With the development of the economy in today’s business world, competitiveness became more important than ever before in every sector. How to keep advantages during global trade and survive the strong competitive environment has become an issue which multinational enterprises also have to face. Outsourcing occurred under these circumstances. This study has integrated outsourcing theories and the empirical study aims to analyses the method and strategy to combining sustainable quality with cost reduction through outsourcing. This study was done in the context of outsourcing  from Sweden to China. Ergorapido of Electrolux is the example-case study used to investigate methods in both cost reduction and quality control. The data was collected by questionnaires, interviews and tele-conference interviews. The paper found that outsourcing has three stages. The first stage is the assessment of the motivations and risks associated with the process of outsourcing. The second stage is the decision making process involved in outsourcing and the arrangement of the outsourcing. The third stage is the management of the relationship with suppliers. Furthermore, both of the participants can benefit from outsourcing no matter whether it is the OEM supplier or the outsourced supply company. Electrolux is a famous company which is successful as a result of outsourcing. All Swedish share enterprises, whether small, medium or large, share the same domestic and international trade climate. If Electrolux can successfully outsource on a global basis,  so can they.

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Many companies are increasing their competitiveness through quality improvement. However, a widely held view among quality practitioners is that companies simply do not know the true total cost of quality, which are mostly hidden among the general overhead of the business. This problem is often attributed to an inappropriate costing system. Thus, any system that assisted companies in identifying and properly quantifying these costs will be valuable. This research, therefore, was aimed at developing a Quality Cost Information System for manufacturing industry, and to show that such a system could provide a basis for analysing quality costs and developing and evaluating the quality improvement process. A literature review of the quality literature highlighted that the major problems that hindered potential users from implementing an effective and efficient Quality Cost system were: current quality cost measurement systems were limited by their inability to trace quality costs to their source; quality was manageable only if it could be measured; quality cost did not easily fit into the traditional cost accounting structure; traditional accounting systems were unlikely to change radically to accommodate proper quality costing. This literature review was complemented by an industrial survey aimed at identifying knowledge of quality costing and current practices in manufacturing industry. The findings of the literature review and industrial survey formed the basis for the remainder of the study. As part of an integrated solution, three approaches have been proposed and detailed: 1) A graphical model of quality costing in the form of a visual tool to facilitate the introduction and communication of a quality costing information system within the organisation. 2) A proposed integration of Activity Based Costing tools with the theory of quality costing to provide a system that can deliver valuable information. 3) A Software tool for the design of Quality Costing Information Systems. The thesis concludes with the major findings and issues raised from the research undertaken. This is followed by recommendations for the successful pursuit of the beneficial implementation of the proposed quality costing system and tools along with several suggestions for further work and future research potential.

Esta dissertação questiona as estruturas de composição e distribuição dos recursos para manutenção e desenvolvimento do ensino dos estados e municípios no seu princípio base, os mecanismos implementados no Fundo de Manutenção e Desenvolvimento do Ensino Fundamental e Valorização do Magistério (Fundef) que se perpetuam no Fundo de Manutenção e Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica e Valorização do Magistério (Fundeb) e tem continuidade com o Custo Aluno-Qualidade (CAQ), em especial, a métrica de distribuição de recursos segundo o número de matrículas. Além de revisão bibliográfica sobre financiamento da educação brasileira realizou-se pesquisa quantitativa com dados sobre finanças públicas municipais, por meio do FINBRA, exame de dados educacionais do Censo Escolar e análise comparada da matriz de custos do CAQ em relação a rede de ensino municipal da cidade de São Paulo. O percurso percorrido evidenciou a disparidade da participação dos municípios na composição de recursos do Fundeb, os processos de indução de fechamento de escolas e turmas decorrente da métrica de distribuição de recursos por aluno, a ascensão do CAQ como justificativa para o aumento do aporte de recursos para as políticas educacionais, juntamente, com a fragilidade do discurso sobre a destinação de novas fontes à educação, à priori, de tributos de competência da União. Ademais, aborda as dificuldades do CAQ em se firmar como mecanismo de repasse dos recursos da manutenção e desenvolvimento do ensino. Se por um lado é inegável o papel histórico do CAQ na ampliação de recursos para educação, por outro este não se desenvolveu metodologicamente para imprimir as premissas qualitativas do indicador à política de fundos. Em suma demonstra-se que outros fatores possuem maior relevância na divisão dos custos do que o aluno. Novas métricas para repasse de recursos permitiriam a incorporação de diretrizes na estrutura do fundo induzindo práticas de incentivo a abertura de turmas e a ampliação do tempo da jornada escolar / This dissertation questions the composition\'s structures and distribution of the resources for maintenance and development of the teaching of the states and municipalities in its basic principle, the mechanisms implemented in Fund for maintenance and development of elementary education and recognition of Teaching (Fundef) that are perpetuated in Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and recognition of Education Professionals (Fundeb) and has continuity with the Cost Student-Quality(CAQ), in particular, the metric distribution of resources according to the number of enrollments. In addition to a bibliographical review on the financing of Brazilian education, a quantitative research was carried out with data on municipal public finances, through FINBRA (Brazil\'s Finance), an examination of educational data from Censo Escolar, and a comparative analysis of the CAQ\'s cost matrix in relation to the municipal education network of Sao Paulo City. The trajectory evidenced the disparity of the participation of municipalities in the composition of Fundeb resources, the induction processes of schools closure and classes resulting from the metric of resources distribution per student, the rise of the CAQ(Cost of Quality Education per Student) as a justification for the increase of the resource contribution for the educational policies, together with the fragility of the discourse on the destination of new sources to the education, a priori, taxes of of the Unions competence.In addition, it addresses the difficulties of the CAQ in establishing itself as a mechanism for passing on resources for the maintenance and development of education. While on the one hand the historical role of the CAQ in the expansion of resources for education is undeniable, on the other hand it has not been developed methodologically to print the qualitative assumptions of the indicator to the policy of funds. In sum, it is shown that other factors are more relevant in the division of costs than the student. New metrics for transfer of resources would allow the incorporation of guidelines in the fund structure, inducing practices of incentive to open classes and increase the time of the school day

Despite generous universal social health insurance with little formal restrictions of outpatient utilisation, Austria exhibits high rates of avoidable hospitalisations, which indicate the inefficient provision of primary healthcare and might be a consequence of the strict regulatory split between the Austrian inpatient and outpatient sector. This paper exploits the considerable regional variations in acute and chronic avoidable hospitalisations in Austria to investigate whether those inefficiencies in primary care are rather related to regional healthcare supply or to population characteristics. To explicitly account for inter-regional dependencies, spatial panel data methods are applied to a comprehensive administrative dataset of all hospitalisations from 2008 to 2013 in the 117 Austrian districts. The initial selection of relevant covariates is based on Bayesian model averaging. The results of the analysis show that supply-side variables, such as the number of general practitioners, are significantly associated with decreased chronic and acute avoidable hospitalisations, whereas characteristics of the regional population, such as the share of population with university education or long-term unemployed, are less relevant. Furthermore, the spatial error term indicates that there are significant spatial dependencies between unobserved characteristics, such as practice style or patients' utilization behaviour. Not accounting for those would result in omitted variable bias.

Diss. (sammanfattning). Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2003. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Construction companies in Sweden have for recent years seen an increase in the numbers of warranty complaints associated with the market of resident buildings and the cost for this has been measured to over 1.2 billion SEK per year. Working with poor quality cost as a way of creating insight about defects within the company’s processes is a method developed and used by the manufacturing industry for decades, but have not yet reached the construction industry. This study has been performed in collaboration with a Swedish construction company, where the author has been stationed at the aftersales division for residential buildings. Owing to circumstances, this published report has been made anonymous regarding the company who will further on be named the Company. The Company is aware that warranty claims produce great costs and has requested a way of putting cost and cause to specific claims in order of receiving a more specific cost view and to make the reuse of knowledge more efficient. The purpose of the thesis is to: Investigate the conditions for adopting a cost and cause measurement for specific warranty claims within the Company’s aftersales division for residential buildings. The task has been performed as a case study where the author has analysed the opportunities and obstacles for introducing the ideas of poor quality costs at the aftersales division. The empiric is based on interviews with operating staff and management with the intention of highlighting the organizational conditions. A test model was produced and incorporated with the daily work at the aftersales division for a month’s time. The result shows that the conditions are positive for dividing costs and making early cause predictions. The author presents two alternative solutions for this work: mapping and measuring system. The conclusion is that incorporation is dependent on engaged leadership, communication and involvement of co-workers, where the reuse of knowledge is the connecting issue. / Byggbolagen  i  Sverige  har  under  senare  år  sett  en  ökning  av  antalet  garanti-  och felanmälningar kopplade till bostadsproduktionen och kostnaden för detta har av Boverket uppmätts till drygt 1.2 Mdr kr årligen. Att arbeta med kvalitetsbristkostnader för att skapa insikt om fel och brister i sin verksamhet är en metod som under decennier använts inom tillverkningsindustrin men ännu inte fått fäste i byggbranschen. Denna studie har genomförts i samarbete med ett svenskt entreprenadföretaget, där författaren har varit placerad på eftermarknadsavdelningen för bostadsproduktion. På förekommen anledning är denna publicerade version av rapporten anonymiserad gällande företagsnamnet, och företaget kommer fortsättningsvis i rapporten benämnas Företaget. Företaget är medvetet om att garantiåtgärder skapar stora kostnader och har efterfrågat ett sätt att kostnads- och orsaksbestämma dessa på ärendenivå för  att skapa en  tydligare kostnadsbild och för  att effektivisera sin erfarenhetsåterföring. Examensarbetet har som syfte att: Undersöka förutsättningarna för att införa kostnads- orsaksbestämning av garanti- och felanmälningar på ärendenivå inom eftermarknaden för bostäder. Arbetet har utförts som en fallstudie där författaren har analyserat möjligheter och hinder för att arbeta med kvalitetsbristkostnader inom ramen för eftermarknadsarbete. Det empiriska materialet  bygger  på  intervjuer  med  operativ  personal  samt  berörda  personer  i  ledande befattningar för att på så sätt belysa de organisatoriska förutsättningarna. En testmodell för registrering av kostnad och orsak arbetades fram och införlivades i det dagliga arbetet på eftermarknadsavdelningen under en månads tid. Resultatet från studien visar att förutsättningarna finns att fördela kostnader och göra initiala orsaksbedömningar av  ärenden. Författaren presenterar två  alternativa lösningar på  detta arbete; kartläggning och införande av mätsystem. Slutsatsen är att införandet är beroende av engagerat   ledarskap,   kommunikation   och   aktivt   involverande   av   medarbetarna,   där erfarenhetsåterföringen är den gemensamma nämnaren.

No description available.

The quality of products is the biggest competitive advantage that a company can achieve. The definition states that quality is the degree of compliance requirement with a set of inherent characteristics. The importance of quality have very increased in recent years - quality is a decisive factor for stable economic growth of enterprises, management quality is the most important protective factor of the loss of markets, quality is a major source of saving materials and energy, the quality affects of macroeconomic indicators, the quality is a limiting factor for the sustainable development , quality and consumer protection are connected vessels. Quality costs are the total costs incurred by producers, users and companies associated with the quality of the product.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research work presents a model for a process and design improvement based on quality cost management into activity based management. The objective of this research is to develop a model that provides a quality cost reduction through processes and product improvement, identified and measured by the activity based cost system. The model has two combined phases, being the first: the quality cost measurement through the activity based cost, that allows the identification of product quality cost which was classified in prevention, appraisal and failure. This phase uses the vertical part of Activity Based Management (ABM), allocating the cost into products, through quality activities that were identified in the company, prioritizing those products in need of improvement in their process. With definition of products, follows to phase 2: internal processes analysis using quality cost, where it uses the model of critical analysis and internal processes control improvement. When the main problems are identified, as much on field product performance (external failure cost) as on internal problems within the company (internal failure cost), it is possible to make a correlation with the internal development product process. In this manner improvement opportunities are identified. Finally, it introduces a model of process and design improvement using the quality cost management into activity based management and the application of this model in the cutlery company. / Este trabalho de pesquisa apresenta um modelo para melhoria de processos e projetos com base no gerenciamento dos custos da qualidade em um ambiente de gestão por atividades. O objetivo da pesquisa é desenvolver um modelo que proporcione uma redução dos custos da qualidade através da análise e melhoria dos processos, projetos e produtos, identificados e mensurados pelo sistema de custeio por atividades. O modelo contempla duas fases, interligadas, sendo a fase 1: a mensuração dos custos da qualidade através do custeio por atividades, o que permite a identificação dos custos da qualidade dos produtos, classificados em prevenção, avaliação e falhas. Nesta etapa utiliza-se a parte vertical do modelo de gerenciamento por atividades (ABM), através do qual aloca-se os custos aos produtos, através das atividades da qualidade, identificadas na empresa, priorizando-se aqueles produtos que devem ter seus processos melhorados. Com a definição dos produtos, parte-se para a fase 2: análise dos processos internos com base nos custos da qualidade, quando se utiliza o modelo para análise crítica e melhoria do controle dos processos internos. Identificando-se os principais problemas, tanto de desempenho dos produtos no campo (custos de falha externa), quanto de problemas internos na empresa (custo de falha interna), pode-se correlacioná-los com os processos internos de desenvolvimento dos produtos. Deste modo as oportunidades de melhoria são identificadas. Finalmente, apresenta-se uma proposta de implementação do modelo de melhoria de processos e projetos com base no gerenciamento dos custos da qualidade em um ambiente de gestão por atividades e a aplicação do modelo em uma empresa do setor de cutelaria.