The folding station is one step of the packing process taking place in the metal tube filling machines. The purpose of this project is to develop and design a folding station for metal tubes. With this aim, a product design process has been created and as a result of the application of a deductive method, ten concepts have been discovered and the most suitable one has been developed later on.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the standardization of a New Product Development (NPD) process affects creativity and efficiency. The research was conducted on a case company through several interviews with employees connected to the process with various experience within the company. Standardization and creativity have in the past been considered to be mutually exclusive. However, recent research shows a connection between them and suggests that they could complement each other. This thesis is built upon a framework of six factors affecting creativity in NPD and has further explored how these are connected to efficiency as well. The research concludes that creativity and efficiency in NPD can work in harmony, complementing and supporting each other by focusing on the content rather than the process.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A product placement or placement occurs when a brand is integrated into a film, game or sitcom for advertising purposes. This integration can either be in the form of a visual placement, verbal placement or both. The practice of product placement has become popular due to the loss of advertising effectiveness of traditional media channels. This is due to the advent of technology, which allows the consumer to avoid advertisements. Marketers have therefore sought alternative, more effective forms of advertising, leading to an increase in spending on product placement. As product placement becomes more popular, there is a growing need to justify the large amounts spent on this practice. This research addressed this need by developing a framework for practitioners to use in order to determine the effectiveness of a placement. The framework will help to provide an understanding of the returns gained from investing in a product placement strategy. This research, which is in the form of a qualitative study, has made use of both primary and secondary data sources to meet this research objective. The primary data source is based on the findings from an interview conducted with a placement-practitioner, while the secondary data was based on all published literature regarding the means of measuring the effectiveness of product placement. The study begins by reviewing the literature in order to gain an understanding of advertising effectiveness and how it has been measured by past researchers. This review and analysis led to the discovery of three stages of measuring advertising effectiveness, these are the cognitive, affective and conative stages. These three stages were used as the starting point for the development of the framework which measures the effectiveness of product placement. The literature was then analysed with the aim of determining the measures used for each stage to determine the effectiveness of a placement. These measures were grouped according to the stage within which they belonged, i.e. either the cognitive, affective or conative stages. For example, brand awareness, which was found to be a measure of product placement effectiveness, was grouped under the cognitive effects of a placement. The results of the literature analysis were validated by conducting an interview with a product placement practitioner. The aim of this interview was to gain an understanding of how the industry determines the effectiveness of a product placement. An additional category, namely financial impact, was extracted from this interview. The end result was the creation of a framework, with four categories, which can be used to determine the effectiveness of a product placement.

Does high products complexity &amp; production cost drive high customer involvement in product development? Author: Ellen Wendel Tutor/Examiner: Sarah Philipson   Background   The purpose of this thesis first arose when interviewing the CEO and the chief of product development of a Swedish wood company. The lack of communication between the two of them and the overall information flow within the company seemed to me brutally bad. When leaving that company a question popped up: Do a low production cost/unit and/or a low product complexity on an industrial market result in low customer involvement?   Problem focus/hypotheses   Product failure is costly and time consuming; doing it right the first time can keep a company alive and give it competitive advantages, Matzler et al (1997). Customer involvement has proven to increase the chances for a successful product launch, von Hippel (1988), Lagrosen (2005), Pitta et al (1996) and Matzler et al (1997). With the assumption that customer involvement can affect product development in a positive way, any conditions that might drive customer involvement in product development would be of interest. This thesis investigates three hypotheses concerning how product complexity and production cost drive customers involvement; H1: High product complexity positively predicts the use of high customer involvement in the product development. H2: High production cost positively predicts the use of high customer involvement in the product development. H3: High production cost and high product complexity together positively predicts the use of high customer involvement.   Method   The main study was executed with surveys sent per e-mail. The investigated populations are wood component suppliers and machine suppliers. The suppliers were chosen to get a vast range of product complexity and production cost. The hypotheses were analyzed with chi-square statistics and percentages.   To get a basic understanding of the industry, I first made a pre-study; interviewing two suppliers and telephone interviewing the head of glued edge pine panel issues at the Swedish Wood &amp; Furniture Association.   Findings   Hypothesis 1 I conclude that higher product complexity leads to higher customer involvement on both industries. This result gives more validation to the emerging theory stated by Richard et al (2004). Hypothesis 2  This thesis validates hypothesis 2 among wood suppliers. I suggest future research to validate a possible theory the states that higher production cost drive higher customer involvement. Hypothesis 2 is not accepted on the machine supplier industry since the results were inconclusive. No overall pattern was found.  However, the result indicates that the hypothesis might be correct up until a certain level of complexity, after which the relationship is negative. Hypothesis 3   I consider hypothesis 2 to be validated on the wood supplier market. I suggest future research to validate a possible theory the states that higher production cost and product complexity and production cost combined drive higher customer involvement. The thesis result indicates that hypothesis 3, on the machine supplier market, might be correct up until a certain level of complexity and production cost combination, after which the relationship is negative. Hypothesis 3 cannot be accepted for the machine supplier industry since the results are inconclusive. General findings from the hypotheses All three hypotheses indicate a positive prediction that product complexity, production cost and the two variables combined will drive the behavior of “usage or no usage” of customer involvement, regardless of industry. / <p>Opponenter: Elna Hägglund och Frida Tillmar</p>

Introduction: The product relaunch, in terms of the recycling of an existing product lifecycle, is a common marketing tool within the consumer goods industry. Cases like the reintroductionof Mondelēz Oreo cookie and the promotion of the facelift of the PorscheCayenne are examples how relaunch campaigns can successfully introduce existingproducts in a modified version and increase their sales and brand recall drastically.Advantages like lower flop risks, and lower research and development costs make thisalternative quite attractive when it comes to the decision between the introduction ofinnovations and revitalization of existing products.Method: In order to identify promising advertisement strategies, four potential successfactors has been stated, based on existing marketing communication models: media usage,message credibility, message appeal and scheduling pattern. Related to them, a survey wasconducted which asked the respondents to choose the applied alternatives within the fourdecision areas and indicate to which extent the set success goals were achieved. The surveycould give hints, which strategy alternatives are associated with the achievement of thecampaigns goals by using the correlation analysis. Furthermore, the frequency distributionwas used to identify handling patterns in practice.Results: The results of the survey, which was executed as self-completing questionnaire,revealed that two of the assumed success factors, namely media strategy and credibilitysource, indeed show a correlation to the perceived achievement of success goals. For thethird aspect, the decision about the message appeal, a clear usage pattern could beidentified in the non-durable goods industry. Finally, the two advertisement schedulingpatterns showed no correlation to the perceived success and there was also no preferredalternative identifiable in the durable and non-durable goods industry.Implications: Based on the study results it is to summarize that the usage of TV and onlineadvertisement, as well as POS material appears particularly appropriate for the durablegoods industry, whereas the application of Magazine advertisement showed a positiverelation to the perceived success of relaunch campaigns for non-durable goods. Regardingthe creation of awareness and trustworthiness, the link to the brand and or manufacturername seems more promising than the one to the previous product version, particularly forthe durable goods industry. Finally, the application of an emotional argumentation wasused by 80% of the non-durable goods firms, whereas the relaunch of durable goods wasequally communicated with emotional and informational messages.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate factors which influences product launch strategies.

This thesis deals with building up and strategy of brand Perwoll on the Czech market. First - theoretical part - deals with particular stadiums of launch of a product. It deals about how to recognize consumers' needs through marketing research, analysis of consumers' behaviour, buying process and market segmentation and target group finding. It also concentrates on product and selling support. Practical part is about brand Perwoll - special detergent. First part describes it, second part is about launch of Perwoll White variant and last part are recomendations and identification of potential.

Titel: Produktkoncept av textila produkter för fritidsbåtarUtgivningsår: Våren 2010Författare: Chi-Tak Cheng &amp; Mikael JohanssonHandledare: Johan HeinerudExaminator: Lena BerglinInstitution: Textilhögskolan i BoråsProgram: Textil Produktutveckling med entreprenör- och affärsinriktning, 120 högskolepoängKurs: Examensarbete 15 hpDenna rapport innehåller hur man går till väga att göra ett produktkoncept åt ett produktutvecklande företag som i sin tur ska sälja in detta förslag hos en potentiell kund. I rapporten får ni följa hela designprocessen, från att få uppdraget utav ett företag till ett färdigt förslag.Uppdragsgivaren som författarna samarbetar med heter Navicura International Ltd, det är ett företag som jobbar med lågkostnadsproduktion i Kina. De förser sina kunder med ett helhetskoncept från produktdesign, produktion, montering, tester, paketering, kvalitetskontroll till frakt, logistik och lagerförvaring. Tanken är att ge kunden en paketlösning så kunden slipper söka runt utan finner allt i ett företag. De är måna om relationer och jobbar gärna nära kunden för att få ett bra samarbete, därav ett bra resultat.Problemet som författarna stöter på är att idag finns det en stor marknad när det gäller textila tillbehör till fritidsbåtar, speciellt produkter som sittdynor, skyddsväskor, förvaringsväskor och dryckeshållare med mera.Marknaden domineras av ett företag som heter Robship, som tack vare lågkonkurrens kan ta ett högt pris med en högmarginal på sina produkter. Robship jobbar mycket med att sälja en livskvalité, en image av det goda livet och njutningen att åka båt. Därav jobbar Robship hårt med att sälja in sig själva som ett varumärke och klarar av att ligga på en högre prisklass med sina produkter.Navicura vill kunna erbjuda liknande produkter åt deras potentiella kunder som säljer fritidsbåttillbehör idag. Navicura vill in på marknaden är för att de anser sig ha kompetensen samt möjligheten att producera liknade varor till ett lägre pris jämfört med Robship. Utöver det ser Navicura en möjlighet att expandera och locka till sig nya kunder när deras produktion lämpar sig för att tillverka dessa produkter. / <p>Titel: Product concept of textile accessories for boatsYear of publication: Spring 2010Author: Chi-Tak Cheng & Mikael JohanssonSupervisor: Johan HeinerudExaminer: Lena BerglinInstitution: The Swedish school of textileProgram: Textile product- and business development with focus on entrepreneurCourse: Bachelor thesis15 hpThe report includes how to go about making a product concept for a product development company that in return will sell this proposal to a potential customer. The work will be followed throughout the design process, from getting out of a business mission to a finished proposal. The company that the author is working with is named Navicura International Ltd, its a company that works with low-cost production in China. They provide their customers with a comprehensive concept of product design, production, assembly, testing, packaging, quality control to freight, logistics and warehouse storage. The idea is to give the customer a package so customers do not have to search around but will find everything in one company. They care about relationships, and works close to the customer to get a good co-operation, hence a good results. The problem to face is that today there is a large market for textile accessories for boats, particularly products like seat cushions, protective bags, storage bags and canholders and more. The market is dominated by a company called Robship, thanks to low competition can take a high price with a high margin on their products. Robship works a lot to sell a quality of life, an image of the good life and enjoyment of boating. They work hard to sell Robship as a brand and manage by that to be at a higher price range of its products. Navicura want to offer similar products to potential clients who sell boat accessories today. Why Navicura want to enter the market is because they feel that they have the skills and that they have the ability to produce similar goods at lower prices compared to Robship. In addition, Navicura sees an opportunity to expand and attract new customers when their production is suitable for the manufacture of these products.</p><p>Program: Kandidat inom Magisterutbildning i fashion management med inriktning modemarknadsföring</p>

Over the last two decades, sustainability has matured to become a societal imperative and is at the forefront of UK government policy and industry strategy. For example, the Strategy for Sustainable Construction (BERR, 2008) and Low Carbon Construction (BIS, 2012) reports have focused on encouraging more sustainable construction through reductions in energy, water and resource use. In response to such demands, the UK precast concrete industry developed a sector sustainability strategy and subsequently chose to continue activities in this area through an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) research project. The project focused on the scope for applying the principles of product stewardship (PS) as a means to mitigate environmental impacts associated with precast products, throughout the entire life-cycle of their use. Numerous PS schemes have been adopted in other industrial sectors, such as chemicals, electronics and product manufacture. One of the distinguishing features of PS is that multiple stakeholders need to take responsibility for their ‘share' of environmental impacts, and that life-cycle thinking should pervade the value chain. Hence, through PS, the precast industry might be able to address not only the impacts within cradle-to-gate phases, but also develop a framework to positively act on broader, cradle-to-grave impacts. The aim of this research was to develop a framework for embedding the principles of PS more deeply into the precast industry, creating a novel pathway towards more sustainable construction. The research commenced with a literature review to understand the key sustainability issues affecting the industry, followed by an analysis and synthesis of industry key performance indicator (KPI) data from 2006–2012. Industry participation in the research was facilitated through a questionnaire survey and interviews with senior staff within UK precast businesses. Evidence of PS practices was found to exist within the industry through responsible sourcing schemes, implementation of Environmental Management Systems and through the mitigation of various specific impacts. However, the coordinated communication of such initiatives was found to be lacking and with the advent of new European standards around Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for construction, it was decided that the precast industry would benefit from a sector-specific EPD framework to capture and communicate its PS credentials. An EPD framework and tool was therefore developed and validated through a focus group, to establish whether an EPD can be used successfully to deliver environmental information and refine an approach such that it would accord with the principles of PS. Further research and development arising from this research could focus on implementation and evaluation of the industry-specific EPD scheme, a mechanism to communicate and share life-cycle information amongst upstream and downstream stakeholders and a means through which stakeholder responsibility can be attributed and managed effectively. The key findings of this research have been presented in four peer–reviewed papers (one of which is in draft) which are presented in the Appendices.

<p>This dissertation focuses on the challenges that arise when the SMEs enter into an international market (Internationalization) and adopting international product strategy to survive in foreign market. To be able to gain better understanding of the subject, research questions concerning the challenges faced during internationalization by SMEs from product adaptation and standardization perspective. Challenges in internationalization have been categorized into internal and external challenges. Internal challenges deals with firm specific while external challenges arise from country and industry specific factors. At the same time international product strategy counting product adaptation and standardization has been discussed. The empirical data includes case study of one Swedish company manufacturing assistive listening devices (hearing equipment for hearing impaired people) situated in Halmstad, Sweden. </p><p>Findings shows that the main challenges in internationalization are socio cultural differences and inadequate knowledge about the foreign market while laws and regulations regarding frequency standards issues are most challenging in international product strategy.</p>