El objetivo es desarrollar una herramienta de apoyo a la toma de decisiones para la planificación estratégica de cadenas de suministro (CS). La tarea consiste en determinar el número, ubicación y capacidad de todos los nodos de la CS, su política de expansión, el transporte y la producción entre todos los nodos de la red. El problema se formula como un modelo de programación lineal entera mixta (MILP) que se resuelve utilizando diferentes herramientas. En primer lugar se desarrolló una estrategia de descomposición para acelerar el proceso de resolución En segundo, se utilizó el algoritmo de aproximación para resolver el problema MILP estocástico. Por último, el modelo multi-objetivo incorpora las soluciones de compromiso entre los aspectos económicos y ambientales. Todas las formulaciones se aplicaron al caso real de la industria de caña de azúcar en Argentina. El objetivo de las herramientas es ayudar a los responsables de planificación estratégica de las infraestructuras para la producción de productos químicos. / The aim of this thesis is to provide a decision-support tool for the strategic planning of supply chains (SCs). The task consists of determining the number, location and capacities of all SC facilities, their expansion policy, the transportation links that need to be established, and the production rates and flows of all materials involved in the network. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model, which is solved using several mathematical programming tools. First, a decomposition strategy was developed to expedite the solving procedure. Second, the approximation algorithm was utilized to solve the stochastic version of the MILP. Finally, the multi-objective model was developed to incorporate the trade-off between economical and ecological issues. All formulations were applied to a real case based on the Argentinean sugarcane industry. The tools presented are intended to help policy-makers in the strategic planning of infrastructures for chemicals production.

In this study, a model is developed to assess risk to a municipal water supply system under the influence of population growth and climate change. To incorporate the uncertainly in water use, a model which combines time series Monte Carlo simulations and a deterministic artificial neural network (ANN) is developed to simulate the daily water demand under climate variability. The model is then expanded in two directions. One direction is to estimate the effects of demand management programs and system expansion on the reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability of the water supply system. Another direction is to capture the possible impacts of climate change on the risk of a water supply system. Twenty-six scenarios generated from different combinations of demand management programs, system expansions and Global Climate Model (GCM) scenarios were set to illustrate the risk indices: reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability. To illustrate the effects of a change of precipitation frequency and a higher population growth, twenty-five additional scenarios were evaluated.

Supply chain management is the set of tasks through which businesses acquire, process, and move raw materials and final products from suppliers through factories and distribution points to customers. The mathematical problems encountered in supply chain optimization models are difficult to solve. Free Trade Agreements can simplify the models of inter-company trade between countries. Another way to make these models more tractable is to decompose the complete supply chain into a set of small, manageable units representing businesses or business processes and optimize the system by controlling the interactions between these units. We illustrate such a model and optimize it with genetic-algorithm-controlled Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

Nanofibres are useful in a broad range of applications in areas such as medical science, food science, materials engineering, environmental engineering, and energy and electronics due to their outstanding characteristics: their small size, high surface-to-volume ratio, high porosity, and superior mechanical performance. Recently, controlled drug delivery systems have gained significant attention, especially with respect to the use of polymer nanofibres. For these systems, the ability to control of the length of the polymer nanofibre is important because the amount of drug released depends on the length of the fibre. Electrospinning is the simplest and most cost-effective method of fabricating polymer nanofibres. In the process, a high voltage is used to create an electrified jet which will eventually become a nanofibre. The electrified jet ejects when a high voltage is applied to the electrospinning setup. On the other hand, the jet does not eject when the applied voltage is below the threshold voltage. It is therefore possible to fabricate and chop nanofibres by controlling the values of the voltages applied and a special high-voltage pulsed power supply has been developed for this purpose. In this research, an IGBT-based pulsed power supply has been designed and built to be used for non-continuous-mode electrospinning. The IGBTs are connected in series to deliver high voltage pulse voltages to an electrospinning setup. The IGBT-based pulsed power supply is capable of producing controllable square pulses with a width of a few hundred microseconds to DC and amplitudes up to 10 kV. The technique of non-continuous-mode electrospinning was tested using the pulsed power supply designed in this work. The new system was able to fabricate and chop nanofibres with PEO and alginate/PEO solutions. It was concluded that the minimum pulse width that can initiate an electrified jet is approximately 80 ms for the parameters used in this study. A longer period produces a more constant jet during the pulse-on voltage when the duty ratio is the same value. It is also highly likely that a jet is always ejected during the pulse-on voltage when the duty ratio is more than 40 %.

This research builds further on the existing conceptual framework of the relationship between decentralization and service delivery and provides a cross-country empirical examination of the core dimensions of decentralization reform on access to two key services: health care and improved drinking water sources. The regression results provide evidence supporting positive and significant effects of fiscal, administrative, and political decentralization, individually, on the variables used to measure access to health care, and improved water provision; although the size and robustness of such effects varies for each dimension of decentralization in relation to each service examined. The results obtained in this study suggest that there is an additional (or "extra") positive effect coming from the interaction of two decentralization dimensions on access to health care and water services (that is, a mutually-reinforcing effect additional to the individual effect of each dimension of decentralization). The results obtained also support the expectation that developing countries could benefit significantly more from decentralization reforms compared to developed countries. These findings underscore the importance of considering all dimensions of the decentralization process when investigating the effects of this reform on any economic, institutional, or social variable. The policy implications are highly relevant, particularly for developing countries: decentralization implemented only through one dimension may render fewer positive fruits in terms of access to services than a multi-dimensional approach. Moreover, learning more about the most beneficial mutually-reinforcing effects across dimensions of decentralization may also help strategically in how the overall decentralization reform is designed.

Since January 1st 2008, companies have the opportunity to become certified by the new common customs system Authorized Economic Operator (AEO). This opportunity is presented so that authorities together with operators are trusted to ensure that it is the correct cargo that gets transported. Attends Healthcare AB (Attends) has decided to implement this certification. To qualify there are a number of criteria that needs to be met. The aim of this thesis is to verify if Attends can meet the required criteria. This is to create a useful basis for the audit by the Customs Board.   The data collection and gap analysis carried out results in that a number of critical and less critical gaps are identified. An example of the gaps which were identified is a documented routine that deals with export declarations in the current situation. The gaps were mainly identified in the security and customs areas. After consultation with staff at Attends and the Customs Board, the decision was made that a number of routines and additions should be created to deal with the most critical gaps before the audit. With the less critical gaps, it was determined that action should take place only after the audit if the need occur. By dealing with the less critical gaps later, it should be less time consuming. This is because when the Customs Board has obtained some knowledge of the company’s routines, they will be able to give more detailed information to Attends about what needs to be fixed.   A systematic approach was performed in which all processes and documents deemed relevant to the certification were provided. Categorization was used to create a better understanding of the area that belongs to the documentation. This approach resulted in a register with the purpose to simplify identification of the documents.   After completed collection of data and analysis the conclusion shows that Attends Healthcare AB has a large number of routines and other related documents from the company's ISO-certifications and their operations system, Total Process Management that can be reused. This previous work will simplify the implementation of an AEO certification substantially. / Sedan 1 januari 2008 har företag möjlighet att bli certifierade av det nya gemensamma tullsystemet Godkänd Ekonomisk Aktör. Detta för att tillsammans med myndigheter och aktörer säkerställa att det är rätt gods som finns med i transporterna. Attends Healthcare AB har beslutat att införa denna certifiering men för att bli godkänd finns det ett antal kriterier som måste uppfyllas. Målsättningen med detta examensarbete är att verifiera att företaget har den dokumentation som krävs för att uppfylla kraven som ställs av Tullverket. Detta för att skapa en bra grund vid revision av Tullverket.   Datainsamlingen och gapanalysen som genomförts resulterade i att ett antal kritiska samt mindre kritiska gap kunde identifieras. Ett exempel på gap som identifierats är de rutiner som behandlar exportdeklarationer och i dagsläget inte finns dokumenterade. Huvudsakligen upptäcktes gapen inom säkerhets- och tullområdena. Efter samråd med personal på Attends och Tullverket bestämdes att ett antal rutiner och kompletteringar ska skapas för att åtgärda de mest kritiska gapen innan revision. För de mindre kritiska gapen så bestämdes att åtgärder först kommer ske efter revision ifall behovet då uppstår. Genom att åtgärda i efterhand bör kompletteringar bli mindre tidskrävande. Detta för att Tullverket har bättre insyn och kan därför ge ingående kritik till Attends om vad som behöver åtgärdas.   En systematisering genomfördes där samtliga rutiner och dokument som ansågs relevanta för certifieringen angavs. Uppdelningen i olika kategorier är till för att ha övervakad kontroll på vilket område dokumentationen tillhör. Detta resulterade i ett register för att enkelt identifiera dokumenten.   Efter slutförd datainsamling och analys kan slutsatsen dras att Attends Healthcare AB har ett stort antal rutiner och andra relaterade dokument som kan återanvändas ifrån företagets ISO-certifieringar och deras verksamhetssystem, Total Process Management. Detta tidigare arbete kommer förenkla genomförandet av en Godkänd Ekonomisk Aktör certifiering avsevärt.

This report is the result of a Master Thesis written at Toyota Material Handling Europe (TMHE), with the purpose to map the existing spare part supply chain structure and to analyse future suggested supply chain structures with a focus on transportation flows. TMHE is one of the world’s largest producing forklift distributers with large market shares throughout Europe. Besides the main activity of forklifts the aftermarket of distributing spare parts is a major business. With a current decentralised supply chain, the Future Logistic Concept (FLC) project was established to analyse the possibilities of a more centralised European supply chain. While earlier analyses within the FLC have been focusing on the customer market, this thesis aims towards completing with analyses on the opposite side of the supply chain. It will present an aggregated view over a possible FLC supply chain setup with focus on suppliers, replenishment flows and usage of express transportation solutions. An analysis was performed based on supplier localisation and historically delivered tonnages. To be able to analyse the replenishment flows between European Distribution Centre (EDC) and Regional Distribution Centres (RDC), an inventory control and transportation model was developed. The model calculates costs for inventory holding, replenishment flows and express flows and optimises the relationships between these controlling variables. This makes it possible to analyse the transportation flows in a specified set of possible supply chain structures. The results of the localisation analyses based on suppliers, show that the central part of the supply chain should be located in the northern parts of central Europe. To be able to minimise the supplier inflow facilities should be established in Mjölby and Ancenis. A warehouse in Eastern Europe is probably necessary to be able to keep customer lead times at an acceptable level, but from a supply point of view this location is not supported due to the low amount of Easter European suppliers. The results from the model suggests a supply chain structure with a central distribution centre in Antwerp, Belgium (Scenario 2 in the analysis) and regional warehouses in Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic.

Modern communication systems operate with high peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) over wide bandwidth. Linearity requirements force operation in a low efficient highly linear back-off region. Then increasing efficiency is becoming critical. One of the most promising technologies to accomplish this is using supply modulation, e.g. envelope tracking (ET) and envelope elimination and restoration (EER). Supply modulated systems have been studied extensively in the past years, but no systems have been presented with flexibility in the envelope amplifier circuit.   In this work the supply modulator amplifiers have been studied. The focus is on hybrid switching amplifier (HSA) as envelope amplifier. Two envelope amplifier prototypes P-I and P-II have been designed. They are both designed for 15W output but P-II has 28V maximum supply voltage and P-I has 15V maximum supply voltage. P-II developed in version A, using silicon (Si) based switching transistor and version B using gallium-nitride (GaN) switching transistor. The efficiency is limited to a maximum 97 % possible by the circuit components.   The linearity was mainly analyzed by AM-AM diagrams. P-I, P-IIA and P-IIB, were analyzed in simulations and measurements. Results show high possibility of improvement with digital processing, i.e. digital pre-distortion (DPD). Linearization will improve the overall performance in the supply modulator (SM) systems, improving the delay issues and distortion produced by the implementation of the system.   The developed flexible board has made it possible to investigate alternative technologies of ET, focused in the hybrid switching amplifier (HSA). This has given the possibility to compare the overall performance for a traditional Si based switch with the novel Ferdinand Braun Institute’s (FBH) GaN-HEMT based switch with regards to bandwidth, efficiency and non-linearities introduced by the envelope tracking amplifier. P-I and P-II show high efficiency (> 60%) in results. For signals with adequate average power levels the efficiency is high, with around 70% efficiency for WCDMA signals. Phase distortions are evident already at a 5 MHz bandwidth.

In the contemporary business world, manufacturing concern companies are becoming moreefficient in production process. Outsourcing is a process in which companies or producers getthe service or produced product or portion of the finished product from other company.Logistics is a functional system which is important for the improvment of efficiency, both inthe flow of goods and information and to meet low-cost, reliable delivery, and fast objectiveswithin a company and throughout a network of companies. The outsourcing of logisticsactivities to Logistics Services Providers or Third Party Logistics (3PL) companies hasbecome a common practice in current business world. Logistics outsourcing is the use ofexternal companies to perform logistics functions that have traditionally been performedwithin an organisation and the functions performed by the third party can encompass theentire logistics process or selected activities within that process. This thesis or research hasbeen conducted on a manufacturing sector‟s company which is located and working inPakistan. This company is working with the name of Pakson International. Company has outsourced three logistics activities which are freight forwarding, transportation andwarehouse management. In this thesis, there is focus on the comparison of the logisticsoutsourcing process inside the Pakson International and in literature.

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