In this thesis the Third-Party Logistics (3PL) partnership between the Japanese trading company Gadelius and the European logistics provider Mahé is investigated. This was done as a case study, mainly taking place on location at Gadelius’ headquarter in Tokyo. The purpose has been to identify and evaluate the fulfilment of initial objectives, both with respect to agreed on terms and expectations of each party, analyze the reasons behind result and provide recommendations for the future. In terms of what is strictly defined and agreed on in the contract the partnership is principally fulfilled, but this setup is not good in terms of how full 3PL-effects could be achieved. The not so strictly defined parts of the contract stating that Mahé should work proactively are however not fulfilled to the same degree. This is connected to the lack of a dedicated Mahé representative being integrated into the OtD-team at Gadelius. Because of this Gadelius’, to begin with very high, expectations on effects have become unrealistic, which has contributed to bad sentiments against Mahé and their capabilities. This has further been enhanced by Key Performance Indicators that don’t fully match the essential objectives with the partnership. To change the situation two possible ways for the future are presented. If Gadelius’ focus is on indirect cost reductions an expanded partnership should be chosen, while a focus on direct cost reductions and a need for an easier change implementation call for a more limited partnership. For both alternatives new ways for measuring performance are suggested.

In economically turbulent times, Business Intelligence (BI) is increasingly being used to mitigate risk and increase certainty. The evolution of BI from a series of technologies to a platform for supporting strategies is analyzed in this thesis. The concentration is on how BI can streamline manufacturing, quality assurance, marketing and customer service are evaluated, as are the potential payoffs of increasing the level of insight an organization has. The thesis also includes analysis of how the more complex value chain processes including build-to-order, configure-to-order and quote-to-order can be made more efficient and profitable through the inclusion of BI and its associated analytics and technologies. The inclusion of the Delphi research technique makes this paper unique and strong in its content as well. The role of BI has shifted from being used in specific functional areas of an organization to being strategic in scope. The intent of this thesis is to evaluate its contributions to the customer-facing processes that are the most complex and most challenging to sustain, making BI an indispensible platform for their successful execution on the base of theories and practical experience of the BI experts.

Cette thèse présente deux contributions. La première contribution consiste en l’étude des métriques de performance permettant de superviser l’activité des serveurs physiques et des machines virtuelles s’exécutant sur les hyperviseurs VMware et KVM. Cette étude met en avant les compteurs clés et propose des analyses avancées dans l’objectif de détecter ou prévenir d’anomalies liées aux quatreres sources principales d’un centre de données : le processeur, la mémoire, le disque et le réseau. La seconde contribution porte sur un outil pour la détection de machines virtuelles à comportements pré-déterminés et/ou atypiques. La détection de ces machines virtuelles à plusieurs objectifs. Le premier, permettre d’optimiser l’utilisation des ressources matérielles en libérant des ressources par la suppression de machines virtuelles inutiles ou en les redimensionnant. Le second, optimiser le fonctionnement de l’infrastructure en détectant les machines sous-dimensionnées, surchargées ou ayant une activité différente des autres machines virtuelles de l’infrastructure. / This thesis presents two contributions. The first contribution is the study of key performance indicators to monitor physical and virtual machines activity running on VMware and KVM hypervisors. This study highlights performance metrics and provides advanced analysis with the aim to prevent or detect abnormalities related to the four main resources of a datacenter: CPU, memory, disk and network. Thesecond contribution relates to a tool for virtual machines with pre-determined and / or atypical behaviors detection. The detection of these virtual machines has several objectives. First, optimize the use of hardware resources by freeing up resources by removing unnecessary virtual machines or by resizing those oversized. Second, optimize infrastructure performance by detecting undersized or overworked virtual machines and those having an atypical activity.

This thesis addresses issues of measuring and managing the performance of commercial bank institutions by means of a system called Corporate Performance Management (CPM). The theoretical part of this work is devoted to introduction of banking industry and methods of performance measurement in commercial banks. It introduces a general concept and key components of CPM supported by Business Intelligence technology. In the practical part of this work there is introduced the design of two concrete CPM solutions which are being currently built in banks -- KPI processing and interest margin calculation. The main thesis contribution to the existing literature is a creation of complex material about relevant aspects of implementation CPM solutions in data warehouses of commercial banks and creation the conceptual design of a concrete solution.

This thesis is focused on Master Data Management (MDM), Customer Data Integration (CDI) area and its main domains. It is also a reference to a various theoretical directions that can be found in this area of expertise. It summarizes main aspects, domains and presents different perspectives to referenced principles. It is an exhaustive background research in area of Master Data Management with emphasis on practical use with references on authors experience and opinions. Secondary focus is directed to the field of business value of Master Data Management initiatives. Thesis presents a thought concept for initiations of MDM project. The reason for such a concept is based on current trend, where companies are struggling to determine actual benefits of MDM initiatives. There is overall accord on the subject of necessity of such initiatives, but the struggle is in area of determining actual measureable impact on company's revenue or profit. Since the MDM initiative is more of an enabling function, rather than direct revenue function, the benefit is less straight forward and therefore harder to determine. This work describes different layers and mapping of business requirements through layers for transparent linkage between enabling functions to revenue generating ones. The emphasis is given to financial benefit calculation, measurability and responsibility of business and IT departments. To underline certain conclusions thesis also presents real world interviews with possible stakeholders of MDM initiative within the company. These representatives were selected as key drivers for such an initiative. Interviews map their recognition of MDM and related terms. It also focus on their reasons and expectations from MDM. The representatives were also selected to equally represent business and IT departments, which presents interesting clash of views and expectations.

The web and mobile web traffic is growing rapidly due to service accessibility in densely populated areas and massive usage of smart hand held devices (smartphones, pads and Internet dongles). This is a challenge for mobile operators and service providers, because it forces systematically increasing network throughput capacity and in parallel to keep this investment on profitable basis. On the other side, the user satisfaction with mobile broadband service should be considered as well, in order to balance the user expectations and mobile operator investments. Our work provides extensive QoE study for different conditions in sense of mobile web service, web content, network conditions and end user device. Finally, the obtained results create basis for more dimensional overview of mobile web QoE and allow to recognize quality and saturation thresholds based on network parameters. Further, obtained data provide base for design three prediction models for prediction of MOS (one for notebook, one for mobile device) and acceptability.

Monitoring key performance indicators (KPI) give practitioners immersive experience that is priceless when it comes to decision making and performance-enhancing in software companies. Used together with different tools that enable visualization of KPIs, users obtain big advantages that enable quick troubleshooting and detections of errors that could emerge in a product or a system. Many studies have been followed out in the field of data visualization using KPIs and digital dashboards. Still, the subject of KPIs providing valuable information to companies that are developing HR and payroll systems is relatively unexplored. The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate how essential KPIs should be visualized on a digital dashboard using a case company that focuses on developing HR and payroll systems. To investigate the phenomenon, five different interviews were conducted, and a digital dashboard was developed. The interviewees that participated in the empiric data collection were employees stationed in different teams with various authorities and experiences in the field of dashboards and KPIs. Previous works in the field of data visualization indicates that KPIs can be used and presented in various ways. When presenting KPIs on a dashboard, there are different factors that are of big influence of how successful the visualization gets. There are no complete templates on how KPIs should be visualized, however there are guidelines on how a dashboard could be shaped. Something that previous works and different interviewees in the present study agreed on was that a dashboard should consist of 4 to 8 KPIs. Too many KPIs can decrease the chance of obtaining the advantages that monitoring and visualizing KPIs on a digital dashboard can bring. Something that emerged from the study is the importance of first identify what to visualize and then implement how. Among the answers during the data collection, many interviewees found the number of users that were logged in on their products as something that would be useful to monitor. The reason for this was partly that the interviewees considered that by monitoring these numbers, it could increase the pride among the colleagues. The interviewees thought that it might boost morale among the employees if they visualized the many users of the products they are developing. / Genom att övervaka nyckeltal (KPIer) kan användare erhålla fördelar som är ovärderliga när det gäller beslutsfattande och prestandaförbättring hos mjukvaruföretag. Tillsammans med olika verktyg som möjliggör visualisering av KPIer får användare stora fördelar som gör det möjligt att snabbt upptäcka fel som kan uppstå i en produkt eller i ett system. Många studier berör ämnet datavisualisering och digitala instrumentpaneler. Trots det här är ämnet KPIer, specifikt de som ger värdefull information till företag som utvecklar HR- och lönesystem outforskat. Syftet med den här studien har varit att undersöka hur viktiga KPIer bör visualiseras på en digital instrumentpanel hos ett företag som fokuserar på att utveckla HR- och lönesystem. För att undersöka fenomenet genomfördes fem olika intervjuer. En digital instrumentpanel utvecklades även som ett komplement till att svara på forskningsfrågan utifrån tidigare forskning och de empiriska resultat som framkom under studiens gång. Informanterna som deltog i den empiriska datainsamlingen var anställda på ett fallföretag och stationerade i olika utvecklingsteam. Informanterna hade sedan tidigare olika erfarenheter av att använda instrumentpaneler och KPIer. Tidigare studier inom datavisualisering indikerar att KPIer kan användas och visualiseras på olika sätt. När KPIer presenteras på en instrumentpanel finns det olika faktorer som har stort inflytande på hur framgångsrik visualiseringen blir. Det finns inga kompletta mallar för hur KPIer ska visualiseras men det finns riktlinjer för hur en instrumentpanel kan utformas. Något som tidigare studier samt informanterna i den här studien enades om var att en instrumentpanel bör bestå av ett antal mellan fyra och åtta KPIer. Genom att använda för många KPIer så minskar chansen att få de fördelar som övervakning och visualisering av KPIer på en digital instrumentpanel kan ge. Något som den här studien belyser är vikten av att först identifiera vad som ska visualiseras för att sedan implementera hur. En av flera KPIer som ansågs värdefulla för informanterna var antalet användare som var inloggade i deras produkt. Anledningen till det här var delvis att informanterna ansåg att övervakning av användare skulle skapa ökad stolthet bland kollegorna på kontoret.

The green supply chain concept occurs to mitigate environmental degradations and controlair, water and waste pollution through the adoption of green practices in manufacturing andbusiness operations. The essential ideology behind green concept is to enhance environmental sustainability. This can be through some reviews which can be done on some previous studies, articles or /and papers which includes within its concept caring about the environmental issues. Since the environmental issues are increasing concerning the green supply chain a researchabout the actual supply chain performance and its greening in an integrated environmental management system (EMS) is required to be done. This will be shown in this research. As well as the SC is shown to be driven to ISO 14001 to meet the requirements of life cycle incombination with design and development. A modified model of EMS is suggested aftergreening the SC. It is of great importance to green the SC to come till the objective of this thesis. That is tosatisfy the customer by greening the SC and to modify an EMS which includes practisinggreening the supply chain (SC), certain themes should be studied. Firstly, description of someconcepts related to the topic of this research will be forwarded. The definitions of the SC, SCM and how together they integrate in environmental thinking will be clarified in the first hand.This will simplify the comprehensive of greening SC/SCM in an EMS. The green supply chain(GSC) can reduce the environmental pollution and production costs and it can also balance theeconomic process, create competitive advantage in terms of greater customer satisfaction, positive image and reputation. In this research the SC is also to be driven to ISO 14001, the standardization regarding theenvironmental issues and its impact management. It is valuable also to mention and not to forgetthat, as general nowadays, the increase in industry greenhouse emission are considered as aserious matter that may raise the taxes regarding the emission of more carbon dioxide, whichin turn affects the environmental impacts measure. Sweden depends on the natural resourcesand is the leading producer of ores and metals such as zinc, copper andlead. People also depend on the lakes for water so there must be certain means for a continuousimprovement, a decreasing and not an increasing in the environmental impacts which may leadto pollution and contamination. This comes to reality when an environmentally friendly inputsare utilized and transformed into outputs that can be reclaimed and re-used at the end of theirlife cycle thus creating a sustainable supply chain, considering the manufacturing process from product design development, material selection, delivery to the end the life cycle managementafter the product’s useful life. Through the review of 33 papers/studies, four of these reviews are explained and will be justified here in this research. It will be shown clearly and actually that the questions of thisresearch will get an answer and the objective will be met. In another words this research focuseson the green SC with respect to product life cycle and the design development which will beshown to be a key to customer’s satisfaction. SC performance measure; i.e. quality, delivery,cost and flexibility play an essential role on that. This will be shown when an EMS is structured keeping the basis of ISO 14001 (can be the latest version: 2015). The methodology followed is the collection of data from the papers and studies, analysis oftheir results, observations of their conclusions and the comparison of the similarity and contrast of their contributions. Extra conclusion to the conclusions of the papers can be added if found. Some recommendation is given for future studies so as a continuous gain obtained while developing the studies.

Automotive SPICE is used to evaluate the efficiency of the development processes for OEMs and ECU suppliers. It is a domain specific version of SPICE. Many automotive manufacturers are demanding Automotive SPICE level 2 from their suppliers. Application life cycle management solutions specific to automotive industry focus more on standardisation yet providing very little information about performance of processes. This thesis shows how Business Intelligence (BI) solutions can be helpful in achieving Automotive SPICE level 2 compliance and as comprehensive reporting tools. Moreover the evaluation of approaches for implementation of different BI systems has shown that commercial solutions can be beneficial for small to medium size suppliers. Implementing a BI solution can also point out possible improvement opportunities and bad practices for an organisation. The implemented BI system can only be efficient and useful if the underlying data is accurate and responsive.

When procuring a solar PV park in Sweden there are many stakeholders involved. As of today, the metric called performance ratio (PR) is often used to guarantee the park’s performance. Nonetheless, comprehending and evaluating PR can be challenging due to its inherent complexity. This study highlights favorable and unfavorable aspects of using PR as a performance metric in solar park procurements in Sweden. The study analyzes the correlation between PR, yield, and revenue, indicating a weak correlation between PR and yield. Findings show that lower values of PR often correspond to a higher yield, this suggests that PR is not a reliable metric for assessing the performance of a solar park. In addition, it may lead to negative implications for stakeholders involved in both procurement and operation of a solar park Relying solely on PR can potentially result in financial losses.  Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was conducted with a focus on inverter loss and DC/AC ratio. Results illustrate that PR and inverter loss are strongly correlated for a park with a high DC/AC ratio, and they have a weaker correlation for a park with low a DC/AC ratio. This is due to increased inverter loss resulting from clipping losses in the system. The study suggests that a desirable DC/AC ratio of 1,15 maximizes yield and profit. In conclusion, while PR exhibits lower variation and can entail lower risk for Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) companies, it is not always a reliable metric for assessing park performance. The weak correlation between PR and yield, as well as revenue, has implications for developers and investors. The study suggests that a lower DC/AC ratio may reduce the risk for EPCs guaranteeing PR, but decisions based solely on PR may not guarantee the highest revenue for investors and developers. / När en solcellspark upphandlas är flera olika intressenter involverade. I dagsläget används ett prestandamått som kallas performance ratio (PR) för att garantera parkens prestanda. Däremot är PR ett svårt mått att förstå och förutse på grund av dess komplexitet. Den här studien belyser gynnsamma samt ogynnsamma aspekter av att använda PR som ett prestandamått i upphandlingar av solparker i Sverige. Studien analyserar sambandet mellan PR, yield (normaliserad produktion), normaliserad yield och intäkter. Studien visar på ett svagt samband mellan PR och yield. Resultaten visar att lägre värden av PR ofta korrelerar med högre yield, vilket antyder att PR inte är ett tillförlitligt mått för att bedöma en solparks prestanda. Dessutom kan det bli konsekvenser för intressenter som är involverade i både upphandling och drift av en solpark. Att enbart förlita sig på PR kan potentiellt leda till ekonomiska förluster. Vidare genomfördes en känslighetsanalys med fokus på växelriktarförluster och DC/AC förhållandet. Resultaten visar att PR och växelriktarförluster har en stark korrelation för en park med högt DC/AC-förhållande, medan de har en svagare korrelation för en park med lågt DC/AC-förhållande. Detta beror på ökade växelriktarförluster till följd av clipping loss i systemet. Studien föreslår att ett önskvärt DC/AC-förhållande på 1,15 maximerar yield och vinst. Sammanfattningsvis, normaliserad yield bedömdes inte vara ett bra alternativ för PR och yield i upphandlingar. Studien visar att medan PR uppvisar lägre variation och kan innebära lägre risk för EPC-företag, är det inte alltid ett tillförlitligt mått för att bedöma en parks prestanda. Det svaga sambandet mellan PR och yield, liksom intäkter, får konsekvenser för utvecklare och investerare. Studien föreslår att ett lägre DC/AC-förhållande kan minska risken för EPC-företag som garanterar PR, men beslut som enbart baseras på PR kan inte garantera högsta intäkter för investerare och utvecklare.