Blekinge Institute of Technology
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From Estimates to Decisions: The role of Cost Breakdown Analysis in new product development : A case study at IKEA
No full textIn today’s competitive global market, companies face increasing pressure to develop cost-efficient products without compromising quality or innovation. Cost Breakdown Analysis (CBA) is a method that supports informed decision-making by making cost structures transparent and identifying cost drivers early in the development process. This thesis investigates how IKEA of Sweden AB applies CBA within its new product development (NPD) process to support strategic and competitive business decisions. This case study also explores how cross-functional collaboration between roles, such as sourcing, engineering, and product development, enhances the effectiveness of cost analysis in guiding decisions. A single-case study design was adopted, applying a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data was collected through a survey of 120 respondents from multiple departments, while qualitative insights were gathered through five semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in IKEA’s range development process. Descriptive statistics, thematic coding, and qualitative content analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings show that detailed cost analysis supports strategic decision-making by enabling early evaluation of material choices, production methods, and supplier selection. Cost drivers such as materials and processing were identified as the most influential in shaping decisions. Cross-functional collaboration was found to be critical for interpreting cost data effectively, with early involvement and shared targets contributing to alignment and efficiency. The study also reveals challenges in tool standardization and departmental priorities that sometimes shape cost-related decisions. The conclusions highlight the strategic value of CBA in aligning design, sourcing, and business goals. While the study focuses on IKEA, the insights offer broader implications for companies aiming to enhance decision-making during product development. Future research may explore the integration of digital costing tools or compare CBA practices across different industries to assess generalizability
The Contribution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Labor Productivity Growth : A technical frontier approach
No full textThis thesis investigates the extent to which Artificial Intelligence (AI) contributes to labor productivity growth within European Union (EU) member states. Motivated by a notable deceleration in Europe’s labor productivity since the 1970s and growing policy interest in AI’s transformative potential, the study employs a non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure and decompose productivity changes from 2000 to 2020. Drawing on data from 22 EU countries, the analysis treats AI-stock (R&D expenditure per AI-related patent) as a distinct production factor alongside conventional inputs such as labor, human capital, capital formation, and non-AI patent-stock.The quantitative analysis results indicate that EU-wide labor productivity more than doubled during the two decades studied, yet cross-country variations are substantial. Across the sample, incorporating AI as a separate factor explains an additional 4% in average labor productivity growth beyond what is captured by traditional inputs alone. The decomposition reveals that AI acts as a complementary driver in conjunction with human capital accumulation and gross fixed capital formation, although its positive impact is uneven across member states. Overall, these findings underscore the relevance of AI-driven innovation in strengthening EU’s labor productivity performance. Policymakers and industry stakeholders might leverage these insights to design strategies that foster targeted AI investments and skill development, thereby reinforcing the region’s competitiveness and sustainable economic growth
Increasing Product Owners Efficiency : An Empirical Study about High-Level Non-Coding Tasks Automation with the Help of GenAI
No full textBackground. Recently, with the high-speed development of Generative AI (GenAI), it is becoming more feasible to automate tasks that go beyond coding, like those usually performed by Product Owners (POs), such as developing feasibility studies, managing requirements, and handling communication with stakeholders. Despite the excitement, there is not a whole lot of concrete understanding about how effective this type of automation actually is today in practice, or what sort of technical challenges and limitations come up when trying to implement it. Objectives. This research explores whether it is realistically possible to automate higher-level, non-coding tasks that POs at Ericsson are responsible for, using GenAI when it fits. The tasks to be automated include drafting documents, generating emails, suggesting parts of documents such as business backgrounds, and reviewing language. The goal is also to get a better picture of the technical challenges and limitations that appear during the development of the automation tool for POs, and to evaluate how accurate these automations are, along with how much time they can potentially save. Methods. Several methods were used in this study. An automation tool was built and tested in a practical setting. At the same time, semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals with hands-on experience with automation, helping to validate and understand the challenges found by us. A survey was also shared with POs to quantitatively assess how automated results compared to traditional manual efforts. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the interview data. Results. The automation tool reduces the time required to complete certain tasks, often by more than 75\%, especially for tasks such as language refinement or generating initial drafts. On the other hand, tasks that needed company-specific knowledge showed mixed results, mostly due to the fact that the GenAI models do not always have all the necessary internal organization-specific context. Some key issues we ran into included difficulties processing varied document formats, losing important information in images, model hallucinations, missing proprietary knowledge, and slow response times caused by large prompt sizes or model limitations. Conclusions. Overall, GenAI shows great potential when it comes to helping POs handle their non-coding tasks. However, there are still clear technical challenges that cannot be ignored, especially when it comes to accuracy and making sure the AI "understands" company-specific content. More work should be done testing strategies, such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), to help make the models more reliable and context-aware
Produktionens plats i den samtida staden : En fallstudie om utmaningar och tillvägagångssätt för att bevara och återintegrera tillverkning i stadsmiljön
No full textHistoriskt har städer utvecklats i nära samspel med produktion, där tillverkning utgjort en central del av städers ekonomiska och rumsliga struktur. Samverkande utvecklingstendenser har dock medfört en rumslig separation mellan städer och tillverkning, där tillverkning osynliggjorts från stadsbilden. Detta har bland annat resulterat i social polarisering, ökad sårbarhet i globala leverantörskedjor och höga koldioxidutsläpp. Mot bakgrund av detta har ett intresse stärkts för att återintegrera tillverkning i städer som tyder på en möjlighet att omvärdera relationen mellan tillverkning och dess plats i städer. Trots denna omvärdering fortsätter verksamhetsmark i centrala lägen att minska till förmån för mer lönsamma användningar. Planeringsideal om förtätning och funktionsblandning har sällan inkluderat denna typen av användning. Det finns en bristande kunskap för hur detta kan vara en integrerad del av stadsväven, samt utmaningar med uppbyggda planeringssystem och otillräckliga skydd från marknadens tryck. Denna studie syftar till att bidra med kunskap om hur stadsplaneringen kan möjliggöra för och säkerställa bevarande och eller integrering av tillverkning i stadsmiljön i samband med stadsomvandlingsprocesser. Arbetet syftar även till att identifiera planeringsstrategier och styrmedel som kan främja detta, särskilt i ljuset av rådande markvärdesdynamik och politiska ambitioner. Studien utgörs av en fallstudie där Malmö valts ut som föremål för undersökningen, med Norra Sorgenfri och Sofielunds verksamhetsområde som vidare fördjupade områden. Studien använder kvalitativ innehållsanalys och kompletterande intervju som metoder för arbetet. Empirin analyseras genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys och tolkas utifrån det teoretiska ramverkets tre identifierade spänningsfält. Utifrån analysen dras slutsatsen att integrering av verksamheter såsom tillverkning i urbana miljöer präglas av en grundläggande spänning mellan planeringens mål om funktionsblandning och marknadens logik som premierar vinstmaximering. Trots uttalade ambitioner för att tillgodose plats för kostnadskänsliga verksamheter undergrävs detta av vinstdrivna utvecklingsprocesser där tillverkning riskerar att trängas undan. Planeringens kapacitet att agera begränsas ytterligare av interna institutionella spänningar, där kommunens dubbla lojalitet mellan samhällsnytta och privata intressen skapar ett dilemma. Studien identifierar bevarandet av befintliga lokaler med låga hyror som det mest effektiva planeringsverktyget för att möjliggöra tillverkningens fortlevnad i staden. Samtidigt konstateras att strategier och ambitioner inte är tillräckliga medel utan behöver kompletteras med tydligt styrande verktyg
Changeability Assessment in Complex Systems to Support Early-Stage Design Decisions
No full textThe early design phase of complex, capital-intensive systems is critical for shaping their architecture and value proposition. However, such systems face numerous challenges from technological, economic, market, and regulatory domains. In addition, considering system-of-systems introduces new hurdles as the focus shifts from measuring performance to assessing overall effectiveness. Together with the growing trend of servitization, where traditional products are combined with value-added services to deliver functions, a lot of uncertainty is introduced during design decision-making. To handle these uncertainties, systems engineering literature advocates for incorporating lifecycle properties into the system that enable the system to deal with these uncertainties once deployed. Systems that consistently meet evolving stakeholder expectations, despite the changing contexts, are called value-robust systems. Changeability is one such property that allows the system to achieve value robustness by changing internally in response to changes externally. During the design stages, the goal is to identify and integrate options that would enable the system to exercise change and sustain value under all conditions. In this light, this thesis aims to support the integration of changeability in complex systems by facilitating its assessment during the early design stages. To achieve this goal, it first identifies the existing methods and challenges in changeability assessment for achieving value robustness. To address these challenges, it proposes the Changeability Assessment in Systems during Early Design (CASED) method, which supports development teams in creating value-robust systems in the face of uncertainty. CASED is one of the core contributions of this work, allowing a holistic consideration of identification, quantification, and valuation of changeability during early design stages. It maps the expected mean value and expected standard deviation for each design as a function of changeability level, which serves as a guide for decisions concerning changeability. Additionally, this thesis explores the use of Extended Reality technologies to address perceptual complexity by visualizing operational scenarios and proposes designing for changeability as a mechanism for creating value-robust circular systems
Explainable Personalized Federated Learning for Fitness Recommendation System : Balancing Privacy and Transparency in AI-Driven Personaized Fitness Solutions
No full textBackground: The surge in health data from wearable devices enables personalized fitness recommendations, but privacy concerns and opaque machine learning models limit user trust. Federated Learning (FL) offers privacy-preserving model training, while Explainable AI (XAI) techniques like SHAP and LIME improve transparency. However, combining FL and XAI for secure and interpretable personalized fitness recommendations is underexplored. Objectives: This study develops an explainable, privacy-preserving FL framework for personalized fitness recommendations by (1) protecting user data with FL, (2) enhancing transparency with XAI, and (3) delivering trustworthy fitness guidance. Methods: A classification-based model was trained using the Flower FL framework across decentralized datasets. SHAP and LIME provided global and user-specific explanations. The model’s performance was evaluated using standard metrics and compared with centralized models. Results: The FL model matched centralized performance while preserving privacy and offering personalized recommendations. SHAP and LIME improved trust through explainability. Challenges like computational overhead and data heterogeneity impacted performance. Conclusions: The proposed FL framework effectively delivers privacy-preserving, interpretable fitness recommendations. Future work should optimize efficiency and scalability for broader real-world use
Green hydrogen application within the EU: green ammonia adoption in agriculture : a quantitative method approach
No full textThis thesis investigates a use-case of green hydrogen and ammonia via analysing the adoption potential of green anhydrous ammonia as a sustainable fertiliser within the Romanian agricultural sector, situated within the broader context of the European green transition and circular economy objectives. A financial analysis was also deployed to assess the potential market size of green ammonia as sustainable fertiliser in the agricultural sector in Romania and at EU level. Romania was selected due to the agricultural significance in the EU context and structural similarity to other Eastern and Southern European farming regions. The study used a quantitative survey methodology targeting 52 key stakeholders including farmers, traders, processors, and retailers. This research empirically assesses the current familiarity and interest of the stakeholders in this sustainable alternative. It explores the perceived benefits, such as environmental improvements and market differentiation, alongside significant barriers like high initial costs, supply availability concerns, and technical knowledge gaps. Statistical analyses, including regression and decision tree modelling, reveal that while familiarity is currently limited, interest in adoption is notably high across all stakeholder groups. Among farmers, key predictors of interest include the perceived importance of sustainability, familiarity with the technology, and concerns regarding financial risk. The study concludes that more support is necessary in form of financial incentives and technical training to facilitate the transition to adopting sustainable fertilisers. This is also backed by current EU policies like CBAM, F2F and CAP. These findings offer crucial empirical insights into the readiness of the agricultural value chain for green ammonia adoption in Romania, providing actionable data-driven recommendations for policymakers and businesses aiming to foster sustainable agricultural practices. Moreover, the potential agricultural market demand per year [at EU level of more than EUR 1 bln. using a conservative approach at an adoption level of 15% and at Romania level of EUR 160 million when considering a market penetration of green ammonia as sustainable fertilisers] represents a strong economic incentive for stakeholders across the green ammonia supply chain, proving the potential of this green hydrogen application within the EU
Challenges in Agile Automotive Software development after transitioning away from full SAFe
No full textThe Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is often used in large-scale software development projects, especially for the automotive industry, as it helps to improve coordination, prediction accuracy, and overall efficiency. However, many organizations, despite having a solid structure in place, cannot fully benefit from the implementation of SAFe. This is due to gaps in inter-team coordination, rigidity in processes, and misalignment with compliance opportunities. Although much research has been done on the adoption of SAFe, not many studies focus on what happens when organizations choose to abandon SAFe after experiencing unmet expectations. This study fills that void by examining the reasons behind the abandonment of SAFe, as well as the challenges faced after moving away from it regarding requirements engineering and testing at an automotive company. This research aims to examine the underlying reasons behind abandonment of SAFe in automotive software development and to assess how challenges change after migration, particularly in requirements engineering and testing activities. In addition, it examines the alternative methodologies or adaptations companies employ after abandoning SAFe, learning about how teams recreate their workflows, testing methods, and coordination without the SAFe framework. A qualitative case study approach was used, complemented by semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, including engineering managers, product owners, release train engineers, senior developers, and architects. Additional reliability was sought by analyzing additional organizational artifacts, such as Jira tickets, Confluence documentation, and triangulation meeting notes. Thematic analysis was employed to identify recurring patterns and insights in the data collected. The findings indicate that SAFe was abandoned as it was too prescriptive, created too much overhead, and did not fit into the regulatory needs of automotive software development. Following SAFe, organizations grappled with redefining workflows, coordinating between teams, and adapting testing strategies to attain agility without the formal processesof SAFe. Hybrid frameworks were implemented by a number of teams, while others fell back to tailored traditional approaches, indicating that one size fits all agile framework is not relevant to all organizations. This study contributes to the current debate on agile scalability in regulated industries by offering empirical evidence on the limitations of SAFe in automotive software development. It offers practical advice to organizations considering or struggling to implement SAFe, emphasizing the need for context-aware agile scaling practices over rigid frameworks
Automatiserad konstruktion och ritningsunderlag : Effektivisering av designprocessen hos INOR
No full textI detta examensarbete har en metod utvecklats för att automatisera skapandet av kundanpassade ritningar för temperaturgivare hos Inor. Genom att använda parametrisk modellering och konfigurationer i SolidWorks samt verktyget DriveWorksXpress har ett system byggts upp där användaren via ett formulär kan generera kompletta 3D modeller och ritningar baserat på inmatad kunddata. Arbetet fokuserar på tre givarmodeller TRA/TCA P10, S12 och F13, vilka konfigurerats utifrån mått på rör, fläns, bussning och kopplingshuvud. Modellen styrs av parametrar kopplade till ett Excel-blad, vilket möjliggör automatisering av variationer och skapar ett mer effektivt arbetsflöde jämfört med traditionell manuell hantering. Design Table och DriveWorksXpress har använts för att underlätta variantgenereringen, medan kundritningar automatiskt genereras och delvis efterbearbetas manuellt för korrekt vy och måttsättning. Resultatet visar att metoden minskar repetitivt arbete, ökar spårbarheten och kan förbättra kvaliteten i konstruktionsprocessen. Ett test som genomfördes av handledaren på INOR visar att metoden i genomsnitt sparar cirka 15 minuter per ritning. Detta innebär en konkret tidsvinst som kan få stor betydelse i det löpande arbetet med kundanpassade ritningar. Begränsningar i arbetet innefattade att lösningen inte testades i en miljö med flera användare, vilket vore relevant att undersöka vid fortsatt utveckling. Arbetet lägger grunden för fortsatt digitalisering och automatisering inom företagets produktutveckling.This bachelor thesis presents a method for automating the creator of customized sensor drawings at INOR. By combining parametric modeling and configurations in SolidWorks with the DriveWorksXpress tool, a system was developed in which users can generate complete 3D models and drawings based on input data via a form interface. The work focuses on three specific sensor models TRA/TCA P10, S12 and F13, all of which were configured using parameters for tube, flange, bushing and connection head. The model is driven by an Excel based spreadsheet, enabling the automation of variant generation and improving workflow efficiency compared to traditional manual methods. Design Tables and DriveWorksXpress were implemented to streamline the process and customer drawings are generated automatically, with some manual adjustments for views and dimensions. The results show that this method reduces repetitive tasks, improves traceability and enhances design quality. A limitation of the work was that the solution was not tested in a multi user environment, which could be relevant to explore in future development. A test carried out by the supervisor at INOR showed that the method reduces drawing time by approximately 15 minutes per case, which represents a concrete time saving in the company's daily operations. This project lays the foundation for further digitalization and automation within the company's product design processes
Vart är vi på väg? : En flerfallstudie om kommunal hantering av kulturhistoriska värden vid stationsutveckling
No full textStationsområden har haft en historisk roll i svenska städers utveckling och utgör idag en strategisk plats för städernas utveckling. Samtidigt utgör dessa platser områden med rik kulturhistoria, vilket skapar en konflikt för den fysiska planeringen mellan ett bevarande och en utveckling. Även om gällande lagstiftning och myndighetsvägledning sätter ramar för hur den kommunala planeringen ska hantera denna konflikt, saknas konkreta riktlinjer för hur kulturmiljöer ska hanteras i stationsnära utveckling. Arbetets syfte var således att undersöka hur kommuner kan hantera kulturhistoriska värden vid en utveckling av stationsmiljöer genom att analysera befintliga planeringsstrategier för hur en konflikt med kulturhistoriska värden kan hanteras. Arbetet forskningsdesign har varit en flerfallstudie av kommunerna Malmö stad, Lunds kommun och Växjö kommun. Kommunerna valdes då de uppfyllde kraven på att ha en påbörjad stationsutveckling i anslutning till ett riksintresse för kulturmiljövård. Arbetet har undersökt kulturmiljöplanering inom ramen för fysisk planering. Ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av relevanta begrepp och metoder för planering av kulturmiljöer har möjliggjort en ökad förståelse för hur svenska kommuner hanterar känsliga kulturmiljöer vid stationsutveckling. Arbetets empiri har samlats in genom en kvalitativ dokumentstudie. För att generera en heltäckande bild av kommunernas planering har dokument på samtliga kommunala planeringsnivåer använts, översiktsplan, strategiskt plandokument, kulturmiljöprogram och detaljplan. Med utgångspunkt i arbetets analys dras slutsatsen att kulturhistoriska kvaliteter hanteras i varierande grad inom den kommunala planeringen. I stället för ett strikt bevarande av kulturhistoriska värden integreras ett bevarande i en samtida utveckling av stationsområden. Kulturmiljön ses ofta som en resurs för identitet och attraktivitet, men en konkretisering av dessa mål saknas. Kommunerna skiljer sig i strategi- och ambitionsnivå, där Lund har tydligare mål, där Malmö till viss del visar tydliga strategier för kulturmiljön och Växjö har en svagare strategisk vägledning. Skillnader i planeringsdokumentens aktualitet skapar dessutom bristande samstämmighet mellan övergripande mål och genomförd planering. Slutligen dras slutsatsen att kompensation enbart i viss mån används för att ersätta förlorade kulturvärden vid en utveckling av stationsområden. I stället används en kompensation som ett sätt för kommunerna att väga olika intressen mot varandra. Arbetet visar på att kommunerna väger kulturhistoriska värden mot andra värden, delvis genom en kompensation av förlorade värden, men bristen på vägledning genererar ett glapp mellan övergripande mål och faktisk planeringspraxis