| 1. |
- Abid, Muhammad, 1981-
(författare)
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Global Supply Chain Design : Exploring configurational and coordination factors
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis addresses the topic of global supply chain design. One major challenge concerns how to manage the tension between separation and integration pertaining to the localization of business activities. In this regard Ferdows (2008) worked to create two new production network models (rooted production network and footloose production network). Earlier studies have highlighted the choices that are involved in the network of facilities but lack in providing a comprehensive picture in terms of both configurational and coordination factors that govern the design of global supply chain. There is a need for a conceptual model where factors affecting the design process of a global supply chain can be applied. Two main research questions have been addressed in this study. First, exploring and identifying the factors affecting global supply chain design. Second, investigating the factors that influence the position on the spectrum of rooted and footloose supply chain design. A literature review analysis and multi-case studies have been performed for this study in order to explore the factors. The companies were selected in order to reflect upon the two types of network, i.e., rooted and footloose. The primary data were selected through interviews with the managers.This study highlighted that there are many factors that affect configurational and coordination decision areas within a global supply chain. This study categorized the factors and the configurational/coordination decision areas with two main competitive priorities, i.e., cost and differentiation in the form of a “conceptual model.” The study also highlighted the factors in a matrix, which showed their position on the spectrum of rooted and footloose network configurations. For instance, the coordination factors that drive towards a footloose network include: high orchestration capabilities, need access to new technology and knowledge, proximity to suppliers, etc. The configurational factors that drive towards a rooted network include: economic stability, proximity to market, concerns for sustainability issues, high transportation cost, need for high proximity between key functions, need for intellectual property rights protection, etc.
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| 2. |
- Barkhagen, Mathias
(författare)
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Risk-Neutral and Physical Estimation of Equity Market Volatility
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall purpose of the PhD project is to develop a framework for making optimal decisions on the equity derivatives markets. Making optimal decisions refers e.g. to how to optimally hedge an options portfolio or how to make optimal investments on the equity derivatives markets. The framework for making optimal decisions will be based on stochastic programming (SP) models, which means that it is necessary to generate high-quality scenarios of market prices at some future date as input to the models. This leads to a situation where the traditional methods, described in the literature, for modeling market prices do not provide scenarios of sufficiently high quality as input to the SP model. Thus, the main focus of this thesis is to develop methods that improve the estimation of option implied surfaces from a cross-section of observed option prices compared to the traditional methods described in the literature. The estimation is complicated by the fact that observed option prices contain a lot of noise and possibly also arbitrage. This means that in order to be able to estimate option implied surfaces which are free of arbitrage and of high quality, the noise in the input data has to be adequately handled by the estimation method.The first two papers of this thesis develop a non-parametric optimization based framework for the estimation of high-quality arbitrage-free option implied surfaces. The first paper covers the estimation of the risk-neutral density (RND) surface and the second paper the local volatility surface. Both methods provide smooth and realistic surfaces for market data. Estimation of the RND is a convex optimization problem, but the result is sensitive to the parameter choice. When the local volatility is estimated the parameter choice is much easier but the optimization problem is non-convex, even though the algorithm does not seem to get stuck in local optima. The SP models used to make optimal decisions on the equity derivatives markets also need generated scenarios for the underlying stock prices or index levels as input. The third paper of this thesis deals with the estimation and evaluation of existing equity market models. The third paper gives preliminary results which show that, out of the compared models, a GARCH(1,1) model with Poisson jumps provides a better fit compared to more complex models with stochastic volatility for the Swedish OMXS30 index.
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| 3. |
- Flores-García, Erik
(författare)
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Supporting Decision-Making in the Design of Production Systems : A Discrete Event Simulation perspective
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Manufacturing companies are introducing process innovations, namely new production processes or technologies, to achieve increased competitiveness. Production systems design can ensure the fulfillment of process innovations. However, literature shows that the staff responsible for the design of production systems face unfamiliar circumstances, lack of consensus or understanding (equivocality), and absence of information (uncertainty). Hence, manufacturing companies find it difficult to support decision-making in the design of production systems leading to increased competitiveness. One way to support decision-making during production systems design is through discrete-event simulation (DES). However, there is limited understanding of the application of DES in decision-making support, in this context.Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to support decision-making through DES in the design of production systems involving process innovations. To this end, the thesis reviews the current understanding of production system design, including decision-making and DES. This thesis adopts a qualitative case study method to extract empirical data from three production systems design projects of a manufacturing company in the heavy vehicle industry.The thesis offers several contributions. Firstly, the findings identify the conditions of use, challenges, requirements, and activities essential for the utilization of DES during production system design related to process innovations. These important findings are critical for supporting decision-making when manufacturing companies renew their production processes. Secondly, this thesis reveals that determining the conditions of use of DES for supporting decision-making rests on the structuredness of a decision (e.g. its degree of equivocality or analyzability), and the quantitative or qualitative nature or DES models. Thirdly, the results describe four novel findings about the challenges undermining the use of DES including equivocality, uncertainty, and the lack of a structured approach and the absence of resources for DES use. Fourthly, the results reveal three requirements necessary for the use of DES including analyzing information consensus, specifying the activities of conceptual models, and coordinating DES models with the information needs. Fifthly, this thesis provides three valuable findings describing additional activities in the design of production systems related to defining the objectives of DES models, and facilitating a structured approach and the management of resources for the use of DES.This thesis present a framework that contributes to the use of DES for decision-making support at manufacturing companies. Based on this framework, managers of those companies can supervise formal activities involving the use of DES in production systems design.
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| 4. |
- Kurilova-Pališaitienė, Jelena, 1985-
(författare)
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Toward Lean Remanufacturing : Challenges and Improvements in Material and Information Flows
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Remanufacturing is an environmentally sound material recovery option which is essential to compete for sustainable manufacturing. The aim with remanufacturing at a majority of companies is to prolong physical product performance by delivering the same or betterthan-original product quality. In general, remanufacturing is an industrial process that brings used products back to useful life by requiring less effort than is demanded by the initial production process. Consequently, from a product life-cycle perspective, remanufacturing generates great product value.Remanufacturers lag behind manufacturers since they often face complex and unpredictable material and information flows. Based on a review of remanufacturing research, remanufacturing challenges in material and information flows can be classified into three groups: insufficient product quality, long and unstable process lead times, and an unpredictable level of inventory. While some remanufacturing researchers state that manufacturing and remanufacturing are significantly different, they have more in common than many other processes operations. Therefore, to sustain competitive remanufacturing, companies investigate an opportunity for improvement through the employment of lean production that generates significant benefits for manufacturers.In order to investigate the potential to address remanufacturing challenges by lean production, a Minimum time for material and information flow analysis (MiniMifa) method was developed. This method originates from the value stream mapping (VSM) method, broadly practiced to bring lean to manufacturing companies. The focus of MiniMifa was to collect empirical data on the identified groups of remanufacturing challenges from the remanufacturing perspective, and to provide a basis for the development of improvements originating from lean principles.Lean production was selected for this research due to its system perspective on material and information flows. Among the defined lean principles in remanufacturing, a pull principle was investigated at the case companies. The suggested principle demonstrated a reduction in lead time, followed by improvements in inventory level and product quality. However, in order to become lean, remanufacturers have to overcome three levels of lean remanufacturing challenges: external and internal challenges as well as lean wastes.Finally, this research reduces the gap between academia and industry by contributing with a possible solution to the identified remanufacturing challenges in material and information flows.
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| 5. |
- Diffner, Björn
(författare)
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Combining Flexibility and Efficiency in Automotive Assembly : Preparing for New Powertrain Vehicles
- 2011
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Global warming and peak oil are drawing attention to new types of energy technologies. Since transportation is one of the main contributors to carbon emissions and one of the biggest consumers of oil, new technologies to propel vehicles are being introduced. For the automotive industry, where the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) has had complete dominance for some hundred years, the transition to new powertrains will be challenging for the entire operation.These new powertrain vehicles must not only be developed and tested, which is an enormous challenge in itself; they must also be manufactured with the same efficiency as ICE vehicles in order to reach a competitive price. There is great uncertainty regarding which powertrain solution will become the next paradigm, or even if there will be a new propulsion paradigm as dominant as the ICE. This, in combination with the fact that these new powertrain vehicles will initially be produced in relatively small volumes, probably calls for them to be produced in current manufacturing facilities mixed with ICE vehicles. This challenge is the foundation for this research.In order to manage the manufacturing challenges related to the introduction of new powertrain vehicles, both theoretical and empirical data have been analysed in this research. The empirical data is taken mainly from interviews, the author’s own observations and workshops with Volvo Cars and SAAB Automobile.In order to produce new powertrain vehicles in existing facilities, flexibility are identified as central components in this research. However, the flexibility needs to be achieved without affecting the efficiency of the manufacturing system. To achieve flexible automotive final assembly, four key flexibilities are identified in this research:Mix FlexibilityNew Product FlexibilityModification FlexibilityVolume FlexibilityTo achieve these flexibilities, three key factors are identified and investigated in this research:Mixed ModelAssemblyModularityPlatform StrategyThis research describes these key factors’ relationship with one another, as well as their relationship to the key flexibilities. This research describes how the key factors are used to achieve flexibility in current final assembly, and how they can be used in future automotive final assembly. This is presented as a relationship model to combine flexibility and efficiency in automotive final assembly.A first step towards a stringent automotive product architecture-platform-vehicle structure is presented, along with key factors that are important in a successful automotive platform strategy. Guidelines are also described for how new powertrain vehicles should be designed in order to achieve as efficient final assembly as possible.
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| 6. |
- Granlund, Anna, 1984-
(författare)
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Facilitating Automation Development in Internal Logistics Systems
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The internal logistics system includes all activities connected with managing the flow of materials within the physical limits of a facility. This system is an important part of operations in need of increased focus and continuous improvements. Automation is one possible tool with a previously confirmed great potential to improve internal logistics. Despite this great potential and a growing trend of using automation in the area, internal logistics activities are still not automated to the same extent as other parts of operations. The overall aim of this research is therefore to develop knowledge that supports the successful use of automation in internal logistics systems.The automation development process has been identified as critical for the success of the use of automation. With the overall aim of the research in mind, the objective of this thesis is to develop a framework facilitating the automation development process in internal logistics systems. To help fulfil the objective, empirical data have been collected through five case studies and a survey study. During the empirical studies, the process of improving the internal logistics system and the automation development process have been analysed and the focus has been on identifying challenges and facilitators for the successful use and development of automation in internal logistics systems.The findings indicate a poor awareness of both current and desired performance of the internal logistics system at the companies studied. In addition, automation development is often conducted in an unstructured and poorly supported manner and there is often insecurity regarding what steps and actions to take. Foremost, the findings indicate a poor base for proper evaluation and decisions during automation development in internal logistics systems. This is analysed and concluded as a cause of unclear goals and requirements and the lack of a strategic view with regard to both internal logistics operations and the use and development of automation.A framework, including proposed guidelines to overcome the observed challenges by including identified factors facilitating successful automation development in internal logistics systems has been developed. The core of the framework is a proposed process model for automation development in an internal logistics context. Due to the identified importance and the lack of a strategy linked to and supporting the automation development process, the framework also includes a proposed model for an internal logistics strategy as well as a proposed model for an automation strategy.
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| 7. |
- Gustavsson, Patrik, 1988-
(författare)
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Virtual Reality Platform for Design and Evaluation of the Interaction in Human-Robot Collaborative Tasks in Assembly Manufacturing
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Industry is on the threshold of the fourth industrial revolution where smart factories area necessity to meet customer demands for increasing volumes of individualized products. Within the smart factory, cyber-physical production systems are becoming important to deal with changing production. Human-robot collaboration is an example of a cyber-physical system in which humans and robots share a workspace. By introducing robots and humans into the same working cell, the two can collaborate by allowing the robot to deal with heavy lifting, repetitive, and high accuracy tasks, while the human focuses on tasks that need intelligence, flexibility, and adaptability. There are few such collaborative applications in industry today. In the implementations that actually exist, the robots are mainly working side-by-side with humans rather than truly collaborating. Three main factors that limit the widespread application of human-robot collaboration can be identified: lack of knowledge regarding suitable human-robot collaboration tasks, lack of knowledge regarding efficient communication technologies for enabling interaction between humans and robots when carrying out tasks, and lack of efficient ways to safely analyze and evaluate collaborative tasks.The overall aim of this thesis is to address these problems and facilitate and improve interaction between humans and robots, with a special focus on assembly manufacturing tasks. To fulfill this aim, an assembly workstation for human-robot collaboration has been developed and implemented both physically and virtually. A virtual reality platform called ViCoR has been developed that can be used to investigate, evaluate, and analyze the interaction between humans and robots and thereby facilitate the implementation of new human-robot collaboration cells. The workstation developed has also been used for data collection and experiments during the thesis work, and used to extract knowledge of how the interaction between human and robot can be improved.
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| 8. |
- Kurdve, Martin, 1971-
(författare)
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Development of collaborative green lean production systems
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with development of lean and green production systems from an action research point of view. The studies focus on Swedish-based automotive and vehicle industries and their aims to integrate sustainable thinking and environmental care into their operations management.Starting from operations management in manufacturing and corporate sustainable development, the research is built on how to integrate these two views into one production system. The systematic structure of a multiple-target improvement process with methodologies and tools designed to achieve the sustainability vision has been studied. Since lean as well as green production is based on the entire value chain, the research has gone beyond legal company limits and included the collaborative efforts between suppliers and customers in the value chain.The thesis includes six papers and describes approaches on how to implement integration, how to structure and integrate improvement management systems, how to set up an integrated monitoring and control system for the business and how to organise and redesign green lean tools and methodologies to support collaboration towards common targets.The results can be used for exploration and hypothesis formulation for further studies and development of integrated production systems and collaboration systems. The thesis helps answering how to integrate and implement company-specific green lean production systems.
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| 9. |
- Malm, Anna, 1979-
(författare)
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Important Factors in the Transfer of Aircraft Production : Challenges Related to Offset Business
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today, many global industries have difficulties meeting their transfer of production cost targets; the complexity in transfer of production is often underestimated. The aircraft manufacturing industry is a relevant example of a global industry, as many aircraft manufacturers produce parts in different areas of the world. The aircraft manufacturing industry include highly complex production technologies, is regulated by strict national and international standards, and utilizes a comprehensive configuration management.Large international agreements in defence-related industries often involve offset business. The most important parameters for the buying organisation in offset business are to create relations, import technical knowledge/production, promote domestic merchandise, and create employment for the local population.The purpose of the research is to identify, categorise and explore challenges related to transfer of aircraft production within offset business. The research is conducted as a case study at the Swedish enterprise SAAB Aeronautics. Future export deals for SAAB Aeronautics will in all probability consist of offsetbusiness including transfer of production, involving for example parts or entire aircraft to the receiving country.Several factors connected to transfer of aircraft production were identified. The factors were categorised and three of the categories were selected for in-depth studies:Category 1: Cultural challenges and communicationCategory 2: Configuration managementCategory 3: Transfer of knowledge and technologyThe results from the in-depth studies can help Aeronautics in planning and conducting transfer of aircraft production.
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| 10. |
- Sjödin, Carina, 1964-
(författare)
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User-involved service innovation : Three participating perspectives on co-creation
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The involvement of customers and other stakeholders in the innovation process is proposed to be a key success factor and something that makes companies more competitive. As a consequence, more and more organizations alter their innovation strategy accordingly. In order for a company to open up innovation processes, it is vital to foster a practice where there is openness for external ideas and knowledge. However, when external ideas meet internal innovation practices complex organizational situations appear. Creativity, for example, involves co-dependence of other persons’ strategies and actions. New roles for those involved affect hierarchies and knowledge sharing opportunities.This thesis involves three different perspectives of the same process provides an opportunity to study both individual and structural challenges. This research aims to identify on-going challenges for an organization during the transformational processes that adjustment from a traditional product innovation structure to an open service innovation culture implies. This qualitative case study involves two main cases and three supporting cases and aims to understand how users and other external parties, top management and middle managers experience open innovation processes. The results describe interactions between organizations and users or external stakeholders as well as internal interactions within the organization. Top management were dedicated to the idea of increased openness, but detected structural issues to deal with in order to implement user involved innovation. Among middle management, some individual aspects such as attitudes and relational issues matter, as well as organizational structures and practices. Users had mixed opinions about their participation in the process. Favorable experiences, such as benevolence and deepened relationships, were balanced by un-favorable experiences such as incapability and intrusion. Different dimensions of openness regarding open innovation practice are discussed. In this work a relational focus is emphasized. The findings assist managers in their work to create conditions for open innovation. Managers can benefit from this research by getting a better understanding of how different stakeholders’ experience co-creation of value. This is relevant for innovation managers in the process of redesigning innovation processes to understand different aspects of the interactions involved.
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