<p>For a company to be competitive today, one way is to create a natural feedback loop from the production department to the design department with information regarding the production systems ability to deliver a finished component. The purpose with this feedback loop is to create respect for tolerances and to more design for manufacturing and assembly. The studied company in this thesis work developed a quality program to reach a spiral of continuous improvements to reduce cost of poor quality (CoPQ) and to reach an improved quality level (PPM). The object of this work was to test and improve the quality program called The Zero Tolerance Program. Delimitations were made when the work was started and ongoing which led to that the impact on PPM could not be studied. The connection to CoPQ was difficult to obtain and could only be proved theoretically, not practically, due to the short timetable.</p><p>During the short amount of time the right root cause could not be found. The thesis work findings came to a number of identified Measurable Success Criteria and requirements which must be in place for the further progress of The Zero Tolerance Program.</p> / PREPARE

This thesis presents a novel approach to the manufacture of thin film resistors using a new low resistivity material of copper, aluminium and molybdenum, which under industrially achievable optimised process conditions, is shown to be capable of producing excellent temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and long term stability properties. Previous developments in the field of thin film resistors have mainly centred around the well established resistive materials such as nickel-chromium, tantalum-nitride and chromium-silicon-monoxide. However recent market demands for lower value resistors have been difficult to satisfy with these materials due to their inherent high resistivity properties. This work focuses on the development and processing of a thin film resistor material system having lower resistivity and equal performance characteristics to that of the well established materials. An in depth review of thin film resistor materials and manufacturing processes was undertaken before the electrical properties of a binary thin film system of copper and aluminium were assessed. These properties were further enhanced through the incorporation of a third doping element, molybdenum, which was used to reduce the TCR and improve the electrical stability of the film. Once the desired chemical composition was established, the performance of the film was then fine tuned through optimisation of critical manufacturing process stages such as sputter deposition, heat treatment and laser adjustment. The results of these investigations were then analysed and used to generate a set of optimum process conditions, suitable for repeatedly producing thin film resistors in the 1 to 10Ω resistance range, to tolerances of less than ±0.25% and TCR values better than ±15ppm/oC.

Hip fracture is the most common reason for admission to an orthopaedic trauma word. It is usually a 'Fragility' fracture caused by a fall affecting an older person with osteoporosis or osteopenia (a condition in which bones lose calcium and become thinner, but not as much as in osteoporosis). The National Hip Fracture Database worldwide reports the average age of a person with hip fracture is 84 years for men and 83 years for women, 76% of fracture occurs in women. By 2050, the worldwide incidence of hip fracture in men is projected to increase by 24% in women and 31% in men. Hip fractures due to sideways falls are a worldwide health problem, especially amongst elderly people. The experienced force to the proximal femur during a fall leading to hip fracture is significantly dependent on density, thickness and stiffness of the body during impact. The process of fracture and healing can only be understood in terms of structure and composition of the bone and also its mechanical properties. Bone fracture analysis investigates to predict various failure mechanisms under different loading conditions. In an effort to improve and assist scientists and researchers to predict the impact damage response of bone structures and estimate femoral fracture load in vitro, an accurate explicit finite element (14E) method has been investigated in this study. In the first part, the main goal is to create a 3D reconstruction and registration of semi-transparent Computed Tomography (CT) scan image data using SIMPLEWARE software. In the second part, effect of cortical thickness and impact velocity on the energy absorption of hip during a fall has been investigated on a 3D model. Additionally composite femora were mechanically tested to failure and regression analyses between measured fracture load and FE-predicted fracture load were performed. The results indicate that this sophisticated technique, which is still early in its development, can achieve precision comparable to that of densitometry and can predict femoral fracture load to within 18% with 95% confidence.

In recent years, call centres have been considered as an integral part of the modern businesses, since they play an important role in providing service delivery functions to their customers. A well-managed call centre, therefore, is crucial to ensure high level of customer satisfaction in today’s competitive market. In order to achieve a high standard, managers of call centres face a very difficult set of challenges. At the top level, they must strike a balance between two powerful competing interests: low operating costs and high service quality. On a day-to-day basis, while simultaneously keeping low costs and high service quality, those managers must also employ appropriate techniques and tools in order to evaluate the true performance of their operations accurately. Such tools play a vital role in understanding the current system performance, evaluation of any proposed enhancement scenarios, and optimising operations management decisions under any unexpected operating conditions. One of traditional operations management challenges for call centre managers is to tackle the multi-period human resources allocation problem. In this thesis, the staffing and staff scheduling decisions in single-skill inbound call centres were studied. These decisions are normally made under strict service level constrain in the presence of highly uncertain operations and demand of call centre services. Neglecting such uncertainty may lead to unrealistic decisions. The objective of this research thesis was to propose a framework to enhance the call centre performance through taking realistic optimal staffing and scheduling decisions. Realistic optimisation requires realistic modeling (evaluation) of call centre operations which is the main focus and contribution of this research. The proposed framework has combined statistical, simulation, and Integer Programming (IP) techniques in achieving realistic optimisation. The framework begins by developing stochastic statistical data models for call centre operations parameters which are divided into service demand (arrival volumes) and service quality (service times, abandonment volumes, and patience time) parameters. These data models are then fed into a simulation model which was developed to determine the minimum staffing levels in daily an-hour periods. Finally, these staffing levels are considered as input to an IP model that optimally allocates the service agents to the different operating shifts of a typical working day. Application of the proposed framework to a call centre in Libya will also be presented to illustrate how its staffing and scheduling decisions could be improved by using the model.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-22T22:10:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 marcos bandeira.pdf: 1119544 bytes, checksum: a7cf163b06722e404fefa66895aa07b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-08-28 / This paper explores the application of the Production Engineering usual tools - Kaizen, Analysis and QC Story, Ishikawa, Pareto, five whys - against food waste in an industrial kitchen, with the objective of developing a protocol for implementing these tools and so contribute with suggestions to actions that could be adopted in the different existing kitchens. To this end, it was adopted the kind of research and Case Study, with an experimental approach, where the main scope is the production chain of meals in aprofessional kitchen, from the receiving points till the production process and the production delivery, limiting themselves to the environment and process of cooking. The conduct of the study was based on the Technical Regulation of Practices for Food Services of the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), since all internal actions must be conform to a Brazilian standard of food safety. The study environmentalist in a manufacturing company which supply collective meals and reach a volume with more than 4000 per day, and it is considered large and ideal for applying tools against waste scale. The research concluded that it is possible and advantageous to adopt Manufacturing Engineering Tools in the production process of industrial kitchens to reduce food waste. / Este trabalho explora o uso das ferramentas da Engenharia de Produção Kaizen, MASP, Ishikawa, Pareto, cinco porquês no combate aos desperdícios alimentares dentro de uma cozinha industrial, com o objetivo de elaborar um protocolo para aplicação destas ferramentas e assim contribuir com sugestão de ações que podem ser adotadas nas diferentes cozinhas existentes. Para tal, foi adotado o tipo de pesquisa Bibliográfica e Estudo de Caso, com uma abordagem quase-experimental, onde o escopo principal é a cadeia de produção de refeições em uma cozinha industrial, desde os pontos de recebimento do insumo para o processo produtivo à entrega do produto, limitando-se ao ambiente e processo da cozinha. A condução do trabalho foi baseada no Regulamento Técnico de Boas Práticas para Serviços de Alimentação da Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (ANVISA), visto que todas as ações internas precisam obedecer a um padrão de segurança alimentar. O estudo ambienta-se em uma empresa de manufatura onde o suprimento de refeições coletivas alcança um volume superior a 4.000 ao dia, sendo considerada de grande porte e ideal para aplicação de ferramentas contra o desperdício em escala. A pesquisa concluiu que é possível e vantajoso adotar as ferramentas da Engenharia de Produção no processo produtivo de cozinhas industriais para a redução de desperdícios de alimentos.

<p>Byggbranschen brottas idag med en hel del fel och brister i byggprocessen. Exempel på problem är bl.a. höga byggkostnader, kvalitetsbrister samt att det förekommer slarv och okunskap. Produktiviteten i byggbranschen har inte utvecklats lika mycket som i tillverkningsindustrin som använder sin ledningsfilosofi Lean Production.</p><p>Syftet med detta examensarbete är att få insikt i vilka vanliga fel och brister som förekommer i byggbranschen, samt att kunna ge förslag till förbättringar i enlighet med lean-tänkande. När man talar om Lean i byggsammanhang benämns det Lean Construction. Lean Construction har sin teoretiska bakgrund i verkstadsindustrins Lean Production och Lean Thinking.</p><p>Lean Production är en industriell produktionsmetod vars syfte är att öka produktionseffektiviteten och har sin bakgrund i japanska bilindustrin. Lean Thinking är en vidareutveckling av Lean Production och är ett begrepp som används för att omfatta fler branscher utöver tillverkningsindustrin. Att arbeta enligt Lean innebär att hela tiden arbeta med ständiga förbättringar samt att identifiera och eliminera allt slöseri. Slöseri kan ses som en aktivitet som inte skapar något värde för kunden men som ändå förbrukar resurser.</p><p>När man tillämpar Lean i sin organisation så analyserar man hur en effektivisering kan ske utifrån sin egen produktionsprocess. Några av grundelementen inom Lean är Kaizen som betyder ständiga förbättringar samt Just In Time.</p><p>Det har utförts vissa studier kring slöseri i byggbranschen, delar av dessa presenteras i denna rapport. Det som kartlagts som slöseri är bl.a. omarbete, materialspill, överproduktion och väntan hos personal. Det är utifrån dessa kartlagda slöserier som vi har utformat enkäterna i vår undersökningsstudie.</p><p>Studien visar inte på några större skillnader mellan platschefer/arbetsledare och yrkesarbetare vad det gäller deras uppfattning om vilka fel och brister som är vanligt förekommande. Båda yrkeskategorierna är överens om att slöseri kan minskas, t ex genom effektivare materialhantering på byggarbetsplatserna och bättre kommunikation och planering på alla plan.</p> / <p>The Construction industry struggles with quality deviances and defects in the building process. Various kinds of problem are for example expensive costs for production, defects in quality and negligence and ignorance in the industry in general. The development of productivity in building process has not progressed at the same rate as companies within manufacturing industry who are using the Lean Production philosophy.</p><p>The purpose whit this degree project is to bring knowledge about what kind of deviances and defects that exist in the industry, and to recommend suggestions for improvements in accordance with Lean Thinking. When you speak about Lean in the construction business it is called Lean Construction. Lean Construction has its theoretical background in the engineering industries Lean Production and Lean Thinking.</p><p>Lean Production is an industrial production method which purpose is to increase the effectiveness of production. It originates from the car-industry in Japan. The concept of Lean Thinking is a further development of Lean Production and it includes all industries, not just the manufacturing industry. To work according to Lean means that you all the time tries to achieve constant improvements and to identify and eliminate all kinds of waste in time and materials. Waste can be seen as an activity that do not create any added value for the customer but still however consume resources.</p><p>While implementing and using Lean in your business corporation you have to analyze how a potentiate can be achieved outgoing from the existing production process. Some main elements within Lean are Kaizen, which means constant improvements, and Just In Time.</p><p>There have been many studies about waste in production in the construction industry. Some are introduced in this report. Activities that have been identified as waste are among others reworking, waste of material, overproduction and misplanning causing waiting times among employees. Based on these ascertained wastages we have formulated the questionnaire study.</p><p>The study does not show large differences between local managers/team leaders and construction workers when it comes to their opinion about what kinds of deviances and defects they find as frequent. The both professions agree that waste can be reduced, by the way of for example efficacious material handling on the building sites and better communication and planning on several levels.</p><p>Keywords: Building process, Lean Construction, Wasting, Kaizen and Just In Time</p>

<p>As the competition is increasing both nationally and globally, the companies are looking for new ways to decrease costs and gain innovation. The latest hot topic is Open innovation (OI), which can be seen as the ultimate limit in terms of accessible expertise, since it makes no difference in valuing an idea in terms of its origin. The trend is that companies are increasingly acknowledging the relevance of external resources, engaging in OI rather than relying exclusively on internal research and development (Chesborough, 2006). There are many types of supplier relations and innovation networks that the companies can take part in, but OI can be seen more as an approach and mindset that should determine <em>how </em>the companies act, whether it’s a question of being more open for ideas from another department, or even towards a competitor company. The companies are often using different types of collaborations and strategy and, potentially, trying to move up “the scale” towards OI.  With this thesis work I propose that there are many different aspects that the companies have to be aware of when moving up the scale from in-house development towards global OI. In reality, not many companies are taking the full advantage of OI, nonetheless knows the perquisites for doing so. OI may be the trend for development of companies, but today the nature of this is complex as companies are using different layers of the supplier and collaboration types in different parts of the organization. The success stories which Chesborough uses to exemplify the concept of OI do not address the grey area, or place on a scale, where many companies are situated in. This study will therefore explore the complexity in managing these collaborations that is not so present in the literature. How do you manage a collaboration that includes supplier relation, partnership and a want for OI at the same time? This means that there has to be a selection on which projects to collaborate with, as well as strategies for collaborating in a more innovative way and the steps that needs to be taken to get there.  In this thesis I am going to use this broad definition of innovation:</p><p>Innovation is the total set of activities leading to the introduction of something new, resulting in strengthening the defendable competitive advantage of a company. (van der Meer, 1996)</p><p>My partner company in this study is a global Telecom company (DU Technology) who would like to learn more about this and improve their collaboration with an Indian Service provider (ITC). These companies will be used as a case study to provide an example on how complex the movement towards OI can be, and what it demands from the companies to succeed. As the companies are working in a global context, I will also highlight the importance of an understanding for the cultural differences that affects collaboration and how to manage these when they are not a part of your own company. <em></em></p>

<p>In line with the company-wide CS09 project being carried out at Volvo CE Components, Cell 14 will have changes in terms of distribution of machines and parts routing to meet the lean manufacturing goals established.  These changes are of course dependant on future production volumes, as well as lot sizing and material handling considerations.</p><p>In this context, an important emphasis is given to the awareness of the performance measures that support decision making in these production development projects.  By using simulation as a confirmation tool, it is possible to re-assess these measures by testing the impact of changes in complex situations, in line with the lean manufacturing principles.</p><p>The aim of the project is to develop a discrete event simulation model following the methodology proposed by Banks et al (1999).  A model of Cell 14 will be built using the software Technomatix Plant Simulation ® which is used by the Company and the results from the simulation study will be analyzed.</p>

<p>Vi ämnar med detta arbete utröna vilken strategi som är lämplig när man går från fragmenterad schemalagd undervisning till projektbaserat lärande i en gymnasieskola. Denna förändring innebär oundvikligen att både lärare och elever måste byta förhållningssätt till både kursplaner och varandra. Vi studerar genom intervjuer och analys av befintlig forskning hur en gymnasieskola slår ihop ett teoretiskt inriktat och ett praktiskt inriktat program och bildar Teknikcollege(TC). Vi har hittat stöd i både empiri och teori för användande av pilotprojekt som förändringsstrategi. Förändringsmotstånd omnämns ofta i denna diskurs som något besvärligt men samtidigt en nödvändig kraft som testar förändringens validitet. Vi tror oss ha hittat en metod med potential att testa validiteten i föreslagen förändring utan att behöva brottas med det motstånd som vanligen uppstår.</p> / <p>Our purpose with this paper is to find an appropriate strategy for changing a high school moving from fragmented schedule to project based learning. This change inevitably prescribes that both teachers and students need to change their view of the curriculum and each other. By means of interviews and analysis of available research we study how a high school merges a theoretical class and a practical class and constitute Teknikcollege(TC). We have found both empirical and theoretical support in practising the use of pilotproject as a strategical tool for managing change. Resistance to change is often mentioned in context of this discourse as something difficult, alas a useful force required to validate the change. We believe we have found a method with potential to validate proposed change without fighting the troublesome, yet often present resistance.</p>

<p>A public private partnership is an alternative to procurement of the facility by the public sector, using funding from tax revenues or public borrowing. In a typical public sector procurement, the public authority sets out the specifications and design of the facility, calls for bids on the basis if this detailed design, and pays for construction of the facility by a private sector contractor. The public authority has to fund the full cost of construction, including cost overruns. Operation and maintenance of the facility are handled by the public authority and the contractor takes no responsibility for the long term performance of the facility after the construction warranty period has expired. In a public private partnership, on the other hand, the authority specifies its requirements in terms of outputs, which set out the public services which the facility is intended to provide, but which do not specify how these are to be provided. It is then left to the private sector to design, finance, build and operate the facility to meet the longterm output specifications. The project company receives payments over the life of the PPP contract, which are supposed to repay the financing costs and give a return to investors. The payments are subject to deductions for failure to meet output specifications, and there is no extra allowance for cost overruns which happen during construction or in operation of the facility.</p>