Current life cycle assessment tools are often deficient in assisting design for sustainable manufacturing efforts. Integrating an improved assessment method into a decision support framework will provide a means for designers and engineers to better understand the impacts of their decisions. A unit process modeling-based sustainability assessment method is presented to assist design decision making by accounting for and quantifying economic, environmental, and social attributes. A set of these sustainability metrics is defined as a basis for comparison of component design alternatives. The method is demonstrated using two titanium component production alternatives that represent typical design for manufacturing scenarios. The modeling method significantly increases the resolution of sustainable manufacturing metrics over conventional assessment techniques, and is one aspect of the overall decision support framework developed. Additionally, fixed sum importance weighting, weighted sum modeling, and scenario analysis were selected as easily employed and transparent design decision techniques to provide the remaining elements of the framework. The demonstration of the decision support framework for titanium component manufacturing illustrates that the sequential approach developed can assist engineers in developing more sustainable components and products. / Graduation date: 2012

Interest in accounting for environmental impacts of products, processes, and systems during the design phase is increasing. Numerous studies have undertaken investigations for reducing environmental impacts across the product life cycle. Efforts have also been launched to quantify such impacts more accurately. Life cycle energy consumption and carbon footprint are among the most frequently adopted and investigated environmental performance metrics. As efforts continue to incorporate environmental sustainability into product design, struggles persist in concurrent consideration of environmental impacts resulting from the manufacturing processes and supply chain network design. Thus, the objective of this research is to present a framework for reducing product cradle-to-gate energy consumption and carbon footprint through simultaneous consideration of manufacturing processes and supply chain activities. The framework developed in this thesis relies on unit process modeling, and is demonstrated for production of a bicycle pedal. It is shown that simultaneous consideration of manufacturing and supply chain processes can impact decision-making and improve product environmental sustainability at the design stage. The work presented contributes to the state of the science in sustainable design and manufacturing research. In addition, a point of departure is established for the research community to move current efforts forward for concurrent consideration of multiple stages of the product life cycle in pursuit of environmental, economic, and social sustainability. / Graduation date: 2012

This thesis consists of five individual essays and an introductory chapter. The essays are all in the field of industrial dynamics and more specifically focus on firm entry and exit in Swedish industrial sectors. The essays mainly contribute to the empirical literature on entry and exit. In four of the five essays, panel data methods are used in the empirical investigation. The first essay presents the patterns of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden and studies the importance of different determinants of entry and exit rates in industries. The second essay focuses on the relationship between entry and exit. The third essay has a regional perspective, focusing on regional determinants of entry and exit. It also investigates the importance of the differences in industry structure for differences in entry and exit rates across regions. The fourth chapter uses the theory of product life cycle to investigate how knowledge intensity differs in entering and exiting firms in different stages of the product life cycle. The fifth and last essay focuses on the importance of firm demography, in terms of firm size and age, for the decision to perform process R&D, product R&D or combine process with product R&D.

Reverse Logistics and Environmental Considerations in Equipment Leasing and Asset Management Manu Sharma 151 Pages Directed by Dr. Jane C. Ammons Today many business enterprises employ capital assets in the form of electronic equipment (e.g., personal computers, workstations and peripherals) in large quantities. As a result of rapid technological progress, these products have a very short life cycle, typically not much more than three or four years. Unfortunately, the disposal of electronic equipment (which contains hazardous materials) presents an environmental problem. In the face of rapid equipment changes, current tax laws and disposal challenges, leasing or procurement contracts with take-back considerations are attractive. For a large electronic equipment leasing company, optimal management of assets supported by good logistics decisions is crucial and may provide a significant competitive advantage. The leasing company tries to maximize operating profits through key decisions associated with the length of leases, efficient utilization of logistics facilities for material flow to and from customer sites, and equipment reuse, refurbishment and disposal actions. In this research, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed to facilitate better decisions from the perspective of an electronic equipment leasing company. The model reduces to a linear program (LP) under certain cost assumptions. All computational results are based on the LP version of the model. A case study with representative industry data validates the approach and demonstrates the utility of the model in answering key research questions. Next, important problem uncertainties are identified and prioritized. The effects of these key uncertainties on optimal lease length and product flow decisions are examined in detail via an extended case study. It is also shown how the leasing company can make near-robust leasing decisions in the face of these uncertainties. The computational research results also have implications for policy formulation on electronic waste. The important insights include an understanding of the potential impacts and expected effectiveness of alternative environmental legislation in different geographic areas, and the imposition of negative externalities on other policy realms as a result of this non-uniform approach. Therefore, this research contributes new models and understanding to the intersection of the fields of reverse logistics and equipment replacement, and provides valuable insights to both business asset managers and environmental policy makers.

台灣許多大型企業，過去都是靠國外客戶之OEM訂單起家，雖有部分廠商後來成功走向自有品牌路線，但目前仍有很多代工廠商的主要業務是接OEM/ODM訂單，近年來，許多顧客開始推動減少供應商數，代工條件或合作關係較差的代工廠商逐漸被淘汰。以往有不少對顧客關係管理(CRM)的相關文獻，但談的多數是一般企業或品牌商對大眾客戶(B2C)的顧客關係管理議題。關鍵顧客管理的相關研究雖然已經發展40年，但過去的研究多數是觀察國外廠商或屬較大型廠商的關鍵顧客管理。目前國內代工廠商或工業行銷的關鍵顧客管理之相關文獻有限，針對中小型代工產業的研究更是少之又少。根據資策會2011年的研究報告，台灣中小企業家數約為123萬5千家，佔總體企業家數的97.7%。台灣中小企業也是台灣經濟發展的主力。因此本研究著重在探討顧客之間可能存在利益衝突的國內屬較中型代工廠商如何實施其B2B關鍵顧客管理，另外也會探討影響關鍵顧客管理的相關因素。 本研究透過質化個案研究方法去深入訪談一家辦公室電子設備的代工廠，從訪談結果和過去文獻中找出關鍵顧客管理的方法架構和相關理論。而影響關鍵顧客管理的因素可以被歸納為顧客型態、海外擴展策略、競爭優勢和產品生命週期。歸納分析結果後本研究做出以下論述：(一)代工廠商的關鍵顧客之認定方法以營業額為主，其次才考量利潤、(二)關鍵顧客的移轉成本、對關係的承諾和目標的一致性影響代工廠商經營關鍵顧客的策略、(三)代工廠商的競爭優勢影響其對關鍵顧客的議價能力、(四)顧客大小及議價能力能使代工廠商對其關鍵顧客管理上做組織等變化、(五)代工廠商的海外發展策略主要以已開發國家但會以產品差異化避免與關鍵顧客之間發生直接性競爭或衝突、(六) 各種型態顧客在產品生命週期的不同階段其關鍵顧客管理上有所不同。 本研究根據分析結果、實務觀察並與既有的相關論文做相互的對應，以提供代工廠商在工業行銷導入關鍵客戶管理的做法和應注意的事項。導入關鍵顧客管理不但能有效應用公司資源、加強與顧客的關係並帶來更高的獲利，也能避免與關鍵顧客之間的利益衝突。但建議代工廠商得注意不要因為長期依頼少數關鍵顧客的訂單而忽略了顧客營業額過於集中的風險且受阻於發展自有品牌。 / There were many Taiwanese companies in the past grew and thrived relied on foreign OEM customers. Although some of the companies later launch successfully their own brand, but so far there are still many contract manufacturers whose main business model is OEM/ODM. Recently, there are many customers starting to reduce their supplier number, contract manufacturer with bad capability or relationship is eliminated gradually. There were a lot customer relationship management (CRM) related paper in the past, but mostly discussed about business to customer (B2C) CRM topics. Although Key Account Management related research had been developing for 40 years, but most of the past researches are dedicated to key account management of foreign or big size company. At present, related paper about key account management of domestic contract manufacturer or industry manufacturing is limited and research focus on medium or small size contract manufacturer is very few. According to 2011 research report, there are 1.235 million small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) that occupied 97.7% of total companies in Taiwan. SMEs are also main force for Taiwan economic development. Therefore, this research focus on studying how Taiwan medium size contract manufacturer whose customers may have interest conflict implement its B2B key account management and also explore related factors that influence key account management. This research uses quality approach case study method by applying depth-interview to a contract manufacturer of office appliance electronic equipment, explore key account management approach and related theory through interview result and past literacy review. And factors that influence key account management could be concluded as customer type, foreign expansion strategy, competitive advantage and product life cycle. The findings conclude that (1) Contract manufacturer identify the key account primarily based on sales amount, secondary consideration on margin, (2) Switching cost, relationship commitment and goal congruence influence contract manufacturer strategy on managing the key account, (3) Competitive Advantage of contract manufacturer influence its bargaining power over its key account, (4) Customer size, bargaining power may let contract manufacturer adjust its organizational structure and make other changes, (5) Foreign expansion strategy of contract manufacturer is mainly targeting developed countries but will differentiate its product to avoid direct competition or conflict among its customers, (6) Key account management among different customer type varies among each stage of product life cycle. This research bases on analysis result, practical observation and mutual corresponding suggest how and what factors should be considerated when contract manufacturer applying key account management approach on industry marketing. Applying key account management is not only allocating company resources effectively, enhance customer relationship that bring further profit, but also avoid conflict or direct competition among the key accounts, but this research suggest that contract manufacturer should not because of relying on few key accounts for long term then neglect the risk of concentrating sales amount and have difficulty in developing own brand business.

Modern aerospace systems rely heavily on legacy platforms and their derivatives. Historical examples show that after a vehicle design is frozen and delivered to a customer, successive upgrades are often made to fulfill changing requirements. Current practices of adapting to emerging needs with derivative designs, retrofits, and upgrades are often reactive and ad-hoc, resulting in performance and cost penalties. Recent DoD acquisition policies have addressed this problem by establishing a general paradigm for design for lifelong evolution. However, there is a need for a unified, practical design approach that considers the lifetime evolution of an aircraft concept by incorporating future requirements and technologies. This research proposes a systematic approach with which the decision makers can evaluate the value and risk of a new aircraft development program, including potential derivative development opportunities. The proposed Evaluation of Lifelong Vehicle Evolution (EvoLVE) method is a two- or multi-stage representation of the aircraft design process that accommodates initial development phases as well as follow-on phases. One of the key elements of this method is the Stochastic Programming with Recourse (SPR) technique, which accounts for uncertainties associated with future requirements. The remedial approach of SPR in its two distinctive problem-solving steps is well suited to aircraft design problems where derivatives, retrofits, and upgrades have been used to fix designs that were once but no longer optimal. The solution approach of SPR is complemented by the Risk-Averse Strategy Selection (RASS) technique to gauge risk associated with vehicle evolution options. In the absence of a full description of the random space, a scenario-based approach captures the randomness with a few probable scenarios and reveals implications of different future events. Last, an interactive framework for decision-making support allows simultaneous navigation of the current and future design space with a greater degree of freedom. A cantilevered beam design problem was set up and solved using the SPR technique to showcase its application to an engineering design setting. The full EvoLVE method was conducted on a notional multi-role fighter based on the F/A-18 Hornet.

L’émergence des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) au début des années 1990, notamment internet, a permis de produire facilement des données et de les diffuser au reste du monde. L’essor des bases de données, le développement des outils applicatifs et la réduction des coûts de stockage ont conduit à l’augmentation quasi exponentielle des quantités de données au sein de l’entreprise. Plus les données sont volumineuses, plus la quantité d’interrelations entre données augmente. Le grand nombre de corrélations (visibles ou cachées) entre données rend les données plus entrelacées et complexes. Les données sont aussi plus hétérogènes, car elles peuvent venir de plusieurs sources et exister dans de nombreux formats (texte, image, audio, vidéo, etc.) ou à différents degrés de structuration (structurées, semi-structurées, non-structurées). Les systèmes d’information des entreprises actuelles contiennent des données qui sont plus massives, complexes et hétérogènes. L’augmentation de la complexité, la globalisation et le travail collaboratif font qu’un projet industriel (conception de produit) demande la participation et la collaboration d’acteurs qui viennent de plusieurs domaines et de lieux de travail. Afin d’assurer la qualité des données, d’éviter les redondances et les dysfonctionnements des flux de données, tous les acteurs doivent travailler sur un référentiel commun partagé. Dans cet environnement de multi-utilisation de données, chaque utilisateur introduit son propre point de vue quand il ajoute de nouvelles données et informations techniques. Les données peuvent soit avoir des dénominations différentes, soit ne pas avoir des provenances vérifiables. Par conséquent, ces données sont difficilement interprétées et accessibles aux autres acteurs. Elles restent inexploitées ou non exploitées au maximum afin de pouvoir les partager et/ou les réutiliser. L’accès aux données (ou la recherche de données), par définition est le processus d’extraction des informations à partir d’une base de données en utilisant des requêtes, pour répondre à une question spécifique. L’extraction des informations est une fonction indispensable pour tout système d’information. Cependant, cette dernière n’est jamais facile car elle représente toujours un goulot majeur d’étranglement pour toutes les organisations (Soylu et al. 2013). Dans l’environnement de données complexes, hétérogènes et de multi-utilisation de données, fournir à tous les utilisateurs un accès facile et simple aux données devient plus difficile pour deux raisons : - Le manque de compétences techniques. Pour formuler informatiquement une requête complexe (les requêtes conjonctives), l’utilisateur doit connaitre la structuration de données, c’est-à-dire la façon dont les données sont organisées et stockées dans la base de données. Quand les données sont volumineuses et complexes, ce n’est pas facile d’avoir une compréhension approfondie sur toutes les dépendances et interrelations entre données, même pour les techniciens du système d’information. De plus, cette compréhension n’est pas forcément liée au savoir et savoir-faire du domaine et il est donc, très rare que les utilisateurs finaux possèdent les compétences suffisantes. - Différents points de vue des utilisateurs. Dans l’environnement de multi-utilisation de données, chaque utilisateur introduit son propre point de vue quand il ajoute des nouvelles données et informations techniques. Les données peuvent être nommées de manières très différentes et les provenances de données ne sont pas suffisamment fournies. / The emergence of Information and Comunication Technologies (ICT) in the early 1990s, especially the Internet, made it easy to produce data and disseminate it to the rest of the world. The strength of new Database Management System (DBMS) and the reduction of storage costs have led to an exponential increase of volume data within entreprise information system. The large number of correlations (visible or hidden) between data makes them more intertwined and complex. The data are also heterogeneous, as they can come from many sources and exist in many formats (text, image, audio, video, etc.) or at different levels of structuring (structured, semi-structured, unstructured). All companies now have to face with data sources that are more and more massive, complex and heterogeneous.technical information. The data may either have different denominations or may not have verifiable provenances. Consequently, these data are difficult to interpret and accessible by other actors. They remain unexploited or not maximally exploited for the purpose of sharing and reuse. Data access (or data querying), by definition, is the process of extracting information from a database using queries to answer a specific question. Extracting information is an indispensable function for any information system. However, the latter is never easy but it always represents a major bottleneck for all organizations (Soylu et al. 2013). In the environment of multiuse of complex and heterogeneous, providing all users with easy and simple access to data becomes more difficult for two reasons : - Lack of technical skills : In order to correctly formulate a query a user must know the structure of data, ie how the data is organized and stored in the database. When data is large and complex, it is not easy to have a thorough understanding of all the dependencies and interrelationships between data, even for information system technicians. Moreover, this understanding is not necessarily linked to the domain competences and it is therefore very rare that end users have sufficient theses such skills. - Different user perspectives : In the multi-use environment, each user introduces their own point of view when adding new data and technical information. Data can be namedin very different ways and data provenances are not sufficiently recorded. Consequently, they become difficultly interpretable and accessible by other actors since they do not have sufficient understanding of data semantics. The thesis work presented in this manuscript aims to improve the multi-use of complex and heterogeneous data by expert usiness actors by providing them with a semantic and visual access to the data. We find that, although the initial design of the databases has taken into account the logic of the domain (using the entity-association model for example), it is common practice to modify this design in order to adapt specific techniques needs. As a result, the final design is often a form that diverges from the original conceptual structure and there is a clear distinction between the technical knowledge needed to extract data and the knowledge that the expert actors have to interpret, process and produce data (Soylu et al. 2013). Based on bibliographical studies about data management tools, knowledge representation, visualization techniques and Semantic Web technologies (Berners-Lee et al. 2001), etc., in order to provide an easy data access to different expert actors, we propose to use a comprehensive and declarative representation of the data that is semantic, conceptual and integrates domain knowledge closeed to expert actors.

Det är inte längre bara ekonomiska faktorer som bidrar till ett företags långsiktiga framgång, utan numera blir också sociala och miljömässiga faktorer allt mer påtagliga. För dagens moderna konsumenter blir hållbarhet ett mer centralt kriterium och allt fler anser att det är viktigt att företag arbetar aktivt med hållbarhetsfrågor. Produkter är en essentiell del i företags arbete med hållbarhet och de förväntas inte bara att skapa produkter som bidrar med nytt värde, utan de förväntas även göra detta på ett hållbart sätt. En övervägande del av produktens nivå av hållbarhet bestäms i produktutvecklingen, då dennes attribut i stort sett är fixerade när den är klar för produktionslinjen. Detta innebär att det är av central vikt att integrera hållbarhet redan i produktutvecklingen.   Denna studie kommer att fokusera på hållbar produktutveckling, där vi kommer ta en bred och okonventionell ansats genom att titta på designbeslut kopplat till produktlivscykeln, tillsammans med interna förutsättningar för utvecklingen av hållbara produkter, samt hållbara innovationer. Detta kommer sedan att appliceras i den svenska båtindustrin, vilket dels är en bransch vi är intresserade av och dels är en bransch där hållbarhet blir alltmer aktuellt. Det teoretiska ramverket är grundpelaren i studien och vår intention är att bidra med större förståelse för hur dessa teorier kan associeras med det som faktiskt sker i branschen idag. Vårt syfte är således att undersöka på vilket sätt och till vilken grad företag inom den svenska båtindustrin implementerar hållbarhet vid utvecklingen av nya båtar. Studien syftar vidare att fylla luckan gällande hållbar produktutveckling i den svenska båtindustrin, då detta är outforskat i dagsläget. Studien syftar även på att ge en mer sammansvetsad bild av hållbar produktutveckling och bidra med ett bredare perspektiv än enbart de individuella ämnesdelarna.    För att uppfylla syftet har vi genomfört en kvalitativ studie, där vi genom sex stycken djupgående semistrukturerade intervjuer med ledare av svenska båtföretag har skapat oss en god inblick i hållbarhetens roll vid utvecklingen av nya båtar. Studien har präglats av ett deduktivt angreppssätt där vi har varit teoridrivna, samt att vi subjektivt har försökt att tolka och förstå informanternas syn och ageranden gällande hållbar produktutveckling i branschen. För att analysera det empiriska materialet har en tematisk analys använts, och det resulterade i att våra tre huvudämnen även bildade de tre huvudtemana.    Utifrån studiens resultat kan vi konstatera att hållbarhet i dagsläget inte har en övervägande roll vid designen och utvecklingen av nya båtar inom den svenska båtindustrin. Vissa delar av produktlivscykeln ser ljusa ut från ett hållbarhetsperspektiv, men det finns mer att göra i framtiden för att cykeln ska vara fullt ut optimerad. Rådande interna förutsättningar finns det också ljusglimtar när det kommer till hållbarhetsaspekter, men även här finns det stor utvecklingspotential för framtiden. Företagens innovationsarbete när det gäller hållbarhet präglas till stor del av försiktighet, vilket förmodligen lämpar sig bäst för marknaden i dagsläget. Marknadskraven på hållbarhet förväntas dock öka i framtiden och i takt med att företagen ser det som en affärsmöjlighet kommer förändringar mycket troligt att ske i deras innovationsarbete.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissMXS.pdf: 2882142 bytes, checksum: 73132e53eca9b9f289933dbbeab4e511 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-06-15 / To choose the right projects, to develop them fast, achieving high quality patterns, and respecting the costs pressures. These are no questionable demands in the actual market conditions. The utilization of Product Development Processes and Portfolio Management are some of the main manners to achieve these goals. The Product Development Process adopted in a specific organization should be essentially aligned with the product-life-cycle. In addition, companies need to evaluate and make decisions on the products / projects based in an overall view provided by the Portfolio Management systematics and tools. This research focuses in these issues. The main objective is to analyze the integration between the Product Development Process and the Portfolio Management in a company from the automotive industry aimed at identifying the best practices and improving opportunities. The research methodology is the realization of a literature review followed by a case-study. The main result is the proposal of a Portfolio decision model, and the realization of a case-study based on this model proposal. The main contribution is to detail the Portfolio decisions, based in a PDP model, along the product-life-cycle. / Escolher os produtos corretos e desenvolver estes produtos rapidamente, atingindo exigentes padrões de qualidade e respeitando pressões por redução de custos, são demandas comuns nas atuais condições de mercado. Uma das principais maneiras nas organizações para atingir estes objetivos é a utilização de Processos de Desenvolvimento de Produtos (PDP) e de Gestão de Portfólio (GP). É essencial que o PDP adotado em uma determinada empresa esteja alinhado ao ciclo de vida de produto. Adicionalmente, deve-se avaliar e decidir sobre os produtos / projetos conjuntamente por meio da Gestão de Portfólio e da aplicação de suas ferramentas. Esta pesquisa trata destas questões, tendo como objetivo geral analisar a integração entre a GP e o PDP numa empresa de autopeças e procurando identificar algumas das principais potencialidades e oportunidades de melhoria. O método utilizado para realização da pesquisa foi uma revisão de literatura sobre os temas mencionados, seguido de um estudo de caso em uma empresa do setor de automotivo. O principal resultado é a apresentação de uma proposta de modelo de decisão de Portfólio elaborada a partir da revisão bibliográfica, realizando-se o estudo de caso com base em tal proposta. A principal contribuição do trabalho é o detalhamento das decisões de Portfólio que são tomadas, com base em um modelo de PDP, ao longo do ciclo de vida de produto.

Product life cycle (PLC) is the cycle which every product goes through from introduction to eventual demise. There are several issues with the current life cycle of a product when looked from the environmental impact perspective. These are: 1) depletion of natural resources due to the use of virgin materials for production, 2) Consumption of substantial amounts of energy during manufacturing, assembly and use, and 3) production of large amounts of waste during the lifecycle including those at the End of Life (EoL) phase. These issues impact resource scarcity, adverse effects on the environment and loss of embodied energy as waste. Some of the potential solutions to these issues, as proposed in literature, are: to recycle, reuse and remanufacture products in order to reclaim materials, components and sub-assemblies from used products and make them available for new products. In order to efficiently carry out these recovery processes, a pre-requisite is disassembly. Product disassembly is defined as the processes of systematic removal of desirable constitute parts from an assembly while ensuring that there is no impairment of the parts due to the disassembly process. The following are the major research issues in the field of disassembly. One is the conflict between environmental and economic goals, i.e. as to which should be targeted at in disassembly objectives. These conflicts lead to abandoning non-destructive disassembly techniques so as to favour the profit objective. The other issues, prevalent during EoL phase, are: corrosion due to use, less residual value in the parts, complicated structure and intricacy in parts, which together make non-destructive disassembly a task difficult for automation. This means that disassembly processes have to be carried out by human operators. The manual disassembly processes are effort intensive and pose ergonomic risks to the human operators involved in disassembling. The nature of ergonomic risks and effort spent in disassembly is influenced by the efficiency of disassembly operation. However, little research has been carried out to address the above factors of effort, profit, efficiency, environment and ergonomic risk during disassembly in an integrated manner. These factors form the major motivations for the research work carried out in this thesis. A series of empirical studies have been undertaken to assess these factors and their impact on product disassembly. The studies focus on disassembly processes for consumer electronic products in two major recycling sectors in developing countries, leading to development of metrics with which the above factors can be assessed individually and traded off in an integrated manner during the early design stages of a product. These metrics should help designers understand and improve the major disassembly aspects of a product during designing and help prevent major disassembly problems at the EoL phase while improving efficiency of recovery options. The objective of this thesis, therefore, is to develop an Integrated Framework for supporting decision making during early stages of design to improve disassembly during the EoL phase of the product. The framework is intended to help in evaluating alternative designs for easy (less effort), profitable, efficient and environment-friendly disassembly at the EoL phase of the product life cycle. The Framework constitutes new measures developed for supporting decision making on above aspects of disassembly during the early stage of designing. The Framework has been implemented into a computer based tool called ‘IdeAssemble’ and evaluated for its functionality with the help of a design experiment. The tool can be used at the embodiment stage of the design phase, when on an exploded view of the product, with information on its materials, geometry, disassembly tools and types of disassembly task are available to the designer.