| 1. |
- Berggren, Christian, 1950-, et al.
(författare)
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The integrator's new advantage - The reassessment of outsourcing and production competence in a global telecom firm
- 2008
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Ingår i: European Management Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 0263-2373 .- 1873-5681. ; 26:5, s. 314-324
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For a long time, the telecom equipment industry has been at the forefront of outsourcing and relocating production operations to contract manufacturing firms located in Asia and Eastern Europe. Recently, however, leading firms have begun to revise this strategy, based on their recognition of the continual importance of technological leadership and integration capabilities. Using a case study of a key company, this paper explores the dynamics of outsourcing and production strategies in the telecom equipment industry. One of the central aspects under study is the interaction of product development with industrialisation and production. The paper analyses issues such as component standardisation versus differentiation and technological integration, the value of deep integration capabilities for cost reductions, and why production competence and the rapid industrialisation of products incorporating new technologies have acquired renewed importance, despite the global trend towards lowest-cost locations. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Carlsson, Inga-Lill, 1955-
(författare)
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Meeting increased logistical demands : Developing as a small- and medium-sized system supplier
- 2009
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Many subcontractors choose to implement a strategy of “system supply” in order to meetincreasing global competition. They are then confronted with increased demands to take agreater overall responsibility in this role. It is important to investigate the implications of theseresponsibilities before investing in developing the organization, especially for a small- ormedium-sized subcontractor with limited resources. The customer’s view of different demandsdoes not necessarily correspond to how the supplier sees and chooses to interpret and meetthose demands. A supplier with several customers has to create reasonably uniform routines tomeet different demands, in order to cut costs. The customers chosen to serve as well asattitudes and priorities may influence the way different customer demands are met. Thepurpose of this study is to describe what the widened role of system supply might mean to asmall- or medium-sized subcontractor in terms of demands, capabilities and resources.After going through previous theory about different supplier roles and their characteristics asmall exploratory survey comparing demands between a component supplier and a systemsupplier was carried out. “System supplier” is, in this thesis, defined as a supplier with anoverall responsibility for the functionality of a product or a system of assembled components,produced in several process steps, and the resulting liability for purchase of material andservices. The focus is on small- or medium-sized suppliers that provide production services andare developing towards system supplying capabilities. The survey, based on existing customeragreements and demands on a relatively small supplier that is developing towards a systemsupplying role, gives insight to how customers and suppliers look at these demands. The resultsclearly point out some improvement areas. These are divided into a few “system demands”(such as systematic purchase and logistics work, product development and projectmanagement, and increased responsibilities) and more “generic demands” (for example qualityand delivery-precision).A small- or medium-sized subcontractor must acquire some logistics capabilities in order tocope with the system supplying role. In a multiple case study, a comparison of three companiesof different sizes with varying degrees of system supplying services is presented. With theresource-based view as a linchpin the interviews point out the importance of the management’sstrategic alignment to supply chain management and logistics, with special focus on centralsourcing and sourcing from low-cost regions. Other capabilities such as IT and communicationsystems, cost reduction capability, volume flexibility and breadth of product lines are alsoidentified. The interviews also served the purpose of identifying important resources groupedinto three different categories: organizational, competence-base, and tools. The differencesbetween the companies and in what way these different resources influence the formation ofdifferent logistics capabilities to support system supply are discussed.The conclusions drawn from comparing the three companies point out five system capabilities.One is the importance of a clear and distinct organization where the management understandsits role and responsibilities, managing its part of a larger system and its inherent processes.Supply chain management is another important system capability, where logistics skills andenhanced understanding and use of IT and other tools are identified as areas to improve for thesmaller companies. The importance of managing internal and external relations with extrafocus on customer relations is stressed. This also generally requires more overall managementof communications, making the best possible use of existing information and communicationstechnology. Finally, a basic and order-qualifying capability of managing the “genericdemands” is emphasized.
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| 3. |
- Elfving, Sofi, 1978-
(författare)
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Managing Collaborative Product Development : A Model for Identifying Key Factors in Product Development Projects
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The increasing complexity of products and systems today has forced new processes, methods, and tools for managing the development of products. It has also forced the development of complex organisations and diverse relationships among functions and peoples within product development organisations. This implies a need for integrated processes. There is a need to study collaborative product development (CPD) from a holistic perspective, where internal as well as external collaboration are studied as integrated parts of CPD settings.Thus, the main purpose of the research project is to facilitate the efficient execution of collaborative product development projects in the manufacturing industry. Further, the objective is to provide a supporting model for analysing and setting up projects in CPD settings. This will enable successful product development in terms of lowering costs, increasing the perceived quality of the product, and improving the timing to market. The focus is on the CPD projects, linking internal and external collaboration.A systems approach is applied to the research project to obtain the holistic view needed for addressing the CPD setting. Within the research project, case study research is used as the primary method when gathering empirics. The results from four case studies are tested and analysed in a concluding survey.The results show that shared visions and goals, the decision-making process, tools and methods, requirement management, and involvement are the most important factors for efficient CPD projects. If the collaborative complexity is high, the first four factors are especially important. The results are presented in a model to be used as a support when setting-up and managing CPD projects. The model is applied together with a process for managing CPD projects.
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| 4. |
- Nilsson, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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A snoozing frequency binary tree protocol
- 2010
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Ingår i: The Third International EURASIP Workshop on RFID Technology, La Manga del Mar Menor, Cartagena, Spain, 6-7 Sept, 2010.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we describe and evaluate anenhanced version of an active RFID wake-up and tag IDextraction radio communication protocol. The enhancedprotocol further reduces the transponders’ power consumption(prolonging their battery lifetime). The protocol uses afrequency binary tree method for extracting the identificationnumber of each transponder. This protocol is enhanced byextending it with a framed slotted medium access controlmethod which decreases the number of activations of eachtransponder during tag ID extractions. Using this medium accessmethod, the average number of transponder activations isdecreased with a factor of 2.5 compared to the original protocol.The resulting increase in ID read-out delay is 0.9%, on average.
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| 5. |
- Nilsson, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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An Energy and Application Scenario Aware Active RFID Protocol
- 2010
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Ingår i: EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. - New York : Hindawi Publishing Corporation. - 1687-1472 .- 1687-1499. ; 2010:Article ID 432938, s. 15-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The communication protocol used is a key issue in order to make the most of the advantages of active RFID technologies. In this paper we introduce a carrier sense medium access data communication protocol that dynamically adjusts its back-off algorithm to best suit the actual application at hand. Based on a simulation study of the effect on tag energy cost, read-out delay, and message throughput incurred by some typical back-off algorithms in a CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance) active RFID protocol, we conclude that by dynamic tuning of the initial contention window size and back-off interval coefficient, tag energy consumption and read-out delay can be significantly lowered. We show that it is possible to decrease the energy consumption per tag payload delivery with more than 10 times, resulting in a 50% increase in tag battery lifetime. We also discuss the advantage of being able to predict the number of tags present at the RFID-reader as well as ways of doing it.
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| 6. |
- Nilsson, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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Protocols for active RFID - the energy consumption aspect
- 2007
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Ingår i: 2007 Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems Proceedings. - Piscataway, N.J. : IEEE Press. - 1424408407 ; , s. 41-48
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The use of Radio Frequency Identification systems (RFID) is growing rapidly. Today, mostly “passive” RFID systems are used because no onboard energy source is needed on the transponders. However, “active” RFID technology, with onboard power sources in the transponders, gives a range of opportunities not possible with passive systems. To obtain energy efficiency in an Active RFID system the protocol to be used should be carefully designed with energy optimization in mind. This paper describes how energy consumption can be calculated, to be used in protocol definition, and how evaluation of protocol in this respect can be made. The performance of such a new protocol, in terms of energy efficiency, aggregated throughput, delay, and number of air collisions is evaluated and compared to an existing, commercially available protocol for Active RFID, as well as to the IEEE standard 802.15.4 (used e.g. in the Zigbee mediumaccess layer).
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| 7. |
- Nilsson, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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Selecting back off algorithm in active RFID CSMA/CA based medium-access protocols
- 2008
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Ingår i: International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems, 2008. SIES 2008. - Piscataway, N.J. : IEEE Press. - 9781424419944 ; , s. 265-270, s. 265-270
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Active radio frequency identification (A-RFID) is a technology where the tags (transponders) carry an on board energy source for powering the radio, processor circuits, and sensors. Besides offering longer working distance between RFID-reader and tag than passive RFID, this also enables the tags to do sensor measurements, calculations and storage even when no RFID-reader is in the vicinity of the tags. In this paper we study the effect on tag energy cost and read out delay incurred by some typical back-off algorithms (constant, linear, and exponential) used in a contention based CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance) protocol for A-RFID communication.
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| 8. |
- Nilsson, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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Towards an Energy Efficient Protocol for Active RFID
- 2006
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Ingår i: International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems, 2006. IES '06. - Piscataway, N.J. : IEEE Press. - 142440777X ; , s. 1-4
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The use of radio frequency identification systems (RFID) is growing rapidly. Today, mostly "passive" RFID systems are used because no onboard energy source is needed on the transponders. However, "active " RFID with onboard power source gives a new range of opportunities not possible with passive systems. To obtain energy efficiency in an active RFID system a protocol should be designed that is optimized with energy in mind. This paper describes the on-going work of defining and evaluating such a protocol. The protocol's performance in terms of energy efficiency, aggregated throughput, delay, and number of air collisions is evaluated and compared to that of the medium-access layer in 802.15.4 Zigbee, and also to a commercially available protocol from Free2move.
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| 9. |
- Persson, Andreas, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Forward and Reverse Converters and Moduli Set Selection in Signed-Digit Residue Number Systems
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Signal Processing Systems. - Norwell, MA : Springer Science+Business Media B.V.. - 1939-8018 .- 1939-8115. ; 56:1, s. 1-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents an investigation into using a combination of two alternative digital number representations; the residue number system (RNS) and the signed-digit (SD) number representation in digital arithmetic circuits. The combined number system is called RNS/SD for short. Since the performance of RNS/SD arithmetic circuits depends on the choice of the moduli set (a set of pairwise prime numbers), the purpose of this work is to compare RNS/SD number systems based on different sets. Five specific moduli sets of different lengths are selected. Moduli-set-specific forward and reverse RNS/SD converters are introduced for each of these sets. A generic conversion technique for moduli sets consisting of any number of elements is also presented. Finite impulse response (FIR) filters are used as reference designs in order to evaluate the performance of RNS/SD processing. The designs are evaluated with respect to delay and circuit area in a commercial 0.13 μm CMOS process. For the case of FIR filters it is shown that generic moduli sets with five or six moduli results in designs with the best area × delay products.
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| 10. |
- Persson, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Reverse conversion architectures for signed-digit residue number systems
- 2006
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Ingår i: Proceedings - IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems 2006. - New York : IEEE Press. - 0780393899 - 9780780393905 ; , s. 2701-2704
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents circuits for conversion from radix-2 signed-digit residue numbers to binary form. Four reverse converters for combined RNS/SD number systems based on different moduli sets are presented. Implementations are compared with respect to timing, area and area-delay products. Finite impulse response (FIR) filters are used as reference designs in order to evaluate the performance of RNS/SD processing in a typical DSP block using the suggested moduli sets.
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