Thesis (doctoral)--University of Helsinki, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 56 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-45).

Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB (SIT) is a company that produces and delivers medium sized industrial gas turbines to customers all over the world and is located in Finspång. The Service section of SIT handles the aftermarket of turbines with both planned and unplanned inspections/repairs. SIT-Service experience that their lead time to customers is too long and a yearly survey with customers confirmed this. Service strives for a higher customer service and since the company suspect that internal processes have safety time built into can time quickly build up. Service has different service lines depending on what kind of maintenance needed and if planned/unplanned. Different options in a combination with several departments involved in these big projects make the flow hard to visualize and makes it complex.This report has studied how SIT-Service can enable a lead time reduction from order to delivery where the flow for Parts was chosen to be mapped and analyzed for one of the service lines. This orientation of the study was partly based on directions from the company and partly delimitations by the writers of the report. Directions from the company were for example to investigate a standard scope and to visualize the flow by mapping it, all with a focus on lead time. Delimitations developed to exclude sales and transportations as well as to only investigate one turbine type and one service line. To be able to follow the flow was a decision made to investigate the flow for Parts.The study has mapped times and activities in the Parts flow from received purchase order (PO) from customer to when parts are ready to leave SIT Finspång. This mapping includes several departments and several transactions in the ERP-system, activities, tasks, queues and uncertainties. The mapping investigated how the lead time was built up by the system and one angle of the mapping was to investigate if the times in the system were consistent with the matching times in reality. To be able to suggest any changes in the Parts flow regarding lead time, the mapping was classified based on value-adding/non-value-adding, wastes, critical chain and bottlenecks. This was followed by a use of different principles in how to enable lead time reduction. These principles were: elimination, simplification, parallelization and a combination of critical chain and bottlenecks.The results and conclusions based on the two analysis parts have been divided into two parts where suggestions in the first one are believed to have a larger impact on the total lead time. This part consists of five big areas of time with several suggestions, from concrete to more general. One of the most important areas is that SIT needs to improve how the company uses the Planned delivery time; to standardize and to make sure that it is used in the same way by all involved which could eliminate unnecessary times built in. Another important area is that the Goods receiving process time could be reduced for a majority of material in the ERP-system since this differs today even if material is handled the same in reality. The second part consisting of 14 smaller areas of suggestions are believed to have a smaller impact on the total lead time but are still considered to be important to implement. All suggestions have an order of implementation which recommends what should be done first for SIT-Service. If the suggestions are implemented is it believed that SIT-Service can shorten the lead time in the Parts flow and also to get a more efficient organization.

X-ray diffraction (XRD) has become one of the most powerful techniques for crystal structure studies and phase composition identifications. In this thesis, using the quantitative XRD (QXRD) technique to assist the development of reliable engineering strategies of stabilizing hazardous lead pollutants into ceramic matrix and resource recovery will be introduced. Metal stabilization strategies have been sought to replace the traditional disposal methods for the management of waste metal sludge. To demonstrate the unique capability of QXRD in monitoring the lead incorporation behavior, different ceramic precursors was used to react with lead oxide to investigating metal transformation mechanisms during the sintering process. When heating with alumina, influences of Pb/Al molar ratio, temperature, and treatment time on lead incorporation efficiency on the formation of PbAl2O4and PbAl12O19phasesweresuccessfully revealed by QXRD. Moreover, the influence of silica on lead stabilization effect was analyzed by blending amorphous SiO2 and quartz with -Al2O3 as the precursors. The results suggest that both silica precursors could crystallochemically incorporate lead into the lead feldspar (PbAl2Si2O8) structure in significant quantities. In addition, by sintering clay-based precursors with lead oxide, a complete lead incorporation into lead feldspar occurred above 950℃. Lead glass-ceramics were produced by thermally treating waterworks sludge with lead oxide, and amorphous contents in the products were quantified using QXRD. When hematite was used as a Fe-rich precursor to treat lead oxide, three types of lead ferrite crystals were observed and quantitatively determined. Furthermore, the mechanism of incorporating lead-zinc tailing with P-rich municipal waste sludge ash was investigated under different thermal conditions. By detailed X-ray diffraction analysis, Pb was crystallochemically incorporated into the Ca5.5Pb4.5(PO4)6(OH)2 crystalline structure and Zn was stabilized into Zn(Al0.5Fe1.5)O4 spinel phase. The stability of lead in all the product phases was evaluated byprolonged acid leaching, and the results indicated the lower intrinsic lead leachability of the product phases. The progress in optimizing experimental parameters in resource recovery suggest an opportunity of using QXRD technique to investigate the feasibility of extracting Pb from CRT and recycling P by struvite precipitation. A novel process of thermal reduction treatment with the addition of metallic iron (Fe(0)) to recover lead from cathode ray tube (CRT) funnel glass was introduced. The optimal operational parameters for the thermal extraction of lead from CRT glass were determined by QXRD technique as 50 wt.% Fe addition, heating at 700 °C for 30 min. Struvite crystallization for phosphorus recovery from wastewaters has gained strong attention. While the aspects of application and modeling have been widely studied, the phase composition of recovered phosphorus products was rarely reported. The obtained high degree of accuracy supports the validity of Rietveld method for the quantification of both amorphous and crystal phases in the products. QXRD results suggest the amount of increase of struvite in the products with the elevated N/P molar ratio from 0.2/1 to 1.2/1. All the results have demonstrated the capability of QXRD in contributing to the advancements of both material and environmental technologies. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

To understand why Kabwe, Zambia is one of the most lead polluted towns, one has to look at the source of this pollution and its extent. With a history of poor environmental regulation, policies, and public information, the lead pollution caused by mining activities in Kabwe went unmitigated for decades. The natural blood-lead level in humans is about 0.0016 µg/dl, in developed countries like the United States, strict enforcement has resulted into lead levels averaging figures below 10 µg/dl, but in Kabwe, averages lie between 60 µg/dl and 120 µg/dl. Levels over 10 µg/dl are unhealthy, while levels above 20 µg/dl can cause acute poisoning whereas levels over 120 µg/dl often result into death. New environmental and rehabilitation laws were only enacted after a new administration came into office in 1991; however, additional mitigation measures such as obtaining a reclamation bond prior to being issued a mining permit need to be considered. / text

Information gathering from sources outside the company plays a critical role in most innovation projects. Particularly, it seems promising to approach external market experts to develop an indepth understanding of current use problems, changing customer needs and trends for new product solutions. When planning expert interviews, firms are confronted with the question whether knowledge is distributed rather homogeneously or heterogeneously ("scattered") among a pool of experts. This issue strongly determines how many experts need to be interviewed in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of a given search field for innovation. In the present paper we analyse expert interviews that were conducted in the context of an innovation project in the field of surgical hygiene products. We find high heterogeneity of expert knowledge: Market experts in our sample vary in terms of market information they provide for the particular product field. We argue that this finding is in alignment with the concept of "bounded rationality" and the theory of "contextual development of knowledge". Our findings have implications for the management of external information gathering and the identification of market experts.(author's abstract)

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