This bachelor thesis has been done in cooperation with IKEA of Sweden in Älmhult. It is about a mapping and comparison study of how different companies handle their cost of poor quality (COPQ) in their logistics processes. In this study, we have collaborated with Electrolux, Gekås and Rusta. IKEA has a high COPQ, this means when poor quality occurs in their processes. This has attracted much attention in recent years and there is room for improvement. The part of the value chain chosen in this project is the logistics process. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to map IKEA´s logistics process, then compare IKEA´s way of working with other companies through a benchmarking study and finally come up with areas for improvement. This gave the questions: How does IKEA's operate in their logistics process today and handle their cost of poor quality? How do our other partners operate and handle their logistics processes and cost of poor quality? What are the similarities and differences between the different companies? To find out how IKEA operates in their logistics process today, it was decided to make a corporate visit to one of IKEA's CDC:s. Here, a questionnaire has been used to get the information that was needed. Later this questionnaire formed the basis for the survey that was used to gather information from our other partners. To gather information from our partners, we have used benchmarking. This was done to see how our other partner organizations operate today and how they work accordingly to this study. The first step of the benchmarking, was to send out the survey to our partners. Later we followed up with personal interviews and visits. The collected data from the different companies formed the basis of the status report of them all. In the analysis, IKEA has been compared to each of our different partners and a summary of the analysis has been made. With the analysis finished, it has been clear that IKEA has some problems in their logistic process and that the cost of poor quality can decrease. This gave us some areas that IKEA can make improvements in. After that conclusion, forklift damages and packaging design are two areas that IKEA can make big improvements in. / Detta examensarbete har gjorts tillsammans med IKEA of Sweden i Älmhult. Det handlarom en kartläggning och jämförelse av hur olika företag hanterar sinakvalitetsbristkostnader inom logistikprocessen. Våra samarbetspartners i dettaarbetet är Electrolux, Gekås och Rusta

When buying a new car today, the customer often expects to get a vehiclewith high quality. Each vehicle or engine should therefore be checked toassure quality. The same goes for clutches and couplings. A powerful enginebecomes useless when a clutch slips. Reliable torque measurement istherefore essential to the automotive industry. The herewith Bachelor thesisproposes a new torque calibration rig for online torque measurement in couplingapplications.The concept encompasses a servo motor with its associated electronics, agearbox to create the high torques (3 kNm), a reference torque transducer,and mounting elements or adapters. From the concept generation phase, thethesis includes CAD-models of the torque calibration rig with mathematicalmodels leading to the calculation of the measurement uncertainty of the calibrationsystem.This work was performed at BorgWarner PowerDrive Systems AB in Landskronaduring eight weeks; the two remaining weeks were completed in Lulea.

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Ett examensarbete genomfördes på Nolato Cerbo AB i Trollhättan, med målet att utforma ett förslag på ett digitalt arbetsflöde för avvikelsehantering på inköpt material. De frågeställningar som arbetet skulle besvara var: • Kan ett arbetsflöde för avvikelser på inköpt material digitaliseras för att underlätta dokumentering, spårbarhet och hantering av information? • Hur ska arbetsflödet utformas för att uppnå de interna intressenternas krav och behov? • Vilka fördelar respektive nackdelar kan uppstå vid införandet av ett digitalt arbetsflöde? För att kartlägga hur flödet ser ut i nuläget samt problem med flödet, genomfördes intervjuer med de berörda avdelningarna. Intervjuerna tog också upp de anställdas åsikter om ett digitalt flöde. Ett flödesschema skapades och därefter identifierades slöseri i flödet. En benchmarking genomfördes också på Varner Retail Logistics AB, för att se hur ett annat företag arbetar med ett digitalt flöde för avvikelsehantering. Ett nytt flödesschema togs fram för avvikelsehantering på inköpt material, där de manuella delarna digitaliserades. Efter att ett test genomförts med berörd personal kunde det konstateras att det digitala flödet kommer underlätta dokumentering, spårbarhet och hantering av information. De interna intressenternas krav och behov uppfylldes också. Fördelar som respondenterna anser kan uppnås med det digitala flödet var tidsbesparing, ingen manuell pappershantering, snabbare spridning av informationoch att rätt information fylls i från början. Nackdelar som anses kan uppstå är att det kommer ta tid för personalen att lära sig och vänja sig vid det nya arbetssättet, samt begränsningar i mobilapplikationen. Slutsatserna som drogs var att det digitala flödet kommer att kunna användas om det utformas enligt författarnas förslag, men förändringar kan komma att ske i flödet i framtiden. Det kan också finnas personal på Nolato Cerbo AB som känner en osäkerhet inför digitalisering och förändringar. För att implementeringen ska bli lyckad kommer därför utbildning och information om digitaliseringens möjligheter krävas. / A case study was performed at Nolato Cerbo AB in Trollhättan, with the objective to design a suggestion of a digital workflow for deviation handlingfor purchased material. The following questions were issued to fulfil the objective of the case study: • Is a workflow for deviation handling for purchased material possible to digitalize in order to facilitate documentation, traceability and information handling? • How should the workflow be designed in order to reach the involved personnel's requirements and needs? • Which advantages and disadvantages could emerge from the implementation of a digital workflow? To be able to map the current workflow and its issues, interviews with the involved departments were conducted. The interviews also brought up the employees' opinions of a digital workflow. A flowchart was created and waste in the workflow was identified. A benchmarking was performed at Varner Retail Logistics AB, to get an insight of how another company uses a digital workflow for deviation handling. A new flowchart for deviation handling for purchased material was created, where the manual parts of the flow were digitalized. After a test had been performed with concerned employees, it could be stated that the digital workflow will facilitate documentation, traceability and information handling. The requirements and needs for the involved personnel were also fulfilled. Advantages that the respondents consider can be achieved with the digital workflow was time save, no manual handling of paper, a faster distribution of information and that the correct information will be filled in from the beginning. Disadvantages that the respondents consider can emerge is that it will take some time for the employees to learn and adapt to the new way of working and the limitations of the mobileapplication. The conclusions that were drawn was that the digital workflow will be able to be used if it's designed according to the suggestion, although changes to the workflow might be performed in the future. There might also be employees at Nolato CerboAB which afraid of digitalization and changes. For the implementation to be successful, an education and information about the possibilities that digitalization brings will be required.

Software testing is a widely used quality assurance activity and often starts from the early development stages. However, starting early in the development process raises difficulties and challenges practitioners must deal with; most typically, hardware is not available in the required quantities, and there is the risk of damaging the hardware while testing. Emulating the physical hardware into virtual versions is a popular approach to overcome the mentioned obstacles. This master thesis, carried out at Westermo AB, investigates the differences between the physical and virtual hardware used for embedded system software testing and the possible benefits of combining both hardware versions in a hybrid system. Investigating differences between the hardware options helps identify which type of tests are more suitable in physical versus virtual hardware. The selected method for this thesis is a case study, starting with a pre-study phase investigating how other industries tackle the difficulties and challenges mentioned. Further, data were collected from two sources, historical test reports, and a questionnaire. The historical test reports showed a timing difference between virtual and physical hardware. The reset process of physical hardware is often faster than virtual hardware, but the link-up/link-down time is slower in physical hardware. The questionnaire also confirmed the timing differences as a significant challenge often experienced by engineers. Another challenge highlighted by the questionnaire answers is that "false positives" are typically caused by virtual hardware, where issues do not always turn up due to the virtual nature of communication. Another difference proven from this thesis is that virtual hardware is more failure-prone during the early stages of testing than physical hardware. The hybrid system could be advantageous in various ways, such as quantitatively expanding the current test systems and increasing test coverage. Future work could contribute with a proof-of-concept implementation of the hybrid system to confirm the advantages and demonstrate the third option of a test system.

A Remotely Operated underwater Vehicle (ROV) faces many problems regarding dependability and most issues come during launch and recovery. The thesis looks at finding what dependability aspects shall be considered when developing a modular ROV to come up with recommendations for a system, together with a more reliable method of launching and recovering ROV’s. The area is important since it has been shown that there exists a gap in the market regarding multipurpose and dependable ROV’s. The method used in the thesis is a case study starting with a literature study to get a solid foundation to be able to conduct interviews. The interviews were structured as a semi-structured interview and the data were used to be able to find the important dependability aspects to give out a recommendation of a ROV system. The result shows the different dependability aspects that should be emphasised to ensure a safe system: Reliability, safety, confidentiality, maintainability, availability and integrity. From the recommendation, a simulation was conducted to test the stabilizing force to increase the reliability of launch and recovery. Furthermore, the different tests show that the amount of motion can be lowered by using thruster force as well as adding weight to the system. From the results it can be determined that the use of tether tension as a stabilizing factor is possible by using Dynamic Positioning (DP) to control the ROV’s thrusters to increase reliability.

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.

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

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.

Process plants come with a wide variety of engineering challenges. Each process has uniqueoperating conditions that require careful operation and maintenance programs to keep the process equipment in a condition that is safe for operation. A pilot-scale plant was built in Luleå to demonstrate the possibility of carbon dioxide removal from blast furnace gas usingthe Sorption Enhanced Water Gas Shift (SEWGS) technology. One of the challenges facingthe SEWGS pilot plant was the lack of a maintenance plan which was the motivation for this thesis. The aim of this thesis was to create a maintenance plan for the SEWGS pilot plant. Studying the process conditions of the pilot plant was the starting point since an understanding of the unique operating conditions was necessary for creating a maintenance plan for the pilot plant’s equipment. The Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) method was chosen to create the maintenance plan. The study began with determining the objectives and contents of the analysis. The next step was a functional failure analysis in the form of a Failure Mode and Effect Criticality Analysis (FMECA) covering all the equipment in the plant. Afterwards the failure consequences were assessed based on a criticality assessment matrix to determine which equipment necessitate the performance of maintenance activities. The maintenance plan was created based upon the criticality of the equipment and the selected maintenance activities were based on the recommendations of manufacturers. The failure analysis found that the blast furnace gas compressor is the most critical for the process. The boiler and superheater have been found to be highly critical due to the dangerous safety consequences of their failure. In addition, all pressure safety valves have been found to be highly critical due to the hidden nature of their failure. The maintenance plan addresses these critical items and other less critical items while some non-critical items have been removed from the plan due to the negligible consequences of their failure.