to see in which way the perception of market potential differsin the different countries.   Contribution of the thesis: From my research, I have got an understandingthat the process of measuring and estimating companies market potential is notan easy mission. Especially among the companies, which consist of differentbusiness areas, product areas and segment areas. I hope the study will beinteresting for the employee´s working with market potential and businessdevelopment, to see that people within the same company may have differentviews about this subject. I also believe that managers in general would benefitfrom this study, to understand that their employees would like to see a moresimilar framework within the company, when it comes to measure and estimatemarket potential. During this thesis, I found a deficiency of scientificarticles about the subject, measuring a company´s market potential. It had beeninteresting to see if my results corresponded to previous results in the samesubject.   Key words: business areas, benchmarking, estimation,market potential, market shares, measuring

Energy use index (EUI) is an important measure of energy use which normalizes energy use by dividing by building area. Energy use indices and associated coefficients of variation are computed for major industry categories for electricity and natural gas use in small and medium-sized plants in the U.S. The data is very scattered with the coefficients of variation (CoV) often exceeding the average EUI for an energy type. The combined CoV from all of the industries considered, which accounts for 8,200 plants from all areas of the continental U.S., is 290%. This paper discusses EUIs and their variations based on electricity and natural gas consumption. Data from milder climates appears more scattered than that from colder climates. For example, the ratio of the average of coefficient of variations for all industry types in warm versus cold regions of the U.S. varies from 1.1 to 1.7 depending on the energy sources considered. The large data scatter indicates that predictions of energy use obtained by multiplying standard EUI data by plant area may be inaccurate and are less accurate in warmer than colder climates (warmer and colder are determined by annual average temperature weather data). Data scatter may have several explanations, including climate, plant area accounting, the influence of low cost energy and low cost buildings used in the south of the U.S. This analysis uses electricity and natural gas energy consumption and area data of manufacturing plants available in the U.S. Department of Energy’s national Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) database. The data there come from Industrial Assessment Centers which employ university engineering students, faculty and staff to perform energy assessments for small to medium-sized manufacturing plants. The nation-wide IAC program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. A collection of six general energy saving recommendations were also written with Texas manufacturing plants in mind. These are meant to provide an easily accessible starting point for facilities that wish to reduce costs and energy consumption, and are based on common recommendations from the Texas A&M University IAC program.

Network-on-Chip (NOC) based designs have garnered significant attention from both researchers and industry over the past several years. The analysis of these designs has focused on broad topics such as NOC component micro-architecture, fault-tolerant communication, and system memory architecture. Nonetheless, the design of lowlatency, high-bandwidth, low-power and area-efficient NOC is extremely complex due to the conflicting nature of these design objectives. Benchmarks are an indispensable tool in the design process; providing thorough measurement and fair comparison between designs in order to achieve optimal results (i.e performance, cost, quality of service). This research proposes a benchmarking platform called NoCBench for evaluating the performance of Network-on-chip. Although previous research has proposed standard guidelines to develop benchmarks for Network-on-Chip, this work moves forward and proposes a System-C based simulation platform for system-level design exploration. It will provide an initial set of synthetic benchmarks for on-chip network interconnection validation along with an initial set of standardized processing cores, NOC components, and system-wide services. The benchmarks were constructed using synthetic applications described by Task Graphs For Free (TGFF) task graphs extracted from the E3S benchmark suite. Two benchmarks were used for characterization: Consumer and Networking. They are characterized based on throughput and latency. Case studies show how they can be used to evaluate metrics beyond throughput and latency (i.e. traffic distribution). The contribution of this work is two-fold: 1) This study provides a methodology for benchmark creation and characterization using NoCBench that evaluates important metrics in NOC design (i.e. end-to-end packet delay, throughput). 2) The developed full-system simulation platform provides a complete environment for further benchmark characterization on NOC based MpSoC as well as system-level design space exploration.

The research aims at benchmarking apply to local government, it proof the feasibility for public department practice benchmarking and integrate TQM spirit. In management of internal activities, the institution built benchmarking performance index, at the same time, exhibited local large-scale activities to test performance of organization act the participation and suggestion institution. The research example for Tzudying District Office, and choose Kaohsiung City Government Personnel Department as benchmarking partner. The study is to inquire about benchmarking apply on the local government office's feasibility and performance in valuation, in order to seek the complete of research outcome and practical objective. It takes¡usecond-hand data analysis¡v¡B¡uquestionnaire investigation¡vto carry on the study. In the second-hand data analysis, it consults to quote the data of Kaohsiung City Government Personnel Department. In the questionnaire investigation, by investigating the satisfactory of the masses that jointing the activity, to acquire whether the organization introduce participation and suggestion institution can enhance the activities performance. We find that it is important element about the chief of department to support benchmarking on the research, and after introducing benchmarking to the local government not only help on administration development but also it has the outstanding performance on affairs. The study proposes the following suggestions: 1. Giving more power to the chief of department is the promise of moving benchmarking. 2. Public servant's performance reward institution and benchmarking suitable to carry out for reinforce to fulfill performance management. 3. It is the only way to improve performance and sustainable development for the future government organization that emphasizing on employee's professional skill and educational training.

In recently years, government procurement for public construction has accounted for approximately 400 billion New Taiwan Dollars per year. However, many problems have arisen after the first year of the new Government Procurement Law. Evaluation systems for the auditing of construction performance are inadequate, poorly controlled, and are needed for further research. Benchmarking and ¡§balanced-scorecard¡¨ are evaluated for construction performance measurement at present. and, the benchmarking method in this research, is based on its economy, efficiency and effectiveness. A road construction project is used as an example for performance auditing. Some conclusions are listed in the summary. This research program attempts to analyze the reasons of failure by historical documentary analysis using the questionnaire method & statistical analysis using the quantitative approach. The steps taken generally include a historical system analysis, the gathering of government documentation, and the comparion of the Budget Examination System of other countries. By employing an integrated research design, this research also analyzes the key factors influencing the malfunction and the implementation of the example road construction project. Finally, it is hoped that the results of this research could contribute to the government¡¦s budget examination, performance auditing and the actual budget system, and could also provide the decision- makers with some political inspiration.

Abstract Although developing a new drug produced with bio-technologies is a time-consuming and costly process, the patent of such kind of new products can only be protected for only few years. Therefore, the launch for new drug can not be made without thorough consideration of the market and its environment. Introducing a new medicament to the market needs considering various factors, such as its efficiency, side-effects, and safety. The introduction requires also the approval from relevant government authorities. The sales of a new drug depend on the purchase from hospitals, the prescription from doctors and the utilization from patients to complete the process. If one of these three elements is missing, the whole process will be broken up. Therefore, it is helpful to take the sales process and its model as a reference to define the strategy for launching a new drug to the local market. The model to introducing a new drug includes two sides of analysis ¡V external and internal analysis. The external analysis covers mainly areas such as studies of customers, market and competitors, it includes as well issues concerning regulatory and geography area division. The internal analysis is with focus on studies regarding efficiency, strategy alternatives, products and relevant technologies. Only after the analysis as such, the key factors for a successful marketing can be identified. Taking lessons learnt from products, the strategy can be defined accordingly and implemented. Today although the market for antidepressants is well developed, there are areas which remain unsatisfied by doctors and patients, inter alia, its low response and remission rate, the difficulty of a total recovery, and the high probability of relapse. Any new antidepressants, should it wish being the leading medicament in the market, the satisfaction from both users ¡V the medical doctors and the patients ¡V is a must. Secondly, the product must be introduced through all kind of relevant channels to reach out to actual and potential users (not necessarily those working in the hospitals and clinics). Last but not least, the society should remove any stigma on people suffering from depression and encourage them (and their relatives) to go for the treatment and complete the treatment for their own and the society¡¦s well-being. Finally, new drug launch model is a useful tool for developing marketing strategy. Market of antidepressant is a mature market. Nevertheless doctors and patients remain unsatisfied vis a vis certain aspects of the antidepressant. Any new antidepressant if it can meet the requirement, it certain has chance to enter niche market. Key word: new drug launch model, competitive benchmarking, strategy, depression, antidepressant

Energy use index (EUI) is an important measure of energy use which normalizes energy use by dividing by building area. Energy use indices and associated coefficients of variation are computed for major industry categories for electricity and natural gas use in small and medium-sized plants in the U.S. The data is very scattered with the coefficients of variation (CoV) often exceeding the average EUI for an energy type. The combined CoV from all of the industries considered, which accounts for 8,200 plants from all areas of the continental U.S., is 290%. This paper discusses EUIs and their variations based on electricity and natural gas consumption. Data from milder climates appears more scattered than that from colder climates. For example, the ratio of the average of coefficient of variations for all industry types in warm versus cold regions of the U.S. varies from 1.1 to 1.7 depending on the energy sources considered. The large data scatter indicates that predictions of energy use obtained by multiplying standard EUI data by plant area may be inaccurate and are less accurate in warmer than colder climates (warmer and colder are determined by annual average temperature weather data). Data scatter may have several explanations, including climate, plant area accounting, the influence of low cost energy and low cost buildings used in the south of the U.S. This analysis uses electricity and natural gas energy consumption and area data of manufacturing plants available in the U.S. Department of Energy's national Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) database. The data there come from Industrial Assessment Centers which employ university engineering students, faculty and staff to perform energy assessments for small to medium-sized manufacturing plants. The nation-wide IAC program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. A collection of six general energy saving recommendations were also written with Texas manufacturing plants in mind. These are meant to provide an easily accessible starting point for facilities that wish to reduce costs and energy consumption, and are based on common recommendations from the Texas A&M University IAC program.