<p></p><h1>Abstract</h1><p>Waste disposal is a global problem contributing to the ongoing climate change by large emissions of greenhouse gases. By using waste material as a resource instead of landfilling, the greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are reduced. Waste material can be used for waste incineration with energy recovery, thus decreasing the greenhouse gas emission from energy utilization by changing from fossil fuels to a partly renewable fuel.</p><p>Arges County in Romania has severe problems with its waste material, mainly sewage sludge and waste from households and industries. As a consequence of the Romanian EU accession in 2007, Arges County is obliged to close its landfills for waste in a near future. A reconstruction of the wastewater treatment plant and an improved management of the sewage sludge residue are necessary in order to comply with EU standards. The requirements from the EU regarding waste disposal together with the existence of a district heating network in the residence city Pitesti, makes it interesting to investigate energy recovery from waste material in Arges County.</p><p>Therefore, the goal of the study is to evaluate the possibility to extract energy from co-incineration of the waste material, sewage sludge and waste generated in Arges County. In order to reach this goal, the composition and quantities of the waste material is investigated. A suitable technology for the waste-to-energy (WTE) plant is proposed, based on the data of the waste material as well as on   established WTE technologies and their costs. It is assumed that the WTE plant will be implemented in 2020 and that all the generated waste will be incinerated. Furthermore, an environmental analysis is carried out, which presents the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions with the proposed WTE plant in comparison with the present system; including the management of waste and sludge and the district heating production, which is based on fossil fuels.</p><p>The result shows that the waste material in Arges County has a calorific value of 7.5 MJ per kg, which is suitable for co-incineration of waste and sludge. The suggested WTE plant has the total power of 130 MW, annually recovering 620 and 330 GWh of heat and electric power respectively. The investment cost of the WTE plant is estimated to 226 million euro with a payback time of 8 years. The environmental analysis shows that the proposed system in comparison with the present system will decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 88 percent.</p><p>A WTE plant appears to be a sound investment in Arges County and would sharply reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in the county. However, some obstacles exist. Waste management is a new field in Romania and currently there are no WTE plants. Furthermore, the data used in this study concerning the quantity and composition of the waste, is uncertain and further studies are necessary before a WTE plant can be established.</p><p> </p>

<p>Ortopedkliniken vid Höglandssjukhuset behandlar samtliga extremitets-, rygg- och skallskadefall inom Höglandets sjukvårdsområde. Verksamheten är uppdelad i fyra huvudsakliga enheter; akutmottagning, mottagning, vårdavdelning och operation där läkarna fördelar sin tid mellan de fyra. Under de senaste åren har kliniken haft problem med försämrad tillgänglighet. Detta innebär i sin tur växande vårdköer, till såväl mottagning som operation, samt oförmåga att upprätthålla vårdgarantins mål på specialistvård inom 90 dagar. Syftet med denna rapport är med anledning av ovanstående <em>att ge rekommendationer kring hur ortopedkliniken vid Höglandssjukhuset kan effektivisera utnyttjandet av resurser för att öka tillgängligheten för sina patienter. </em></p><p>För att besvara nyss nämnda syfte görs en uppgiftsprecisering vilket inkluderar en nedbrytning till konkreta undersökningsområden och frågeställningar. Denna grundar sig dels i en förstudie där ortopedkliniken kartläggs för att få en första inblick i verksamheten och de problem som råder. Dels en referensram där logistiska teorier om bland annat processer och olika former av förbättringsfilosofier behandlas. Flertalet av teorierna är hämtade från den industriella världen och därefter tillämpade på hälso- och sjukvården och de speciella förutsättningar som råder inom området. Förstudien och referensramen leder tillsammans fram till den syntetisering som ger följande fyra undersökningsområden: <em>behov</em>, <em>processer</em>, <em>resursplanering </em>och <em>patientplanering</em>.</p><p>Med utgångspunkt i den information som samlats in och analyserats för respektive undersökningsområde har ett antal problem med tillhörande lösningar presenterats och redogjorts för. Utifrån detta har nedanstående slutsatser kunnat dras:</p><p>Ortopedkliniken bör utveckla riktlinjer kring vilka patienter som bör kallas till återbesök för att på så sätt undvika onödiga återbesök. Detta leder i sin tur till ett minskat antal återbesök vilket ger mer utrymme till nybesök och därmed förbättrad tillgänglighet. I samband med detta konstateras att ett ökat ansvar bör läggas på patienten gällande dennas läkeprocess genom att bland annat uppmana patienten att höra av sig vid behov. Ytterligare ett sätt att involvera patienten är att öka delaktigheten i bokningsprocessen genom användning av ett Internetbaserat system där önskemål angående tid kan lämnas. Detta skulle troligtvis resultera i ett minskat antal ombokningar och ett förenklat arbete för klinikens tidsbokning. Förslagsvis datoriseras även bokningen av telefontiderna då detta skulle ge personalen, inklusive läkare och mottagningssköterskor, en bättre överblick samt underlätta tidsbokningens arbete med dessa. Ännu en åtgärd för att förbättra användandet av telefontider är att schemalägga specifika tider för läkarna att hantera dessa, något som bör resultera i bättre kontinuitet.</p><p>Planeringen på kliniken kan i stort sett delas upp i två delar: resurs- respektive patientplanering. Dessa två bör sammanstråla för att uppnå bästa möjliga resultat. Ett steg i att förbättra resursplaneringen, vilket huvudsakligen innebär schemaläggning av läkare, är att i större utsträckning mäta och analysera de efterfrågemönster som kan utrönas ur klinikens behov. Detta möjliggör en mer preventiv planering där schemaläggningen tar hänsyn till exempelvis den behovstopp som återkommer i oktober varje år. Detta tros dessutom kunna skapa en bättre balans mellan återbesök och nybesök vilket i sin tur kan minska antalet återbesök till jourläkare. Övriga lösningsförslag till ortopedklinikens balansproblem inkluderar en standardisering av besökslängderna, mottagningspass med endast en besökstyp och en form av drop-in mottagning som ökar möjligheten för samarbete mellan läkarna på mottagningen. För att underlätta tidsbokningens arbete och därmed även patientplaneringen föreslås dessutom att remissutseendet förändras för att även inkludera uppgifter om mobiltelefonnummer, e-postadress samt villighet att komma med kort varsel.</p><p>Vid en eventuell implementering av ovanstående lösningar är det viktigt att ortopedkliniken har i åtanke att förbättringsarbete tar tid. Det är dock viktigt att man tar sig tid och faktiskt genomför förändringarna då det dels kan spara tid i framtiden och dels är en förutsättning för att kliniken ska kunna leva upp till såväl efterfrågeökningar och som förhöjda krav. Det föreslås således att ortopedkliniken använder sig av nedanstående rekommendationer för att förbättra den nuvarande situationen och skapa möjligheter inför framtiden. De rekommendationer som getts ortopedkliniken i syfte att dem ska uppnå bättre tillgänglighet är följande:</p><p>1. Utveckla riktlinjer som stöd för när en patient bör kallas till återbesök</p><p>2. Kartlägg behoven i större utsträckning, framför allt när det kommer till de korta återbesöken, och ta hänsyn till behoven och deras fördelning i resursplaneringen</p><p>3. Datorisera bokningen av telefontiderna samt ge dem en designerad tid i läkarschemat</p><p>4. Ändra remissutseendet så att även mobiltelefonnummer, e-postadress samt villighet att komma med kort varsel inkluderas</p><p>5. Inför mottagningspass med endast en typ av besök</p><p>6. Gör patienterna mer delaktiga bokningen och ta hänsyn till deras önskemål om besöks- och telefontider</p><p>7. Inför ett nytt system för bokningen av FP- och P-remisser som dessutom inkluderar ett kontrollsystem som varnar när vårdgarantin är på väg att överstigas</p> / <p>The orthopedic section at Höglandet Hospital provides health care for all patients within the Höglandet area suffering from problems with their extremities, backs and skulls. The section is divided into four main units; emergency room, clinic, ward and operating room, and the physicians divide their time between these four. During the last few years the orthopedics section has experienced problems with worsened accessibility. This has lead to a growing cue of patients waiting for appointments as well as operations, but also an inability to achieve the goals concerning accessibility set by the Swedish government. This goal states that patients should have to wait no longer than 90 days to get to see a physician within specialised health care. On account of the factors mentioned above, the purpose of this report is <em>to provide recommendations regarding how the orthopedic clinic at Höglandet Hospital can improve their planning and use of resources in order to achieve a better accessibility for their patients. </em></p><p>To help achieve the purpose mentioned above the study is divided into smaller parts, resulting in issues and areas of investigation that are more concretely formulated. This process requires two things, the first being an exploratory study in which the clinic is mapped and current problems and conditions are investigated. The second is conducting a frame of reference in which logistics theories concerning, among other things, processes and improvement philosophies are included. Many of the theories derive from the industrial world, but are also applied in a health care context and to the special condiditions that abide within the area. The exploratory study and the frame of reference together contribute to a synthesis leading to this study's four main areas of investigation: <em>needs</em>, <em>processes</em>, <em>resource planning </em>and <em>patient planning</em>.</p><p>The information that is gathered and analysed within each area leads to a number of problems and subsequent solutions. These are presented and discussed for each area respectively, leading to the following conclusions for the orthopedic clinic as a whole:</p><p>The orthopedic clinic should develop guidelines concerning which patients that ought to be called back for another appointment, leading to the elimination of unnecessary appointments. This leads to a reduced number of returning patients which enables the clinic to increase their number of first time appointments, resulting in a better accessibility. This also leads to the patient taking responsibility of his or her condition, with the patient having to contact the clinic if necessary. Another way of involving the patient is including the patient in the booking process by using an Internet based booking system that allows the patients to give requests concerning the time and day of their appointment. The result of this would be that fewer patients changing the time of their appointments, letting the booking personnel concentrate on other more important tasks. Also, the booking of telephone appointments should be computerized, leading to a better overview over the bookings and an improvement of the booking personnel's processes. Another solution concerning the problem with the booking of phone calls is making telephone appointments a part of the physicians weekly schedule, which leads to better continuity with the patient calls.</p><p>The orthopedic clinic's planning can be divided into two parts: resource planning and patient planning. These two parts must converge to achieve the best result possible. One way of improving the resource planning, which mainly concerns the scheduling of physicians, is to measure the patterns that can be seen in the needs of orthopedic care. This enables the orthopedic section to plan ahead and be prepared for the reoccuring peak of demand, which is in October. This will also lead to a better balance between the first time appointments and the appointments with patients coming back from either emergency treatment or operations. A better balance, in turn, reduces the appointments that today are performed by physicians who are on call, thereby avoiding the long waiting times associated with said appointments. Other solutions to achieving a better balance between the different types of appointments includes standardisation of the length of appointments, use of clinic hours with only one type of appointment and a modified drop-in clinic, which increases the possibilities for physician's to cooperate in treating the patients.</p><p>When implementing the solutions mentioned above, it is of great importance that the orthopedic clinic is aware of the fact that achieving changes is time consuming. It is however imperative that the orthopedic section finds the necessary time to make these changes. In the end the changes will not only be time saving, but they will also be a prerequisite to be able to handle an increasing demand concerning the needs for orthopedic care and stricter governmental laws and standards. It is thereby recommended that the orthopedic clinic make use of the recommendations below, in order to improve the present situation and create better possibilities for the future.</p><p>In order to achieve a better accessibility the following are recommended to the orthopedic clinic:</p><p>1. Develop guidelines as to which patients that require further appointments</p><p>2. Conduct more useful measurements of the needs, especially when it comes to appointments that must be booked on a short notice, and let the needs guide the resource planning to a greater extent</p><p>3. Computerise the booking of telephone appointments and make them a part of the weekly schedule</p><p>4. Modify the referral appearance to include information regarding mobile number, e-mail address and willingness to come to the clinic in short notice</p><p>5. Use clinic hours that has only one type of appointments</p><p>6. Make the patient more involved in the booking proccess for both clinic and telephone appointments</p><p>7. Establish a new booking system which includes a warning system for when the maximum waiting time is about to be exceeded</p>

<p>This thesis is dealing with the integration of Japanese and German project workers in automobile inter‐corporate research/pre‐development projects. The focus is on better understanding the respective decision making process. As cultural differences play a big role in the way that people behave an extra focus was put on investigating this. The methods chosen for this study were quantitative research in the form of a questionnaire and qualitative research in the form of an interview series.</p><p>For the quantitative research, literature in the cross‐cultural field was studied and from different cultural dimensions suggested by various authors, a synthesis was derived. This was then used as the base for a questionnaire. The data both enabled a quantitative research study and supported the qualitative study. A number of questions with a more straightforward approach to decision making in projects were also a part of the questionnaire. The data was processed using the statistical software SPSS and the results were analyzed using factor analysis and ANOVA.</p><p>The factor analysis of the quantitative data had only one factor which had a significant difference between the German and the Japanese sample. The dimension was called individuality reward and describes to which degree a society reward competent group behavior versus competent individual behavior. The German sample showed a strong tendency towards favoring competent individual behavior whereas the Japanese sample leaned towards favoring competent group behavior.</p><p>The questionnaire questions directly linked to decision making showed no significant differences between the samples showing that individual attitudes within the German and Japanese sample varies more than the cultural differences between the two groups. This shows that you cannot expect a Japanese or German person to act in a certain way in a certain decision making situation just judging on their cultural background.</p><p>In order to get a deep understanding of the decision making process a qualitative series of interviews were conducted. All interviews with Japanese and other people on location in Japan were conducted in‐person at different locations around the Tokyo area. Interviews with people situated in Europe were made over the phone. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed and interpreted to gain a thorough understanding of the decision making process.</p><p>From the qualitative material several differences in how German and Japanese people work and make decisions were found. More time is put into sharing information and getting consensus before a decision in Japan than in Germany were discussions and arguing in meetings are more tolerated. The reason for this behavior in Japan is to not lose face and as well as making it possible to make a decision fast once brought up in a meeting. Germans remain more flexible to revisions after a decision has been made because of the shorter preparation phase.</p><p>There is big overlap of members between different inter‐corporate research projects in the automobile industry. Japanese project members tends to be older than their German counterparts which makes them more stable as younger people might disappear from a project as they move up the corporate ladder. In Japan there is a greater emphasis put into after‐work activities compared to Germany where it is seen as beneficial but not as often used as a way to gain a personal relationship.</p><p>The thesis concludes that by relatively small measures common decision making between Japanese and German project workers can become smooth and with few misunderstandings. Introductions to respective cultures as well as keeping an open mindset and non assertive attitude should help avoid some of the worst case scenarios. A kick‐off in the beginning of a project in order to build a personal relationship and trust would surely help the project come off to a good start. Setting common goals for the project and confirming data with people involved in a decision process will facilitate common consensus decision making. Also confirming decisions as simply as paraphrasing what has been said or by informal one‐on‐one discussions in a break or after a meeting can keep misunderstandings due to the language barrier to a minimum.</p>

<p>This thesis explores the fields of contracting and competence agencies. Itfocuses on the relationship between contractors and their agencies, and aims toidentify the expectations that contractors have on competence agencies and theactivities that can be undertaken by the agencies in order to improve andstrengthen the relation. A case study was made of a Danish competence agencyand of the contractors within its network. The qualitative part of the studyincluded interviews with five contractors and a questionnaire directed to theorganization. From the conclusions of the qualitative study and relevant theories,a set of hypotheses were formulated. The quantitative part consisted of a surveythat was sent out to the contractors in the network. The survey aimed to test thehypotheses and the results from the survey were analysed in Excel.The conclusions that were drawn from the outcome of the quantitative studywere that contractors join agencies because of the access to big companies thatare granted by agencies, because they do not have time to promote themselvesso they need someone to do it for them and because of the possibility to createnetworks and that contractors join more than one agency because they do notbelieve that one agency alone can supply them with full time occupation.Further on, it was also concluded that certain HRM as well as SHRM activitieshad a positive impact on the relationship, and that employer brandingstrengthened the bonds between the contractors and the competence agency.</p>

<p>New food product development is so often confronted with failure in the market. One of the significant reasons is, nowadays, the customer preference is no longer simply only determined by a few factors rather a combination of various needs. This article presents an affective engineering methodology “Kansei Engineering” which can tailor the product by the customer need. This methodology is able to assist the food product developer to connect the consumer affection with the product properties in order to develop the food product with the most affective influence deep in customer’s mind associated with product. Using this systematic affective methodology “Kansei engineering” approach would help the company to develop the food with consumer amenity.</p>

<p>Activities that are fun, social, engaging and put something at stake are positive for your health no matter age or condition. What can you do if you suffer from dementia and are living at a Special Housing? According to research you should dance, visit the garden, get tactile massage discuss artworks etc. Still, despite all these proposals there are many voices from this domain, telling stories about living without live. Suffering from dementia may affect your ability to speak for your self and initiate activities. How can we know what they want and not what we think they need but they don’t seem to get or might not even want? Why don’t we ask them?We propose more focus on participation and design methods to guide the way.In this report, the author discusses the experience in conducting a Participatory Design research project intended to develop a technological and a related organizational intervention. The aim was to support people with dementia living in a Special Housing with fun and engaging activities. A short description of Participatory Design as an approach within research projects and a description of how it was used in this research study are given. We then discuss the experience in conducting the research, some of the users’ comments and responses, challenges, success stories and drawbacks when trying to design and test an activity in a readymade setting with fixed schema for several weeks ahead. The overall reflection being that Participatory Design has great potential for interventional projects and research focusing on leisure activities in everyday life for people with dementia.We proposes this being due to the two concepts – participation and design</p>

<p>Examensarbetet har utförts på Johnson Pump AB i Örebro och behandlar tillverkningen av marina kylvattenpumpar. På den allt mer globala pumpmarknaden har konkurrensen blivit hårdare och Johnson Pump har märkt ökade krav på främst kostnadseffektivitet och leveransprecision. Samtidigt efterfrågas ett brett sortiment. I dagsläget har man dock problem med långa ledtider och höga lagernivåer, varför man på senare tid har ställt frågan om det bästa vore att kundorderstyra tillverkningen inom det marina affärsområdet. Syftet med arbetet är därför att undersöka möjligheterna att övergå till en högre grad av kundorderstyrd produktion och se vilka konsekvenser detta skulle medföra på kostnader och leveransservice.</p><p>För att det ska bli möjligt för Johnson Pump att tillverka pumphus mot kundorder, måste planeringen bli tydligare och mer strukturerad. I dagsläget är produktionsledtiderna för långa och framförallt för osäkra, för att kunna ha en kundorderstyrd produktion. Den viktigaste åtgärden blir därför att reducera ledtiderna. Kortare ledtider minskar kapitalbindning i PIA, gör produktionen mer flexibel, och minskar variationer och störningar. Såväl marknads-, produktions- och produktkarakteristika tillåter en förflyttning av kundorderpunkten längre bak i flödet. Slutsatsen är således att Johnson pump har goda möjligheter till kundorderstyrning av produktionen, under förutsättningen att nya planeringsmetoder införs för att uppnå kortare och stabilare ledtider.</p><p>De viktigaste punkterna i föreslagen planering, är att ha färre tillverkningsorder igång samtidigt och att minska partistorlekarna. Planeringssituationen är mer komplex i den mekaniska verkstaden än i monteringen, där man även har större volym- och produktmixflexibilitet. Därför ska produktionen pushstyras utifrån den mekaniska verkstaden med hjälp av MRP-systemet. För att göra systemet mer pålitligt och säkerställa att det verkligen används, måste det uppdateras kontinuerligt. Materialflödet mellan arbetsstationer bör vidare bli mer direkt och mellanlagring bör elimineras. Med ett stort antal artiklar i kraftigt varierande efterfrågevolymer, måste man förenkla planeringssystemet och samtidigt anpassa produktionen så den bättre följer marknadsefterfrågan. En ABC-klassificering delar in artiklarna i mer homogena grupper för differentierad styrning av varje artikelklass.</p><p>Resultatet av den nya planeringen är en ledtidsreduktion på i genomsnitt 83 procent. De kortare ledtiderna ger, förutom en minskning i bundet kapital, även högre produktmix- och volymflexibilitet, vilket i sin tur ger Johnson Pump fler strategiska valmöjligheter. Det sätter företaget i en bättre position inför ökade krav på kortare leveransledtider och tätare leveranser, samtidigt som kostnaderna sänks. Genom att tydliggöra effekterna av ledtids- och ställtidsreduktioner, vilka tidigare doldes av stora produktionsserier, skapas dessutom incitament till förbättringsprogram som på sikt kan öka Johnson Pumps konkurrensfördelar.</p> / <p>The master thesis has been carried out at Johnson Pump AB in Örebro and deals with the manufacture of marine cooling pumps. The competition has hardened on the increasingly global pump market and Johnson Pump has noticed greater demands principally for cost-efficiency and delivery performance. At the same time a broad product-mix is requested. In the present-day situation the company experiences problems with long lead-times and high levels of inventory, wherefore lately the question has been raised whether it would be better with a make-to-order strategy for the marine business area. The purpose of the thesis work is therefore to examine the possibilities of moving towards a higher degree of customer-order-driven production and to look into which consequences this would have on costs and the customer service elements.</p><p>To enable make-to-order production of pump bodies at Johnson Pump, the planning and control must be more distinct and structured. Today the production lead-times are too long, but above all too uncertain, to make a customer-order-driven production possible. The most important measure in order to achieve this is therefore reduction of lead-times. Shorter lead-times decrease capital tied up in WIP, make the processes more flexible, and reduce variation and disturbances. Market, production and product characteristics allow a relocation of the customer order decoupling point further back in the production flow. The conclusion is hence that Johnson Pump has good chances of a customer-order-driven production, under the condition of a new planning system to achieve shorter and more stable lead-times.</p><p>The main points in the proposed planning system are to have fewer production orders running simultaneously and to have smaller batch sizes. The planning situation is more complex in the mechanical workshop than in the assembly, where, in addition, the volume and product-mix flexibility is greater. Therefore the production ought to be controlled with a push strategy from the workshop with the help of the MRP-system. The business process software should also be updated continuously to ensure its accuracy and usage. The material flow between workstations should further be more direct without buffers. With a large number of stock-keeping units in greatly varying demand volumes, the planning system must be simplified and the production brought in line with market demand. An ABC-classification divides the items into more homogenous groups for differentiated planning and control of each class.</p><p>The result of the new planning system is a reduction of lead-times by 83 percent on average. The shorter lead-times give, apart from a reduction in capital tied up, also higher product-mix and volume flexibility, which in turn gives Johnson Pump more strategic opportunities. It puts the company in a better position to respond to raised requests for shorter delivery lead-times, while costs are lowered. Through making the effects of lead-time and set-up-time reductions more evident, which before was concealed by large production series, an incentive for starting an improvement program is created. This can, in the long run, increase Johnson Pump’s competitive advantage.</p>

<p>ICA is the largest general dealer in the Swedish market as well as the largest supplier to the independent ICA-dealers. The principal and one of the biggest stakeholders of this thesis is the department Supply Chain Development who is responsible for the development of ICA’s Supply Chain.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to examine how ICA’s sales are affected by weather and to make recommendations on how ICA should proceed with its work regarding this issue. By leveraging their forecasts by including weather, ICA hopes that their logistical metrics amount of spoilage, service levels and number of inventory days will improve. This thesis describes how ICA is working with weather currently, and furthermore it discusses the existing literature within this area. Extensive statistical surveys have been conducted in order to identify the products that are affected by weather, and to examine how they are affected by different weather variables. Finally, the thesis gives recommendations to ICA on how they can improve their forecasting by taking this study’s results into account.</p><p>Presently ICA has no consistent approach when it comes to considering weather’s impact on sales. Each individual product planner uses his own experience and gut feeling and there is no central guidance or other quantitative information there to help them.</p><p>This thesis is organised around two major statistical studies. First, a correlation study examines the correlation between sales and deviation from mean temperature. The weather parameter was selected following recommendations from earlier studies and from SMHI - the national weather institute in Sweden. The study was conducted on ICA’s entire assortment and identified which items that were affected by weather. These turned out to be about a hundred in number and were affected mainly during the summer; however a few items were also affected in the winter. Most of the affected items were rather logical regarding weather’s effects on sales and have also been pointed out by planners as products that are likely to be affected by weather. Following that, several regression analyses were conducted on the selected weather affected assortment.</p><p>The regression analyses were conducted with various combinations of one or more weather parameters as explanatory variables. Surprisingly, in most cases the deviation from mean temperature alone was the parameter that best explained the variance in sales figures. The result or output of this thesis is a value for the expected change in sales for a selected assortment, given a change in deviation from mean temperature.</p><p>The recommendations given at the end of this thesis explains how ICA in a simple and cost effective way could implement the study's results in their daily work. The proposal is to divide the work by what should be done centrally by the forecasting department, and by what should be done individually by each planner. The forecasting department should regularly collect weather forecasts over different time periods, calculate the deviation from mean temperature and distribute it to the supply planner. After that, it is up to the supply planners on how to best take advantage of this information by taking into account other unique factors affecting each category, such as campaigns, holidays and daily indexes that in many cases have more effect on sales than the weather.</p>

<p>In this thesis, the brand construct and its connections to <em>risk</em>, <em>value</em> and <em>trust</em> are explored in a Business-to-Business context.</p><p>The different characteristics of B2B and B2C marketing is elaborated upon and coupled with brand management strategies viable in the respective markets.</p><p>Contemporary academic theory on the explored constructs is discussed, and an attempt at conceptually visualizing their suggested linkages is presented.</p><p>Based on the theoretical findings, a qualitative study is conducted by means of interviews with brand managers and marketing executives with the aim of establishing how Swedish industrial multinational companies employ brand strategies in their market communication, and to what extent the constructs explored are communicated as a part of their brand message.</p><p>We find empirical evidence that risk, value and trust indeed are important in the brand communication of industrial companies. However, the relative importance of these constructs is found to be highly dependent on a multitude of both internal and external factors, such as the complexity of the offering, the degree of competition in the marketplace, and the amount of required customer interaction. <em>Trust</em> seems to be the construct most commonly incorporated in the branding activities, and <em>value</em> is not as actively stressed as conjectured.</p><p>The corporate brand appears to be the most important in new tasks, where previous experiences of interaction with the seller is deemed more important in modified and straight re-buys.</p><p>Similar to consumer marketing, the main merit of having a strong brand equity is the ability to charge price premiums, along with often making the short list of potential suppliers in the customers’ procurement processes. However, many industrial companies do not actively employ brand strategies and dedicated brand managers are not commonplace. Further, it cannot be decisively concluded that a strong brand focus is important for all industrial companies and in all markets. Again, external market characteristics, together with internal organizational conditions need to be taken into account.</p>

<p>Radio Frequency Identification, RFID, är en teknik för spårning och informationsbärande som har funnits i över 50 år. Det är dock inte förrän på senare år som användandet av tekniken har fått en bredare spridning. I Sverige finns idag ett flertal företag som har implementerat lösningar som bygger på RFID-teknik men samtliga är begränsade till att endast användas inom ett företag i ett slutet system. På frågan hur RFID-teknik och dess standard EPC påverkar företag i en supply chain, det vill säga i ett öppet system, finns inget klart svar utan detta bör undersökas för respektive bransch där ett införande kan vara intressant. Denna studie är en sådan undersökning, genomförd inom den svenska dagligvarubranschen, med följande syfte:</p><p>Syftet med denna studie är att, på aktivitetsnivå, kartlägga flödet av fem utvalda produkter i dagligvarubranschen samt att för företag som ingår i dessa flöden skapa scenarier där RFID-teknik utnyttjas. Befintliga flöden liksom scenarier skall vidare analyseras för att identifiera möjliga effektivitetsförändringar till följd av användandet av RFID-teknik och dess standard EPC.</p><p>Resultatet av studien visar att ett införande av RFID-teknik skulle ha både positiv och negativ inverkan på den logistiska effektiviteten för de studerade företagen. Den största negativa förändringen härrör till kostnader och investeringar som måste göras för att RFID-teknik skall kunna utnyttjas i flödena, medan de största positiva förändringarna kan kopplas till tidsvinster och förbättrad spårbarhet.</p><p>En viktig slutsats är att det både för företag som idag använder streckkoder i stor utsträckning liksom för företag med lägre grad av streckkodsanvändning uppstår effektivitetsförbättringar. Storleken och omfånget på effektivitetsförbättringarna påverkas dock av graden av streckkodsanvändning i respektive företag. Positiva effektivitetsförändringar uppkommer främst genom att manuella kontroller kan elimineras och ersättas med automatiska avläsningar. Denna förändring minskar tidsförbrukningen i ett antal aktiviteter, vilket i sin tur påverkar kundservice och bidrar till kostnadsbesparingar. Ökade automatiska kontroller bidrar vidare till förbättrad spårbarhet i flödet. Med god kontroll av utflödet av varor kommer returflödet att effektiviseras och mer exakta återkallelser kan göras.</p><p>RFID-teknik kräver även ett ökat informationsutbyte mellan företag i supply chain. Detta innebär att affärssystemen måste integreras för att möjliggöra kommunikation, något som kan bli kostsamt i ett initialskede. Om det genomförs kan det dock leda till stora effektivitetsförbättringar i form av ökad kundservice och minskade kostnader tack vare bland annat bättre prognoser. Sammantaget innebär slutsatserna för studien att det uppkommer både positiva och negativa effektivitetsförändringar vid ett införande av RFID/EPC i dagligvarubranschen, där de största negativa effektivitetsförändringarna uppstår i implementeringsfasen och de positiva effektivitetsförändringarna gradvis ökar och då blir bestående.</p> / <p>The purpose of this thesis is to study how the use of RFID and EPC would affect the Swedish food retail supply chain. This was done by mapping the flow of five different products in the supply chain at activity level. During this work, five manufacturers, two distribution centres and two retail stores were visited and carefully studied. These visits resulted in a flowchart for each company describing the product flow, with particular attention to the use of barcodes. The flowcharts were then used to create scenarios for each company, describing how the flow would change when using RFID-technology. The current flow for each company was then compared with its RFID scenario and analysed to see how logistic efficiency would be affected by the use of RFID-technology.</p><p>The result of the study shows that all companies in the food retail supply chain would benefit from an implementation of RFID-technology. When comparing companies with a high usage of barcodes with companies where barcodes are little used, the conclusion can be drawn that both groups would experience improvements in different areas of logistic efficiency, but not necessarily to the same extent.</p><p>When considering the drawbacks of using RFID, the greatest disadvantages are the large investments and costs of implementing the technology. The largest costs arise in modification of business systems and for hardware investments needed to utilize the technology.</p><p>Apart from theses costs and investments, several positive changes in time consumption and traceability could be found. RFID/EPC makes it possible to replace manual checks with automatic ones, resulting in less time consumption and reduced staff throughout the supply chain. Furthermore, the possibility to trace every case and pallet results in more efficient and less expensive of product returns and recalls.</p>