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A model for optimizing the assignment of maintenance actions for a piece of equipment is developed in the thesis. The model considers the detectability and the criticality of component failure in order to assign a maintenance instruction. The thesis also develops the framework for an integrated maintenance management system. The system consists of three modules. The first module is work control. It is used to prepare, schedule, and insure the execution of maintenance instructions. The second module is the equipment condition control module which monitors maintenance effectiveness and accordingly updates the maintenance instructions. The third module is cost control. This is the tool used to monitor the economical performance of the maintenance function. An equipment information system is also presented, and two futuristic maintenance proposals are introduced. The model and the integrated maintenance management system, constitute a strong tool, that equipment managers can use to optimize the maintenance function, and improve the mechanical, operational, and economical performance of equipment. / Master of Science

<p> In contrast to the fast-paced changes and lifestyle that are endemic to modem, secular society, the Old Order Mennonites live a simple, religious life and aim to keep it that way by mediating change. How they are actively able to preserve their culture is the focus of this dissertation. The Old Order Mennonite community of Waterloo Region in southwestern Ontario, Canada served as the case study for understanding the minded aspects of social change and continuity. Fourteen in-depth, qualitative interviews were held with current and former Old Order Mennonites. A further five interviews were conducted with public school teachers and principals. Two interviews with health care providers and four interviews with members of more liberal Mennonite churches were also carried out. These additional interviews offered perspectives on the dynamics of Old Order Mennonite to non Mennonite interaction and provided general background data on the Old Order way of life. Participant-observation in participants' homes, workplaces, schools, and churches was also undertaken. </p> <p> Building on Barth's (1969) notion of social boundary maintenance and working from an interactionist perspective on social change, I argue that the key ways in which the Old Order manage change revolve around: (a) social distancing through isolation (e.g., farming, separate schooling) and insulation (e.g., technological barriers such as the continued use of the horse and buggy, distinct language, and conservative dress); (b) taking a "prescribed" approach to change such that the group's leaders control and dictate change through the Ordnung (church rules) and manage both internal issues (e.g., problems with youth) and external threats to continuity (e.g., a turbulent farm industry); and, (c) constructing and maintaining an ideology which reinforces the Old Order way of life as sacred and worthy of preservation. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> It is proposed to design, develop and implement a data base system to support the requirement of the Technical Computing Services department of McMaster University with respect to their responsibilities for the control and servicing of units of computing equipment at McMaster University.</p> <p> This data base contains information concerning each unit of equipment, its manufacturer, custodian, model number, serial number, purchase or lease record, maintenance record, past and present locations and service record.</p> <p> This project determines various cross-sections of this information to be retrieved. This includes the development of software to create, maintain, update the data base and to produce necessary reports. The design is implemented by CDC's DMS-170 with COBOL 5 as the host language.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Background: Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is a commonly prescribed therapy for patients with opioid use disorder, yet inter-individual variability in terms of treatment response is evident. Given the high prevalence of cannabis use in this population, this thesis aims to elucidate the association between cannabis use and MMT outcomes. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to comprehensively evaluate the literature and quality of evidence, as well as to identify gaps in the literature to inform future research. We then conducted a cross-sectional study investigating sex differences in the association between cannabis use and illicit opioid use in MMT patients. We employed a multivariable logistic regression analysis to assess the influence of any cannabis use as well as heaviness of cannabis use within men and women. Results: The systematic review included 22 observational studies. Results revealed the low quality of available evidence as well as substantial heterogeneity among studies. We identified several limitations in the evidence base including reliance on crude measures of cannabis use and inadequate consideration of confounding variables. Our cross-sectional study included a sample of 777 patients on MMT. Consistent with previous research, we found cannabis use to be unrelated to illicit opioid use in the entire sample. However when we stratified the analysis by sex, we found cannabis use was associated with increased odds of having concurrent illicit opioid use. Conclusion: Results of this thesis suggest certain populations within MMT patients may be at higher risk of experiencing adverse effects of cannabis in terms of treatment outcomes. Future work can build on the results of these studies to identify unique risk factors for patients in order to inform the use of tailored treatment options to improve MMT effectiveness. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Järnvägen har möjliggjort boende och arbete på olika orter, genom tågpendling, samt intresset för godstransporter på järnvägen ökar. För att upprätthålla en god status på järnvägen behövs mycket pengar, samtidigt som dess tillgänglighet påverkar många människor. Detta gör det än mer angeläget med en robust järnvägsanläggning, med hög tillgänglighet samt en god punktlighet för både person- och godståg. Ett bättre planerat underhåll möjliggör en längre användbar livstid för samtliga komponenter i järnvägsanläggningen. Som anläggningsdel förorsakar spårväxlar den högsta kostnaden i en banöverbyggnad, med korsningar som ett av de mest frekventa komponentbytena. Idag är den användbara livstiden på fasta mangankorsningar för låg, ca 100 MBrt, då den förväntas vara mellan 100–500 MBrt. Detta ligger till grund för arbetet där syftet är att undersöka hur det förbyggande underhållet av fasta korsningar i spårväxlar bättre kan planeras, utföras och följas upp för att förlänga dess användbara livstid. Vidare är målet med examensarbetet att genom en nulägesanalys, som innefattar dagens erfarenheter, förslag till förbättrade arbetsmetoder och morgondagens informationsinhämtning, fastställa vilken information som kommer att krävas för att på ett bättre sätt planera underhållet, samt att fastställa vilka underhållsåtgärder som är nödvändiga för det förebyggande underhållet av fasta korsningar i spårväxlar. Baserat på detta utformas en underhållsplan med tillhörande LCC för fasta korsningar i spårväxlar. Vidare ska samtliga underhållsåtgärder i underhållsplanen vara planeringsbara minst 3 månader i förväg, och det är önskvärt att underhållsplanen ska sträcka sig 36 månader framåt. Initialt utförs en nulägesanalys och arbetet fortsätter med förslag på förbättrade arbetsmetoder. Båda i avseende hur och när underhåll utförs på fasta mangankorsningar idag ute i anläggningen. Avslutningsvis presenteras en underhållsplan med intervall samt de resurser som krävs för de underhållsåtgärder som ska utföras. Dessa åtgärder är byte av korsning, inslipning, slipning, påsvets, spårriktning/stoppning, shimsning av moträl, byte av korkgummi samt ballastrening. Tillhörande till underhållsplanen utformas en kalkyl för livscykelkostnad, LCC, där arbete efter nuläge samt arbete efter underhållsplan jämförs. Resultatet från arbetet visar att samtliga entreprenörer anser att brist på tid i spår är en starkt bidragande faktor till att fasta korsningar byts. Detta tillsammans med att rätt förebyggande underhållsåtgärder som inslipning och förebyggande slipning för att upprätthålla profil, samt kontroll av spårläge och åtgärd vid behov inte görs. Vidare utför entreprenören ingen uppföljning av utförda underhållsåtgärder, utan beslut om underhållsåtgärder baseras till stor del på säkerhets- och underhållsbesiktningar. Detta medför att de arbetar mest avhjälpande, med åtgärd av besiktningsanmärkning. Dock för växelrevision och systematiskt växelunderhåll är erfarenhet, god lokalkännedom och god kännedom om anläggningen den avsevärt största informationskällan för entreprenören idag. Infrastrukturägaren utför även en viss leveransuppföljning, dock inte i tillräcklig utsträckning för att säkerställa att de får det som beställts. Registrering av samtliga förebyggande underhållsåtgärder bör förbättra och förenkla infrastrukturägarens uppföljning. Vidare för att möjliggöra en mer strategisk underhållsplanering behövs metoder för tillståndsbaserat underhåll tas fram, i syfte att få en bättre uppfattning om degradering av profilen för en fast mangankorsning. Till detta krävs automatiska maskinella mätningar, vilket gör mätningar reproducerbara och mätdata går att trenda. Slutligen den bristfälliga återrapporteringen av förebyggande underhållsåtgärder i kombination med entreprenörens hemlighållande av exakt underhållskostnad, resulterar i att underhållskostnaden för korsningar inte kan redovisas på en aggregerad och individuell nivå. / The railroad has made it possible for housing and work at various locations, by rail lanes, and the interest in rail freight transport is increasing. To maintain good status on the railroad, a lot of money is needed, while its availability affects many people. This makes it even more important with a robust railway facility, with high availability and good punctuality for both passenger and freight trains. Better planned maintenance enables longer useful life for all components of the railway facility. As part of the plant do railway S&amp;C cause the highest cost in a track superstructure, with crossings as the most frequent component changes. Today, the useful life of fixed manganese crossings is too low, about 100 MBrt, since the expectancy is between 100 -500 MBrt. This is the basis for the work, where the purpose is to investigate how the preventive maintenance of fixed crossings in S&amp;C can be better planned, performed and followed up to extend its useful life. Furthermore, the aim of the thesis work is to determine, through a current situation analysis, which includes current experiences, proposals for improved working methods and tomorrow's information gathering, which information will be required to better plan maintenance, and to determine which maintenance measures are necessary for the preventive maintenance of fixed crossings in S&amp;C. Based on this, a maintenance plan with associated LCC is designed for fixed crossings in S&amp;C. Furthermore, all maintenance measures in the maintenance plan must be planned at least 3 months in advance, and it is desirable that the maintenance plan should extend 36 months ahead. Initially, a zero-position analysis is performed, and work continues with suggestions for improved working methods. Both in terms of how and when maintenance is carried out on fixed crossings today outside in the railway facility. Finally, a maintenance plan is presented with intervals and the resources required for the maintenance actions to be performed. These actions include change of crossing, grinding in, grinding, welding, track direction/padding, shimming guardrail, changing of corkrubber and ballast cleaning. Compliance with the maintenance plan is a life cycle cost calculation, LCC, comparing work according to zero-position and work according to maintenance plan. The results from the work show that all entrepreneurs believe that lack of time in the track is a strong contributing factor to changing fixed crossings. This, along with proper preventive maintenance measures such as grinding in and preventive grinding to maintain profile, as well as verify track position and action when needed are not done. In addition, the contractor does not perform any follow-up on performed maintenance work, maintenance decisions are based largely on safety and maintenance inspections. This means that they work most correctively, with the action of inspection note. However, for exchange audit and systematic gear maintenance, experience, good local knowledge and good knowledge of the plant is the most important source of information for the entrepreneur today. The infrastructure owner also performs a certain delivery follow-up, but not sufficiently to ensure that they get what is ordered. Registration of all preventive maintenance measures should improve and simplify the infrastructure owner's follow-up. In addition, to enable more strategic maintenance planning, condition-based maintenance methods are required, with a view to gaining a better perception of degradation of the profile of a fixed manganese crossing. In addition, automatic machine measurements are required, which makes measurements reproducible and measurement data can be trend. Finally, the inadequate reporting of preventive maintenance measures in combination with the contractor's secrecy of exact maintenance costs, results in the maintenance cost for crossings not being reported at an aggregated and individual level.

The railway track network is one of the major modes of transportation and among a country’s most valuable infrastructure assets. Maintenance and renewal of railway infrastructure have a vital role in safety performance, the quality of the ride, train punctuality, and the life cycle cost of assets. Due to the large proportion of maintenance costs, increasing the efficiency of maintenance through optimised planning can result in high amounts of cost-saving. Moreover, from a safety perspective, late maintenance intervention can result in defective track and rollingstock components, which in severe cases, can cause severe accidents such as derailments. An effective maintenance management system is required to ensure the availability of the infrastructure system and meet the increasing capacity demand. The recent rapid technological revolution and increasing deployment of sensors and connected devices created new possibilities to increase the maintenance strategy effectiveness in the railway network. The purpose of this thesis is to expand the knowledge and methods for planning and scheduling of railway infrastructure maintenance. The research vision is to find quantitative approaches for integrated tactical planning and operational scheduling of predictive condition-based maintenance which can be put to practical use and improve the efficiency of the railway system. First, a thorough literature review study is performed to identify improvement policies for maintenance planning and scheduling in the literature and also to analyse the current approaches in optimising the maintenance planning and scheduling problem. Second, a novel data-driven multi-level decision-making framework to improve the efficiency of maintenance planning and scheduling is developed. The proposed framework aims to support the selection of track segments for maintenance by providing a practical degradation prediction model based on available condition measurement data. The framework considers the uncertainty of future predictions using the probability of surpassing a maintenance limit instead of using the predicted value. Moreover, an extensive total maintenance cost formulation is developed to include both direct and indirect preventive and corrective costs to observe the effect of using cost optimisation and grouping algorithms at the operational scheduling level. The performance of the proposed framework is evaluated through a case study based on data from a track section of the iron ore line between Boden and Luleå. The results indicate that the proposed approach can lead to cost savings in both optimal and grouping plans. This framework may be a useful decision support tool in the automated planning and scheduling of maintenance based on track geometry measurements.

Purpose – The demand for solar cells has increased, creating challenges for solar cell suppliers operating in a B2B context. Customers should be central to all companies, which is why it is important to examine their experience of service quality through the sales process of solar cell suppliers. Thus, the purpose of this study is: To identify improvement opportunities for solar cell suppliers’ sales process based on customers’ experiences from a service quality perspective. Based on the purpose, two research questions were formulated: [1] What strengths and weaknesses do customers perceive that solar cell suppliers' salesprocess have from a service quality perspective? [2] How can solar cell suppliers' sales process be improved from a service quality perspective? Method – The study is a case study, where data was collected from a selected case company and ten of their business customers. To be able to map out the case company's sales process, a document study, and an open interview with employees at the case company were carried out. Based on the collected data, interview questions were created for ten of the case company's business customers. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify the customers' experience of service quality through the sales process, whereupon suggestions for improvement could be identified. Results – The identified strengths meant a high experience of service quality according to the customers. The strengths were professional treatment, effective communication, detailed planning, well-executed execution as well as detecting and resolution of problems. The shortcomings identified through the sales process resulted in an experience of low service quality according to the customers. The shortcomings were slow response, overworked staff, lack of project management, inadequate material delivery, delayed projects, visualization problems and deficiencies in detecting defects. The main improvement proposal is to create a plan with instructions for who is responsible for collecting and transferring information between involved parties. Implications – By creating a plan for the collection and transferring of information, where it becomes clear who has responsibility between both internal and external parties, the service quality through solar cell suppliers' sales process can increase. Technology that creates a seamless service is an important part of the sales process, whereupon developed and efficient technology is important from a long-term perspective. For example, customers can be involved in solar cell suppliers' IT systems to be able to obtain information. Limitations – The study is a single case study, which means that data was collected from only one company. In addition, only ten business customers have been interviewed to collect data. These aspects may indicate that the generalizability of the study can be questioned. Key words – Customer satisfaction, customer value, selling process, service quality, solar cell supplier

In today’s industry, where manufacturing is fast and efficient, uptime for manufacturing machines plays a key role for companies to stay relevant with their competitors. Although manufacturing equipment today is very advanced and sometimes automated, they may still run into problems and wear out. By maintaining and servicing the equipment well, one can avoid unexpected equipment failure and unnecessary downtime. Keeping track and documenting maintenance can play a crucial role in how efficiently a manufacturer can produce their product. Maintenance management software exists on the market today, but they are large and expensive. As Saab, a manufacturer of highly advanced military technology, does not have a well-established system for managing their maintenance, there is a need for an evaluation and development of a customised option. In this thesis, the maintenance needs for Saab’s operations were analysed, and options for developing maintenance software that fits these needs were investigated. The result was a web application hosted on a Python-based web server, which uses MongoDB as a database to store data in an object-oriented manner, allowing flexibility within the system. The application is not fully developed but provides an overall picture of how a smaller software could serve the same purpose as the larger ones. After evaluating the developed application alongside the existing maintenance software, it is concluded that with further development, the application could serve the same function and be a competitive contender alongside the larger software. However, the safer and more reliable option for Saab would be to instead implement one of the existing software solutions. / I dagens industri, där tillverkning är snabb och effektiv, spelar drifttid för tillverkningsmaskiner en nyckelroll för att företag ska kunna hålla sig relevanta gentemot sina konkurrenter. Trots att tillverkningsutrustning idag är mycket avancerad och ibland automatiserad, kan de fortfarande stöta på problem och slitas ut. Genom att underhålla och serva utrustningen på rätt sätt kan man undvika oväntade maskinhaverier och onödig driftstopp. Att ha kontroll och dokumentera underhåll kan spela en avgörande roll för hur effektivt en tillverkare kan producera sin produkt. Underhållshanteringssystem finns på marknaden idag, men de är stora och dyra. Eftersom Saab, tillverkare av högteknologisk militärteknik, inte har ett väletablerat system för hur de hanterar sitt underhåll, finns det ett behov av en utvärdering och utveckling av ett anpassat alternativ. I denna avhandling analyserades underhållsbehoven för Saabs verksamhet, och alternativ för hur en underhållsprogramvara kunde utvecklas för att passa dessa behov undersöktes. Resultatet blev en webbapplikation som är värd på en Python-baserad webbserver och använder MongoDB som en databas för att lagra data på ett objektorienterat sätt, vilket ger flexibilitet inom systemet. Applikationen är inte fullt utvecklad men ger en övergripande bild av hur en mindre programvara kan tjäna samma syfte som de större. När den utvecklade applikationen utvärderas i förhållande till den befintliga underhållsprogramvaran dras slutsatsen att applikationen, med ytterligare utveckling, skulle kunna fylla samma funktion och vara en konkurrenskraftig utmanare till de större programvarorna. Dock skulle det säkrare och mer pålitliga alternativet för Saab vara att istället implementera en av de befintliga programvarorna.

Logistics is a talked about but also difficult to define concept as this concept has several different interpretations. Actually, logistics is primarily about more efficient material flows, which in turn should create more efficient work processes in production. In literature research, knowledge has been sought about efficient logistics and lean, which in turn led to investigating the various areas and factors that lead to waste. Logistics within the construction industry, and not least production, is today an area that is well debated and is one of the more important aspects to achieve more efficient production. Based on the knowledge gathered, a measurement tool has since been developed which is intended to be used within construction production to measure the actual efficiency of logistics. This means that the tool can, if desired, be used in more projects than those processed and treated in this scientific report. This scientific report will answer the following questions: 1. What shortcomings are found in logistics in the construction industry 2. Are there one or more widespread deficiencies? 3. Develop a measurement tool that should be able to measure the efficiency of logistics in projects within construction production. The result shows that with well-planned logistics, more efficient logistics can be achieved and thus profit can be achieved in the form of both time and money. This scientific report will provide an insight into the field of logistics during construction production. Furthermore, the work will highlight the shortcomings that appear in the efficiency of logistics within the investigated projects and give suggestions on how this can be remedied.