Most companies have a bottleneck in their production, that is a constraining re-source. When the demand is higher than the capacity in the constraining resource it is impossible to produce the demanded output. This problem leads to delayed deliveries, unhappy customers and ultimately to decreased revenue. Bottlenecks therefore has a significant role in production and must be handled thereof.MW Power in Sävsjö, Sweden designs and manufactures water and steam boilers for the customer's unique needs. MW Power invested in a new plasma cutting ma-chine but the machine has not reached the expected capacity. The capacity prob-lem is due to time consuming set-up times, machine care and material supply which makes the plasma cutting machines utilization rate 37.5 %.The study’s purpose aims to maximize the material flow through the plasma cut-ting machine. In order to answer the purpose, two thesis questions are used: “How can increased machine time in the plasma cutting machine be achieved?” and “How can the ma-terial flow to and from the plasma cutting machine be improved so that the actual capacity can be increased?”To answer the thesis questions, the study had a deductive approach in which ex-isting theories has been applied to real life case.In order to streamline the plasma cutting machine and the processes directly re-lated to it, the material flow upstream, the material flow through and the material flow downstream of the plasma cutting machine has been mapped and analyzed. In order to maximize the flow of material through the plasma cutting machine, setup times must be reduced to increase the capacity.The plasma cutting machine requires maintenance by the operator at regular basis where the nozzles and other consumables in the plasma cutting machine burner must be replaced. A SMED-analysis has been undertaken which shows that the internal set-up operations should be converted to external set-up operations. Re-placement of nozzles and consumables should be an external set-up operation and this can be achieved by purchasing more burners.The plasma cutting machine also has access to unmanned production which will be able to increase the capacity, since it can be running after hours.The material flow upstream and downstream must be improved through better planning of cutting orders and with a more efficient return flow. Prioritizing mate-rial supply to the constraining resource is crucial to secure that material shortages do not occur in the plasma cutting machine.If the study proposed measures are implemented, the material flow through the plasma cutting machine will be maximized. / De flesta företag har en flaskhals i sin produktion, alltså en begränsande resurs. När efterfrågan är större än kapaciteten hos den begränsande resursen kan den mängd output som efterfrågas ej levereras. Detta leder till försenade leveranser, missnöjda kunder och i förlängningen till minskade intäkter. Flaskhalsar har därför en betydande roll inom produktion och måste därför hanteras.Företaget MW Power i Sävsjö konstruerar och tillverkar kundanpassade ång- och hetvattenpannor. Företaget har investerat i en ny plasmaskärmaskin som inte har nått förväntad kapacitet. Problemen är bl.a. att ställ, maskinvård och materialtill-försel tar lång tid vilket gör att plasmaskärmaskinens utnyttjandegrad endast är 37,5 %.Syftet med studien är att maximera materialflödet genom plasmaskärmaskinen. För att uppfylla syftet kan detta brytas ner i två problemfrågor. Dessa är; Hur kan maskintiden i plasmaskärmaskinen ökas? samt Hur kan materialflödet till och från plasma-skärmaskinen förbättras så att utnyttjandet av den verkliga kapaciteten ökas?För att svara på problemfrågorna har studien haft en deduktiv ansats där befintliga teorier genom litteraturstudier tagits fram för att sedan applicerats på verkligheten.För att kunna effektivisera plasmaskärmaskinen och processer direkt anknutna till denna har materialflödet uppströms, materialflödet genom och materialflödet ned-ströms från plasmaskärmaskinen kartlagts och analyserats.För att maximera materialflödet genom plasmaskärmaskinen måste ställtider minskas för att kunna öka utnyttjandegraden och därmed nyttokapaciteten.Plasmaskärmaskinen kräver underhåll av operatören vid jämna mellanrum där munstycken och andra slitagedelar i plasmaskärmaskinens brännare måste bytas ut. En SMED-analys har genomförts där det framgår att interna ställ bör göras om till externa ställ. Byte av munstycken och andra slitagedelar är idag ett internt ställ vilket kan göras om till ett externt ställ genom att köpa in fler brännare.Plasmaskärmaskinen har även tillgång till obemannad styrning vilket kommer kunna öka nyttokapaciteten eftersom den då kan vara igång utanför ordinarie ar-betstid.Materialflödet uppströms och nedströms måste effektiviseras genom bättre plane-ring av skärordrar och ett effektivare och minskat returflöde samt genom att prio-ritera materialtillförseln så att materialbrist ej uppstår i plasmaskärmaskinen.Om studien föreslagna åtgärder genomförs kommer materialflödet genom plasma-skärmaskinen att maximeras.

I ett modernt företag som Skandiabanken, vars ambition är att tillhöra de främsta inom sin bransch och som har en vision som säger att företaget ska ”ha sparmarknadens nöjdaste kunder”, ställs stora krav på effektivitet i alla led. För att möta kraven från kunder att producera varor och tjänster som motsvarar, eller helst överträffar kundernas förväntningar, samt för att möta organisationens egenintresse i att producera varor och tjänster på ett kostnadseffektivt och inkomstbringande sätt för att på så sätt säkra lönsamheten och konkurrenskraften på lång sikt, behöver företaget ständigt se över och utveckla verksamheten. D.v.s. för att överleva på en konkurrensutsatt marknad är ett strategiskt och hållbart kvalitetsarbete, och att snabbt kunna anpassa och utveckla verksamheten, av allra största vikt. Det finns inget utrymme för uppenbara kvalitetsbrister varken i verksamheten eller i produkter och tjänster som denna åstadkommer. Den snabba utvecklingen på finansmarknaderna, i kombination med att de finansiella produkter som erbjuds idag kan vara komplexa och svårbedömda, innebär att de finansiella rådgivarna under de senaste åren har fått en allt större betydelse för både privatpersoner och juridiska personer. Till grund för detta förbättringsprojekt ligger konstaterade kvalitetsbrister i den dokumentation som enligt lag ska upprättas vid all finansiell rådgivning. Syftet med förbättringsprojektet var att besvara nedan frågeställningar: Vad är de bakomliggande orsakerna till de konstaterade kvalitetsbristerna i dokumentationen av den finansiella rådgivningen? Vilka förändringar behöver genomföras för att kvaliteten ska bli bättre? Att notera här är att en bristfälligt eller utelämnad dokumentation inte per automatik behöver innebära att dåliga råd har lämnats. Metoder som använts för att utreda de bakomliggande orsakerna till kvalitetsbristerna har varit processkartläggning, orsaks-verkan-diagram, relationsdiagram, enkät, personliga intervjuer samt dokumentgranskningar. Förbättringsarbetet har, utifrån konstaterade huvudorsaker, fokuserat på förbättring av verktyg och dokument. Detta har inneburit ett tydliggörande av dokumentationspliktens innebörd vilket genererat i ett framtagande av riktlinjer samt en förbättrad dokumentationsblankett.  En reflektion efter projektets avslut är att kvalitetsförbättrande punktinsatser självklart är bra men att det inte är tillräckligt. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är därmed att avsaknaden av synliggjorda ledningsprocesser, en helhetssyn på verksamheten och ett systematiskt processorienterat arbete i kombination med återkommande omorganisationer är den troliga orsaken till att de beskrivna problemen uppstått. Därför är författarens förbättringsförslag, att som ett led i Total Quality Management, starta ett arbete i enlighet med ISO 9001:2008. För att uppnå ett hållbart långsiktigt kvalitetsarbete krävs en helhetssyn och ett systematiskt och ständigt pågående förbättringsarbete. Ett arbete med 9001:2008, i enlighet med TQM och tillsammans med de faktaunderlag som de facto redan finns tillgängliga, såsom policys, riktlinjer, rutinbeskrivningar, kundundersökningar mm, kommer att generera i förbättrad effektivitet, minskad resursåtgång, förbättrad möjlighet till verksamhetsstyrning, högre kvalitet i affären, högre kundnöjdhet, nöjda medarbetare och ägare, samt att ett långsiktigt bra ekonomiskt resultat uppnås. Dessutom blir verksamheten snabbare och mer flexibel inför framtida förändringar. / In a modern company like Skandia who wants to be in the forefront of its business and with a vision to have “the most satisfied clients in the savings market” there is high demand on efficiency in all aspects of the business. To meet the demand from customers to produce products and services that meets or even better exceeds the customers’ expectations, and to meet the organization self interest in I producing products and services in a cost efficient way and with revenues to secure profitability, and competitive long term, the company at all times needs to evaluate the strategic and sustainable quality work, and that swiftly have the ability to develop the company is of extreme importance. There is no room for obvious quality deficiencies in either the product or services that the deficiency creates. The fast development in financial market in combination with the financial products that today is more complex and harder to understand the implication is that the financial advisors during the last years have a larger influence for both private persons and legal entities. The foundation for this improvement project has been to answer the questions; What are the underlying reasons for the lack of quality in the documentation of the financial advice meeting? What has to be done to improve the quality? Note that a poor or total lack of customer documentation dose not mean that bad advice has been given to the client. Methods which has been used to investigate the underlying reasons for the lack of quality has been process mapping, reason-effect diagram, relations diagram, survey, personal interviews , and examining of documents.  The improvement work has, with the fact based main reasons, focused on improving the tools and documents, which have made it clearer, make people understand the reasons for the documentation regulation and the production of a new guideline and an improved document for the financial advisor.  The most imported conclusion is that a lack of clear management processes, a holistic view of the business and a systematic process oriented work, in combination with a lot at reorganizations is the reason for the described problem. That is the reason for the author’s improvement suggestion, as a step in Total Quality Management, start of a work according to ISO 9001:2008. A reflection after the project was finished I that ad hoc quality improvement is of course good but not good enough. To reach a sustainable long-term quality work there is a need for a holistic view and a constant improvement focus. A work with 9001:2008 in accordance with TQM that together with fact based approach that already Is there like policy’s, guidelines, routine manuals, customer surveys among others will lead to better efficiency, less use of resources, improved opportunity lead the business, higher quality in the business, increased customer satisfaction, more pleased staff and owners, and a long term financial result will be accomplished. Further the business will be faster on more flexible for future changes.

When implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, the system has to be adapted to the organisation. But just as important, the business processes of the organisation have to be reengineered in order to take full advantage of the ERP system. Noblessa Sverige AB, which is a sales company to the German kitchen producer Nobilia, has been growing remarkably since the start 2001 and has begun discussing an ERP system purchase. The order process of today has reached the limit of its capacity and something has to be done in order to meet the increasing sales volume. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to analyse and reengineer the order process as a preparation for an ERP system implementation. The outcome of this thesis is a suggestion of a process model of the order process, which also can be used as a foundation for a requirements specification for the ERP system purchase. In order to take advantage of the benefits of the existing order process, the reengineering starts with mapping the current process. Noblessa Sverige AB is a company that is growing and changing from one day to another. Changes have arisen during the writing of this thesis which has made the work even more interesting and challenging. The most important change is the opening of a central warehouse in Norrköping, which has been taken in consideration when we designed the new process model. After mapping and achieving an understanding of the current order process, we found a few things that could be improved. Above all, there exist many manual tasks that can be automated with the ERP system. Furthermore, there are tasks that should be moved from one department or function to another because it is more suitable to perform them there. We also found that Noblessa Sverige AB should improve the integration and cooperation with its suppliers, especially Nobilia. Nobilia is the main owner and main supplier of Noblessa Sverige AB, the conditions for cooperation are therefore very good.

The objectives of this study are to determine the awareness level of knowledge sharing amongst the employees of Sasol, to determine how Sasol utilises human capital in the company and to identify and analyse the methods of knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. The literature review distinguishes between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge leads a company to codify while tacit knowledge leads to connecting people. The literature study also covers the utilisation of human capital and identifies methods of knowledge sharing and -transfer, namely legacy pages, expert location systems, buddy systems, post-retirement agreements, identification of successors, After Action Reviews, interviews, observation, protocol analysis, teach backs, story writing and storytelling, and process mapping. The literature study forms the foundation for the formulation and designing of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed amongst the employees of two of Sasol's divisions in order to obtain data about the utilisation of human capital in Sasol and to identify and analyse the current and preferred methods to capture and share tacit knowledge and skills. The data obtained from the questionnaires was processed, analysed and interpreted. Conclusions were drawn, linking the literature review and the results obtained from the empirical study. Based on these conclusions, recommendations were made. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Wise investments in Information Technology have become increasingly important in staying competitive in today's environment. Massive amounts of people and IT-systems are involved in the process of input becoming output. As these employees and IT-systems must be harmonized, it becomes relevant to study how employees’ routines and habits are related to the usage and embeddedness of these systems. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how embedded IT can lead to improved business processes. This is done through exploring how embedded IT is used in workflows as well as to examine what support and hindrance IT can offer. Therefore, extensive theoretical research was conducted within the fields of habits and routines, business processes and embedded IT, developing a framework for analysis. Then, a case study was conducted where a specific process within insurance claims was thoroughly analyzed through interviews and work shadowing. This facilitated a within-case analysis. The results of the study showed the interdependency between the pillars of this study. Workflow habits and routines influences IT usage, whereas IT aims to support through automatization and informatization. However, to enable this and achieve a significant improvement, the processes it aims to support needs to be fully known.

The objectives of this study are to determine the awareness level of knowledge sharing amongst the employees of Sasol, to determine how Sasol utilises human capital in the company and to identify and analyse the methods of knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. The literature review distinguishes between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge leads a company to codify while tacit knowledge leads to connecting people. The literature study also covers the utilisation of human capital and identifies methods of knowledge sharing and -transfer, namely legacy pages, expert location systems, buddy systems, post-retirement agreements, identification of successors, After Action Reviews, interviews, observation, protocol analysis, teach backs, story writing and storytelling, and process mapping. The literature study forms the foundation for the formulation and designing of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed amongst the employees of two of Sasol's divisions in order to obtain data about the utilisation of human capital in Sasol and to identify and analyse the current and preferred methods to capture and share tacit knowledge and skills. The data obtained from the questionnaires was processed, analysed and interpreted. Conclusions were drawn, linking the literature review and the results obtained from the empirical study. Based on these conclusions, recommendations were made. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Research Questions: Research Question I: How does the material management process of medicine differ between a ward with, and without, an Automated Ward Solution (AWS)? Research Question II: How do time and costs differ in the material management process of medicine between a ward with, and without, an AWS? Research Question III: How has the instalment of a central storage affected the number of orders placed for wards? Purpose: The purpose is to map and compare the material management process of medicine between a ward with, and without, an AWS. Further the mapped processes will be timed, allocated costs by applying TDABC and then compared. The purpose is as well to describe how the instalment of a central storage has affected the frequency of orders placed for wards. Methodology: This project is a qualitative case study as the authors wished to understand the phenomena of having installed AWSs for medicine in a real context. The primary data was collected through interviews, observations and studying of documents; the secondary data was collected through scientific articles and literatures. The collected data answered the research questions with the help of process mapping and TDABC. Conclusion: In the created process maps it is found that the extensiveness of the different processes when compared are similar for both wards; however the allocated costs calculated through TDABC sometimes differ due to the involvement of the Pharmaceutical Unit as it carries a higher capacity cost per minute. Ward 5 can be assumed to have a higher security and accuracy due to the instalment of an AWS and by having laid more responsibility on the Pharmaceutical Unit. The AWS has however led to a larger waste for Ward 5 as it cannot return regular medicine anymore. This project could not directly connect the instalment of a central storage with reduced order lines; however it can be assumed that it has contributed to the decreased order lines placed.

Many organizations today work with offensive quality development to meet market and society changes in general. In the study, a dive company has been studied based on principles of offensive quality development. The company has a turnover of 80-90 million SEK and have 50 employees. The organization has just begun a change work to anchor quality in their businessmodel. The purpose of the study has been to map the organization's main processes and provide a basis for the continued improvement work. With the help of interviews, observations and workshops, a first draft of a process mapping has been carried out. The study has also used various improvement tools to analyze risks and causes of process mapping. Theories around the cornerstone model and PDSA cycle have been the basis for the structured completion of the survey on the organization. / Många organisationer arbetar idag med offensive kvalitetsutveckling för att möta förändringar på marknaden och samhället i stort. I studien har ett dykarföretag studerats utifrån principer från offensive kvalitetsutveckling. Företaget omsätter cirka 80–90 miljoner och har 50 anställda. Organisationen har precis påbörjat ett förändringsarbete för att förankra kvalitet i verksamheten. Syftet med studien har varit att kartlägga organisationens huvudprocesser samt ta fram ett underlag till det fortsatta förbättringsarbetet. Med hjälp av intervjuer, observationer och workshops har ett första utkast av en processkartläggning kunnat genomföras. Studien har också använt sig av olika förbättringsverktyg för att analysera risker och orsaker med processkartläggning. Teorier kring hörnstensmodellen och PDSA-cykeln har legat till grund för att strukturerat genomföra undersökningen på organisationen.

On their journey to improve manufacturing processes by implementing Lean and Agile production principles, many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), world- and industry-wide, lose grip after initial efforts, or even abandon their plans later because of many reasons. To support those and similar SMEs and to make their Lean and Agile visions become reality, this thesis report describes the case of a small traditional German wholesale firm in the initial stage of analysing and improving processes, as well as workshop structures according to contemporary literature and manufacturing improvement theories. The results of this report give the management and decision makers of this or similar organisations an idea and valuable recommendations, of how to gain and maintain the advantages of a lean and agile production. Overall it was found that SMEs such as the analysed organisation, need to vigorously implement changes from an overarching systematic level to the very detail of shop floor activities, while equally considering cultural as well as human, technological, and organisational aspects, to be successful.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar as principais ferramentas de monitoramento do Planejamento estratégico visto o grau de importância de tal monitoramento, para que a empresa mantenha-se em linha com seus objetivos de crescimento e abrangência de mercado. Pra que exista de fato tal monitoramento são necessárias ferramentas como adoção de Sistemas de informações gerenciais, Mapeamento de processos, acompanhamento do Mapa estratégico de negócios e uso do painel de controle promovido pelo Balanced scorecard. Para que exista uma real competitividade entre as empresas atuantes no mercado faz-se necessário que haja uma linha clara de comunicação, a fim de que todos os envolvidos nos mais diversos processos tenham conhecimento de quais os objetivos da empresa, bem como suas premissas de crescimento, e para que todos sintam-se envolvidos com os processos necessários para que tais objetivos sejam atingidos. / This paper aims to present the main monitoring tools of strategic planning, given the degree of importance of such monitoring for the company to keep in line with its growth objectives and market coverage. For this monitoring tools are needed as adoption of Management information systems, Process mapping, monitoring of the Strategic map of business and use the control panel sponsored by the Balanced scorecard. So that there is a real competition between companies operating in the market, it is necessary to have a clear way of communication, so that everyone involved in various processes are aware of what the company's goals and its growth assumptions and for everyone to feel involved with the processes required for these objectives to be achieved.