An organization that uses all of its improvement opportunities has a great advantage compared to its competitors. It is an important task when it comes to continuous improvements of every process. Up until September 2007, Husqvarna AB had a suggestion committee who evaluated every suggestion separately and the proposer received a payment if the suggestion was approved by the committee. However, this system did not work satisfying enough to fulfill Husqvarna’s needs and they are now looking for a system that can handle the ideas from the employees in a more effective way. The purpose of this report is to come up with a system better suited for Husqvarna, where every employee has a chance to be a part in the company’s development process. With help from relevant litterateur, study visits at Volvo Car Corporation in Skövde and C2 Management in Stockholm and interviews with employees at Husqvarna AB, a plan for how a new system could look like is presented in this report. At Husqvarna chainsaw and landscape assembly plant, they already have a developed and satisfactory structure to treat ideas of improvement from the employees. They currently use Excel in order to document their improvements. In order for Husqvarna to work with improvements in a more efficient way, Excel ought to be exchanged to a database more suited for handling this type of data. Suggestions for appropriate databases are System C2 which can be bought from C2 Management or a system developed in Lotus Notes. A new database enables all units and even factories, within Husqvarna to document their improvements. This way, Husqvarna will have a more “learning by doing focus” where the different units can study each other’s suggestions and gain inspiration and ideas for the own operation. The different ideas for improvement shall be divided into three categories; Continuous improvements, bigger improvements (PDCA) and big improvements (rationalization). Under the category “continuous improvements”, all improvements that the group can deploy by themselves should be listed. This category will be managed by the group with no interaction from managers or other units. The only reward for this type of improvement is encouragement from the manager. For the “bigger improvements”, all improvements that take more than three hours to complete, can be visualized and/or where help is needed from external parts will be listed. This category of improvements shall be listed in the database by the group itself and they should also manage as much of the deployment as possible. However, for this type of improvements help may be needed from other units and therefore, the group should address the improvement to its nearest manager for approval. Under this category, some kind of reward is possible. Under the category “big improvements”, the improvements that will give Husqvarna large savings can be found. The idea shall be something far from what could be expected from the proposer. A minimum limit of saving for Husqvarna that the idea has to generate in order to be listed under this category ought to be placed. Husqvarna need to select some kind of management group who can decide from case to case how large the proposer’s reward should be. This type of improvements should also be listed in the database by the group.

Detta examensarbete har utförts på Scanias forskning och utvecklingsavdelning, i Söder-tälje, under hösten 2007. Dess huvudsakliga syfte är att kartlägga och visualisera arbets-processen hos avdelningen som utvecklar styrsystem för drivlinan, alltså motor och väx-ellåda. Anledningen till att en visualisering skulle tas fram var för att skapa en helhetsbild över arbetet att ha som utgångspunkt för fortsatta diskussioner om processen samt för-bättringar av den. Denna bild blir även ett sätt att samla det organisatoriska lärandet och underlätta kunskapsöverföring. Kartläggningen har skett genom intervjuer med cheferna på avdelningen samt genom en workshop. Information som erhölls under dessa tillfällen sammanställdes till en nulägesbeskrivning av avdelningens arbete. Många arbetsuppgifter saknade en processbeskriv-ning och de processbeskrivningar som fanns när vi inledde arbetet var inte samstämmiga. En stor brist som vi fann under kartläggningen var att kravhantering saknas i stor ut-sträckning i avdelningens arbete. Detta ställer till ett flertal problem vid planering och resurssäkring av projekt, men även när det handlar om att verifiera programvaran som utvecklas. Det finns även ett behov av att klargöra beslutsprocessen på avdelningen. Utifrån den information vi fick från kartläggningen och teorier som behandlar ämnena process, produktutveckling samt mjukvaruutveckling har en analys gjorts av det nuva-rande arbetssättet. Vi inledde med att definiera det system som avdelningen utgör för att sedan identifiera processer utifrån de beskrivningar som gavs av cheferna. Här började även arbetet med att ta fram förslag på nya processer som behövs för att åtgärda de pro-blem som vi funnit under kartläggningens gång. De nya och gamla processerna struktu-rerades sedan genom att försöka hitta en entydighet mellan dem och placera dem i olika kategorier beroende på vad syftet med processen var. Efter att processerna strukturerats ritades huvudprocessen upp. Resultatet är en visuali-sering av avdelningens huvudprocess med den första nivån av delprocesser beskrivna. Den största förändringen är att två nya delprocesser har tagits fram i början av arbets-processen. Den första av dessa behandlar starten av projekt på NE. Syftet med processen är att få en bättre nedbrytning av de krav som kommer från projektkontoret, för att NE ska få större klarhet i vad som ska åstadkommas. Sättet att göra detta på är att samla berörda personer vid ett tillfälle för att diskutera kraven samt att planera projektet för NE:s del. Resultatet av ett sådant tillfälle blir förhoppningsvis en större förståelse inom organisa-tionen om vad som ska göras, men även att objektledarna utifrån detta kan sammanställa en bra objektdefinition. Nästa nya delprocess behandlar planeringen av framtagningen av mjukvara. Det handlar om hur beslut ska tas för vilka funktioner och ändringar som ska hinna utvecklas till en viss tidpunkt. Vi har sett ett stort behov av att klargöra denna process och ge den en större roll i huvudprocessen. Vi har gett ett förslag på hur beslutsprocessen skulle kunna se ut, men det finns fortfarande ett behov av att vidareutveckla den och skapa samför-stånd runt den. / This master thesis has been written at Scania’s research and development organization in Södertälje, during the autumn of 2007. Its purpose is to map and visualize the work process at the department power train control system development. The reason to do this visualization was to make an overall picture of the work process and have that as a starting point for further discussions and further improvements to be made. The picture is also a way of gather the know-how and knowledge in the organisation and to facilitate the transfer of those between people. Mapping the work process has been possible through interviews with the managers at the department and with a workshop that was held by us. The information that we at-tained during these occasions was put together to a description of what the work flow looks like at the present. Many of the tasks that the managers mentioned did not have a description and those which had a description did not always match each other. A big issue that we found during the mapping phase was that there is a shortage in the way the department handles the requirements on their product. This causes problems when planning and allocating resources to each project. Another issue we identified was the need to clarify how decisions are made about when and how the software should be de-veloped. With the information that we got from the mapping and theories that discusses proc-esses, product development and software development, we were able to analyse the cur-rent work process. We started with defining the system that the department constitute and proceeded with identifying processes from the descriptions of tasks given by the managers. We started to work on some new processes which should come to terms with the problems we had seen during the mapping. The new and old processes were then structured to make a uniform whole and placed in different categories depending on what they were meant to fulfil. After the processes were structured, we drew the map over the main process. The result is a visualization of the main process with the first level of sub-processes described. The biggest change we made was to add two new sub-processes in the beginning of the main process. The first of these sub-processes is about the start of projects at NE. The purpose with the process is to break down the main requirements from the project office, to get a bet-ter understanding of what NE should accomplish in each project. The way to do this is to gather the people concerned with handling the requirements and to discuss the re-quirements together. The planning of the project could be done at the same occasion. The result of the occasion would hopefully be a better understanding of what the or-ganization should do but will also help the object leaders to write an object definition. The next sub-process is concerned with the development of software. The important part is how to decide which functions and changes should be made to a specific time. We have seen a great need to clarify this process and to give it a bigger part in the main process. In this thesis we have made a proposition of how it could work, but there is still a need to develop it further and to create an understanding around it.

Att införa lean principer inom sjukvården är ett relativt nytt område. Landstinget i Gävleborg och Gävle sjukhus är intresserade av att korta ner sina vårdköer med hjälp av logistiska metoder och lean production principer. Detta på grund av att vårdköerna på bland annat urologmottagningen på Gävle sjukhus bara växer. Lean production är ett koncept som ursprungligen härstammar från bilindustrin i Japan och innebär att man strävar efter att göra mer med mindre. På svenska kan lean production översättas till resurssnål produktion och arbetet med lean innefattar principer som kunden i fokus, teamarbete och ständiga förbättringar. Syftet med examensarbetet är att ta fram en arbetsmodell för införande av lean principer inom sjukvården, då vårdköerna idag är långa och någon form av förändring är nödvändig. Arbetsmodellen innehåller sex olika nivåer, kartläggning, analys, framtagning av förbättringsförslag, avstämning, genomförande och uppföljning. De fyra första stegen kommer att presenteras i arbetet medans de två sista stegen ligger utanför arbetets ramar. Genom att använda logistiska metoder och lean principer i kartläggningar och analyser av mottagningens processer har en del problemområden upptäckts. Problemen har sedan analyserats och förbättringsförslag till de olika områdena har utarbetats. Förbättringsförslagen som har utarbetats med hjälp av logistiska metoder och lean production principer bör kunna medverka till en minskning av urologmottagningens vårdköer. / Introducing lean production principles in health care is a relatively new area. The county council in Gävleborg and Gävle hospital are interested in shortening their health queues with help from logistics methods and lean production principles. This is among others because of growing health queues at the urologist reception in Gävle hospital. Lean production is a concept arising from the Japanese car industry, meaning a quest to do more with less. In Swedish lean production can be translated to resource- economic production and the work with lean production includes principles like customer focus, teamwork and continuous improvement. The purpose with this thesis is to compile a working model which can be used when implementing lean principles in health care. This is because the health queues to the reception today are long and some kind of transform is necessary. The working model consists of six different levels, mapping, analyze, developing improvement suggestions, balancing, implementation and follow up. The first four steps in the working model will be introduced in this thesis, although the last two steps are outside the limits of this thesis. By using logistics methods and lean principles in mapping and analysis of the receptions processes some problem areas have been discovered. The discovered problems have been analyzed and improvement suggestions to the different problem areas have then been elaborated. The improvement suggestions which have been elaborated with help from logistics methods and lean production principles can contribute to a decrease of the urologist receptions health queues.

It is important that organizations today focus on continuous improvements in order to face the growing competition in the world. A company needs a corporate culture that supports and encourages the employees to be creative and innovative in their work. This is necessary for the company if they are striving towards continuous learning and development within their organization. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how the culture differences between Sweden and China affect Sandvik AB. We will also study how the company manages continuous improvements and what consequences culture differences have on their work. Our paper is a single case study at Sandvik AB in Sweden and China. We have visited Sandvik in Sandviken to conduct a series of interviews with employees of different position within the company and with dissimilar work tasks. We have chosen this procedure to get different angles from the respondents and to acquire depth in our research. After the company visit in Sandviken we had appointments with personal at Sandvik in Beijing, Langfang and Shanghai. These employees also had different position and work tasks within the company. After finished study, we can make the conclusion that there exist several culture differences between Sweden and China. Most of these differences can be connected to the national culture. Sandvik where founded in Sweden and therefore they have a Swedish corporate culture. Today the company is a multinational corporation that operates business at the Chinese market and thereby in the Chinese national culture. Because of this situation, we think that it is important that Sandvik finds a balance between the corporate and national culture. Today, a new China is emerging. The country has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, this having and will continue to have consequences on Sandvik AB: s organization. In China 20 million students are graduated from the university today and this result in harder competition on the labour market. When more people getting an education, particularly in China, price on knowledge will decrease. The consequence of this will be that the demand of creativity and innovative thinking is rising, especially in Sweden where the labour cost is significantly higher.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse how capital goods manufacturers can enhance their industrial service offering. The theoretical basis of this research is found in services marketing, recognising co-creation of value, that the service process is an open production system and that the customer determines value as the manufacturer can only offer value propositions. The empirical basis is a multiple case study of service management at BT Industries, Electrolux Laundry Systems, ITT Flygt, and Saab. The four companies operate within different industries, have different service offerings and they are facing different internal and external conditions, which affect their service organisation and offering. It is becoming increasingly important for capital goods manufacturers to offer services and there are further growth and profit opportunities on the market for industrial services. It is suggested that there is major improvement potential and financial gains possible to achieve if more resources are allocated to services. Moreover, utilisation of new technological means leads to increased dematerialisation and enable manufacturers to enhance existing service offerings as well as enable new ones. Depending on whether the services have a traditional product-orientated focus or a customer-centric process-orientated focus, and depending on the scope of the offering, there are different critical factors to consider. Process-orientated services require knowledge about not only how to service the installed base but also how to improve the customer’s industrial production process. Generally, bundled services require a modular structure with standardised, formalised processes and integration between local and central organisation. Extensive bundled offerings require that both customer and provider have relational intent and a long-term relationship is regarded as a condition for successful customer involvement in service development. Long-term relationships also enable the company to act proactive and develop offerings with a customer-centric approach, instead of having a product-centric approach and internally-focused innovation. To conclude, operational service processes and interfaces, internal and with the customer, are critical to manage both from a cost-efficiency and revenue-effectiveness perspective. Furthermore, it is argued that customer relationships and development of the service offering must be managed strategically. / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC 2006:42

It is a well-established view that, over time, companies in a business-to-business setting develop long-lasting business relationships. The business relationship between two companies involves a wide range of exchanges on products, technical and economic issues. It also has a social content as it engages people in both companies. Business relationships are, therefore, argued to be founded on a varying extent of exchanges and content of behaviour. This thesis deals with the current and complex issue of the integration of information technology in such business relationships. Integration in this thesis refers to when information technology is purposefully used and inseparable from the business relationship. A special standardized questionnaire was used to collect extensive empirical data on 353 business relationships between suppliers and one of their important customers. The results of the analysis of the data in the thesis show that high information technology integration, in terms of exchanges and behaviour, increases the efficiency of information exchanges in business relationships. Integration is also connected to the importance of business relationships for the development of information technology and increases a company’s knowledge on this technology. Furthermore, the results show that what is fundamental for the integration of information technology is its combination with the strength of the business relationship. Thereby, the integration of information technology has a wider impact on business relationships than simply facilitating higher efficiency under certain circumstances. It affects the general competence in using information technology, and allows new opportunities for the business relationship and the companies. Through its rich empirical content, theoretical approach and proximity to current business situations, this thesis is of interest to researchers and students who wish to understand the employment of information technology in business relationships, or for business professionals who want to further understand their situation regarding information technology in order to make decisions about further employment.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze how leadership is constructed as a narrative to explain what happens in organizations. Research on young co-workers in organizations has shown how young people are socialized into managerial and organizational cultures. At the same time these cultures and practices are changing. In addition, the younger generation is often expected to express new values or ideals in management. This thesis is developed from a social constructionist view on organization. The main research question is: How do young leaders construct leadership narratives in terms of their personal experience within organizations? The empirical material consists of interviews with 22 young leaders, 11 women and 11 men between 19 and 35 years old, encompassing 19 different organizations. Three of the young leaders were interviewed over a time period between one and two years. The remaining 19 were interviewed once. Leadership is constructed as the power to influence events and decisions in the organization and the responsibility for the outcome. Leadership is also constructed as an interpersonal power relationship. Leadership is analyzed as both construction and ordering of power and responsibility in interpersonal interactions. The analysis shows how the professional identity as a leader is constructed through a process of creative imitation. Emotions play an important role in the performance of the professional identity. Emotional experiences such as fear or vulnerability are often excluded or repressed in order to maintain competent professional appearances. Managers are expected to handle emotionally difficult situations. Prevailing responses– to ignore the situation or not to see at all vs. to acknowledge, act and react – are discussed. The latter category of responses is further analyzed as: to heal and to transform, to set boundaries and to react under stress. Fear or anxiety in these situations may activate survival strategies in interpersonal interactions. The underlying implication of the construction of leadership as an asymmetrical power relation may be that manipulation and codependency are plausible outcomes. / QC 20110909

Previous research has generated a substantial body of knowledge regarding the exploration and exploitation of opportunities, two of the main manifest activities of entrepreneurship. This thesis does not primarily examine any of these activities; instead it investigates an important question regarding what happens between them. It seeks to answer why some of the identified opportunities are selected for exploitation. It does so by building on, and contributing to, a research stream that struggles with the link between the entrepreneurial activity of firms and theory about strategy. One of the main contributions of this thesis is the identification of a number of strategic motive dimensions that are associated with the pursuit of corporate ventures. It also demonstrates how these motives are related to significant venture differences, thereby connecting corporate entrepreneurship to strategy in a means-ends relationship. In other words, it provides insight into how strategy is the why of entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship is the how of strategies (that involve business development). The analysis was based on quantitative data from 274 venture attempts in 222 firms, belonging to a population of 1737 small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms in Sweden. Target respondents were the CEO:s. The findings indicate that venture selection can be influenced by both offensive and defensive strategic motives. In addition, it turned out that ventures can be of both proactive and reactive nature. Together, these two dimensions describe how the venture relates to the firm’s strategic circumstances. To better understand top managers’ intentions, the two dimensions were complimented with measurements of what the firm tries to affect with the venture, i.e. to which facet of business the venture efforts are directed (economy, competition, or competence development). The three dimensions, identified through factor analysis, were labeled “posture”, “adaptive style”, and “orientation”. Alternative non-strategic motives, as well as items for validity evaluation, were included in the survey for comparison. Combinations of the motive dimensions were then presented as “motive profiles”, for four types of ventures identified through clustering techniques. Furthermore, another important contribution is the examination of Roberts & Berry’s hypothesis: That the extent and direction of business development determine the amount of uncertainty faced during venture execution, which in turn is proposed to influence the probability of a positive outcome. Regarding these issues, the study was able to refine the mixed findings in previous research, through the investigation of larger firm- and venture-level samples. The obtained results imply that the distance between the venture and the current business of the firm, in terms of products and technologies, is unimportant for venture outcome. However, a small negative effect of market uncertainty, in turn related to market development distance, was confirmed. / QC 20100820

Diss., Linköping : Univ., 2002.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2004. / Härtill även författarnas lic.avh.: Ekonomistyrning och förbättringsarbete. 2000. - 204 s.