Les systèmes logiciels modernes se caractérisent par un besoin d'évolutions perpétuelles et rapides, comme par exemple dans le monde de l'informatique mobile. Pour faciliter le développe\-ment et l'évolution rapide de systèmes complexes, des approches de génie logiciel ont été proposées, telles que les architectures logicielles et la méthode de conception agile. Néanmoins, les solutions actuelles offrent peu de support pour permettre l'évolution fiable d'un système, c'est-à-dire permettre sa modification tout en garantissant le respect de ses exigences de qualités de service et de bon fonctionnement global. La contribution de cette thèse est CALICO, un canevas de développement agile pour la conception et l'évolution fiable de systèmes logiciels à composants et orientés services. Le développement agile repose sur l'utilisation d'un cycle de développement itératif et incrémental qui permet à l'architecte d'itérer entre les étapes de conception de l'architecture et de débogage du logiciel dans son environnement d'exécution. A chaque itération du cycle, l'architecte peut faire évoluer son logiciel et fiabiliser ses évolutions grâce à l'exécution d'analyses statiques et dynamiques complémentaires. Ainsi, lors de la conception et de l'évolution d'un système, l'architecte dispose d'un ensemble de métamodèles pour spécifier la structure de l'architecture de son logiciel et ses diverses exigences de qualité de services. Lors du déploiement, CALICO utilise les modèles spécifiés pour instancier le système sur la plate-forme d'exécution cible et les garde synchronisés avec le logiciel lors de son exécution. De cette façon, l'architecte dispose toujours d'une vue conceptuelle qui lui permet de raisonner sur les propriétés critiques de son logiciel lors d'une évolution. De plus, pour fiabiliser ces évolutions, CALICO offre un cadre fédérateur qui autorise la réutilisation de nombreux outils d'analyse statique des architectures logicielles et de débogage dynamique qui étaient jusqu'alors dispersés dans différentes plates-formes existantes. Ainsi, chaque évolution peut être analysée statiquement sur la vue conceptuelle avant d'être propagée au système logiciel. Les analyses dynamiques reposent quant à elles sur des valeurs disponibles à l'exécution. La capture de ces valeurs est effectuée grâce à une instrumentation automatique du système logiciel. CALICO permet donc de fiabiliser les évolutions même si les plates-formes d'exécution sous-jacentes ne le proposent pas nativement. Notre contribution se concrétise par une implémentation multi plates-formes. La version actuelle prend en charge quatre plates-formes à composants et une plate-forme à services. Par ailleurs, les tests de performances que nous avons réalisés démontrent que CALICO est utilisable pour la conception et l'évolution fiable de larges applications jusqu'à 10000 composants et services, ce qui correspond à la montée en charge maximale de la plupart des plates-formes d'exécution.

<p>Software projects are known for their failure rate, where many are being delivered late, over budget or being canceled while in development. The reason to it is changing requirements and intangibility of the software. Being so abstract it is difficult to imaging all the aspects of the software at the requirements stage. Also technology is playing a major role since processing power, storage space, and data transfer speeds are improving from year to year.</p><p>Agile methodologies are addressing projects with unclear requirements making process of implementing new specifications along the project much easier and less costly. However the success rate of the software projects did not improve much since the introduction of Agile methodologies. This thesis is looking at what type of projects fit different methodologies and what are factors which practitioners should take into account when selecting methodology for a particular project,</p><p>The thesis opens up with introduction which sets the research question and provides a brief background to the research topic. In subsequent chapter literature review is conducted to find out what does literature and other researchers have said on the same topic. Third chapter discusses underlying research philosophy and discusses the data collection tools. Next chapter discusses the findings of the research. Interviews has been conducted with project management professionals from Sweden, US, UK and Canada. It was identified through the analysis of patters that Agile methodologies are not well suited for projects involving databases, embedded development and computationally complex projects. Through the analysis of the questionnaire several project characteristics were identified which suit Agile methodologies better than traditional ones: unclear requirements, high risk of failure etc… In the last chapter the thesis concludes the findings and its theoretical and practical implications.</p>

Notre travail de recherche a pour ambition de contribuer à l‘optimisation des pratiques d‘accompagnement individuel et collectif des entreprises de la Chambre de Commerce et d‘Industrie (CCI) de Rennes. Notre démarche scientifique propose une approche renouvelée du couple « Innovation et Intelligence Economique », levier de la dynamique d‘adaptation des entreprises. Nous situons nos travaux à partir des acquis et des enseignements historiques de la CCI de Rennes en matière de stimulation des entreprises à « agir par anticipation ». Notre enjeu étant de décrire les processus sous-jacents aux activités d‘anticipation et d‘adaptation des entreprises, dans un écosystème en mutation, nous proposons en premier lieu une lecture des méthodologies et modèles de l‘intelligence économique par le prisme de ces activités. Nous recourrons ensuite à un modèle psychologique de description et d‘analyse des compétences afin de modéliser les dynamiques d‘adaptation des entreprises, et d‘y situer les activités d‘intelligence économique, d‘innovation et d‘organisation humaine agile. Un recueil de données terrain, auprès d‘experts et de dirigeants d‘entreprises, permet la construction de référentiels de compétences collectives opérationnelles en intelligence économique. Un second recueil de données auprès d‘un collectif « en mouvement» est l‘occasion de proposer des indicateurs de mise en oeuvre d‘une organisation humaine agile favorisant la dynamique d‘adaptation. Pour finir, des outils applicatifs sont mis à disposition de la CCI de Rennes et aux cadres et dirigeants d‘entreprises, leur permettant de piloter leur dynamique d‘adaptation

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka vad som inom fast fashion har påverkat företagen på den internationella modemarknaden. Världen har förändrats och konsumenter ställer högre krav på modeföretag. Tiden blir en allt mer drivande faktor i och med att leverantörskedjor utvecklar kortare ledtider. Produktionsstrategin inom fast fashion företaget är i leverantörskedjan av stort fokus. Vi vill med denna uppsats skapa uppmärksamhet till det omtalade fenomenet som har tillkommit, fast fashion. Därför har leveranskedjan samt andra utvecklade strategier idag utvecklats eftersom det har en stor betydelse för att överleva som ett fast fashion företag i modeindustrin. Vi har under uppsatsens gång utgått ifrån de teorier som vi funnit vara relevanta inom ämnet för att kunna koppla den till empiri. Studien är därför utförd efter en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod med en abduktiv forskningsansats. Till stor del är uppsatsen baserad på sekundärdata, vi har här utgått ifrån fallstudie av Zara och H &amp; M. En anonym kvalitativ intervju med en anställd inom ett världskänt fast fashion företag är genomförd. Vi har sedan analyserat och framfört empirin emot den valda teorin för att finna samband och skillnader av de valda fast fashion företagen. Slutsatsen är att fast fashion begreppet står för effektivitet, flexibilitet och vetskapen om de rätta trenderna. Tiden, kommunikation och korta ledtider är viktiga faktorer som spelar en huvudroll inom fast fashion. Det visar sig att konsumenternas preferenser idag ändras på ett ögonblick, vilket är skapat av att fast fashion företag visat att det är möjligt att leverera det senaste modet på några få dagar. Slutsatsen visar att den viktigaste strategin inom fast fashion är att kunna reagera snabbt på modemarknadens efterfrågan.

The reverse part of the supply chain becomes more and more important due to the legislation, environmental concerns, higher volumes of returns, etc. As a result, companies cannot see the reverse supply chain as the additional costs only and have to think strategically. The right strategy for the reverse supply chain can help to achieve the competitive advantage. However, there are not so many researches made about strategies for the reverse supply chain yet, contrarily to the forward supply chain. Therefore, the need to adopt strategies for the reverse supply chain appears. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the applicability of the Lean and the Agile concepts in the Reverse Supply Chain strategy, and to investigate the driving forces and challenges for the implementation of the strategy in the Reverse Supply Chain. The inductive research approach was applied in this thesis. The qualitative study was the most suitable for the better understanding of the point of view, the attitudes, the perceptions of the interviewed participants regarding a wide range of issues related to the choice, and the implementation of the strategy for the reverse supply chain. Multiple case studies as the research strategy was chosen, thus data was collected from 13 interviews conducted at four companies: Fläkt Woods, Systemair, Swegon and Rettig ICC. The main conclusions from the analysis of the applicability of the lean and the agile concepts in the reverse supply chain are that the design of the reverse supply chain depends on the characteristics of the returns: the size, the volume, the life cycle, the B2B or the B2C returns; as well the reasons for the returns: the guarantee service/ after warranty service. When weighting the results about the lean and the agile concepts implementation in the reverse supply chain, it appears relatively more likely that none of the companies implement either only the lean or only the agile approach. Due to various reasons, there are different material flows and they require different strategic approaches. The agility is implemented close to the customer in order to ensure speed and high responsiveness. Lean flows are implemented from the manufacturer to the supplier or the third party (recycler, etc.). Even more, the companies seek to find the optimal combination of both strategies, or as it called – leagile. Two different approaches for leagile concept’s implementation are used: preponement and de-coupling point. Driving forces for the strategy implementation are green forces, increasing the demand for improving customer service level, cost reduction, and the new retail marketing strategies. Main challenges for the strategy implementation are the lack of formal operating procedures, the lack of information sharing with the suppliers, ‘false alarm’ returns, the lack of local competence, and the lack of forecasting possibilities.

The recent increase in international projects has resulted in higher risk along with difficulties in control and coordination. Effective project management can therefore be seen as being essential to the success of projects. The purpose of this paper is to understand how a large multinational company currently handles these issues. This paper conducts a case study that will look at the relationship between contingencies and their effects on project risk management. The findings show that although project risk management handles contingencies in standard projects it still requires improvement within complex projects. Therefore, based on research into agile project management a concept is proposed as an alternative for the case company to select project management method.

With the increasing demand for high performance communication networks and the proliferation of mobile devices, significant advances in antenna design are essential. In recent years the rising demands of the mobile wireless communication industry have forced antennas to have increased performance while being limited to an ever decreasing footprint. Such design constraints have forced antenna designers to consider frequency agile antennas so that their behavior can adapt with changing system requirements or environmental conditions. Frequency agile antennas used for mobile handset applications must also be inexpensive, robust, and make use of electronic switching with reasonable DC power consumption. Previous works have addressed a number of these requirements but relatively little work has been performed on frequency agile dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs). The objective of this thesis is to investigate the use of DRAs for frequency reconfigurability. DRAs are an attractive option due to their compactness, very low losses leading to high radiation efficiencies (better than 95%) and fairly wide bandwidths compared to alternatives. DRA’s are also well suited for mobile communications since they can be placed on a ground plane and are by nature low gain antennas whose radiation patterns typically resemble those of short electric or magnetic dipoles. One way to electronically reconfigure a DRA, in the sense of altering the frequency band over which the input reflection coefficient of the antenna is below some threshold, is to partially load one face of the DRA with a conducting surface. By altering the way in which this surface connects to the groundplane on which the DRA is mounted, the DRA can be reconfigured due to changes in its mode structure. This connection was first made using several conducting tabs which resulted in a tuning range of 69% while having poor cross polarization performance. In order to address the poor cross polarization performance a second conducting surface was placed on the opposing DRA wall. This technique significantly reduced the cross polarization levels while obtaining a tuning range of 83%. The dual-wall conductively loaded DRA was then extended to include a full electronic implementation using PIN diodes and varactor diodes in order to achieve discrete and continuous tuning respectively. The two techniques both achieved discrete tuning ranges of 95% while the varactor implementation also had a continuous tuning range of 59% while both maintaining an acceptable cross polarization level.

With the increasing demand for high performance communication networks and the proliferation of mobile devices, significant advances in antenna design are essential. In recent years the rising demands of the mobile wireless communication industry have forced antennas to have increased performance while being limited to an ever decreasing footprint. Such design constraints have forced antenna designers to consider frequency agile antennas so that their behavior can adapt with changing system requirements or environmental conditions. Frequency agile antennas used for mobile handset applications must also be inexpensive, robust, and make use of electronic switching with reasonable DC power consumption. Previous works have addressed a number of these requirements but relatively little work has been performed on frequency agile dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs). The objective of this thesis is to investigate the use of DRAs for frequency reconfigurability. DRAs are an attractive option due to their compactness, very low losses leading to high radiation efficiencies (better than 95%) and fairly wide bandwidths compared to alternatives. DRA’s are also well suited for mobile communications since they can be placed on a ground plane and are by nature low gain antennas whose radiation patterns typically resemble those of short electric or magnetic dipoles. One way to electronically reconfigure a DRA, in the sense of altering the frequency band over which the input reflection coefficient of the antenna is below some threshold, is to partially load one face of the DRA with a conducting surface. By altering the way in which this surface connects to the groundplane on which the DRA is mounted, the DRA can be reconfigured due to changes in its mode structure. This connection was first made using several conducting tabs which resulted in a tuning range of 69% while having poor cross polarization performance. In order to address the poor cross polarization performance a second conducting surface was placed on the opposing DRA wall. This technique significantly reduced the cross polarization levels while obtaining a tuning range of 83%. The dual-wall conductively loaded DRA was then extended to include a full electronic implementation using PIN diodes and varactor diodes in order to achieve discrete and continuous tuning respectively. The two techniques both achieved discrete tuning ranges of 95% while the varactor implementation also had a continuous tuning range of 59% while both maintaining an acceptable cross polarization level.

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier la faisabilité et les performances d'un synthétiseur de fréquences agile pour les transmissions multi-bandes multi-utilisateurs destinées aux systèmes de transmission fournissant un très grand débit tout en répondant aux exigences de faible consommation et d'intégration facile. Dans ce contexte, les solutions classiques de synthétiseur de fréquences ne sont pas applicables et il est nécessaire de développer de nouvelles structures qui génèrent les fréquences centrales en permanence. La commutation d'une fréquence à l'autre peut se faire alors très rapidement par simple modification de la configuration des multiplexeurs. Dans la première partie de ce travail nous nous consacrons à l'analyse d'une telle architecture à fort potentiel. Une partie de sa structure est réalisée en technologie conventionnelle BiCMOS afin de valider sa faisabilité ainsi que le fonctionnement des solutions schématiques développées. Grâce à la caractérisation des composants, une analyse de la structure complète est réalisée. Cependant, la complexité de la structure du synthétiseur proposé fait de sorte qu'il existe pour les fréquences générées un grand nombre de fréquences parasites qui induisent des interférences entre utilisateurs. La réduction de leurs effets sur la transmission est l'objet de la deuxième partie de notre travail. Deux solutions numériques de réduction des interférences sont proposées. Elles permettent de rendre le design de la partie analogique moins contraignant en allégeant le cahier des charges et nous ont ainsi permis de simplifier l'architecture du synthétiseur.

As software systems grow in size they will also grow in complexity. If the increased complexity is not managed the system will be increasingly difficult to maintain. The effect of unmaintainable software is even more distinct when using a agile development process. By increasing the maintainability of the system these problems will be dealt with and the system can be extended with sustained efficiency. This thesis will evaluate the development process of a modern, agile company in order to find changes that will promote increased maintainability. The result is an modified process that will increase the maintainability with the smallest possible overhead for the development organisation. The result is based on earlier studies of development technologies that have proven to increase the maintainability. The implementation of these technologies are adjusted to fit the development team, and some of the technologies that are not suitable for the team are rejected.