Henkilöstön motivointi yrityksen kasvutavoitteissa, Case:Sampo Rahoitus Huoltoleasing

The main objective of this Master´s Thesis was to examine human resources motivation in firm´s growth in management point of view. The thesis concentrate mostly on intrinsic motivation conditions to way of motivate human resources. Basis for this thesis was assumption that companies don’t exploit enough intrinsic motivation potential in work motivation. Research method in this thesis was case study. Material for case study is collected by interviewing subject company’s managers. The Case study subject company was Finnish finance company. Outcome of this thesis was that assumption overthrown. The subject company was taking notice of intrinsic motivations potential in human resources motivation. There is no possibility to make widescale generalisation about results of the thesis because sample was only one company.

Tasajännitetason nosto polttokennosovelluksessa

Polttokennojen, erityisesti SOFC-kennojen, tutkimuksessa on viime vuosina saavutettu merkittäviä edistysaskelia ja mahdollisuudet kennojen laajamittaiseen hyödyntämiseen paranevat koko ajan. Polttokennojen yleistyessä tarvitaan tehoelektroniikkaa muokkaamaan kennojen tasajännite verkkoon sopivaksi vaihtojännitteeksi. Verkkovaihtosuuntaaja vaatii korkeamman jännitetason, kuin polttokennosta on saatavissa, joten tasajännitetasoa on ensin nostettava. Tässä diplomityössä esitellään kolme eri hakkuritopologiaa ja perehdytään kokosiltahakkurin optimointiin. Hakkurin pääasialliset häviölähteet olivat toision diodisilta ja transistorit. Diodien vaihtaminen piidiodeista piikarbididiodeihin ei parantanut hyötysuhdetta, koska toision jännite tarkastellussa sovelluksessa oli matala. Muuntajan käämiminen litz-johtimella paransi hyötysuhdetta merkittävästi.

Customer consciousness in the production process of a steel factory

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the level of customer consciousness of the production process employees in a steel factory and to investigate the methods of internal marketing in order to propose development practices to enhance the customer consciousness of the case company employees. The significance of the level of customer consciousness is discussed and practices already implemented affecting the level of customer consciousness in the company are examined. The literature review gives an insight to the role of customer consciousness in the CRM philosophy of a manufacturing company and examines the means of internal marketing in enhancing customer consciousness. In the empirical part of the study, the level and significance of customer consciousness is determined by conducting individual and focus group interviews. The interviews are also used to examine the practices that could function in enhancing the customer consciousness of the employees. Development suggestions to improve the level of customer consciousness in the production process are given based on the results. The level of customer consciousness is at a poor level in the production process and influences above all on work motivation and job satisfaction, but possibly on customer satisfaction as well. The enhancement of customer consciousness in the production process should be done e.g. by ensuring the distribution of right knowledge coherently to all of the employees, gathering large customer reference database to exploit in work and in training, using visual illustration in presenting the customer information, training proactively and letting the employees to participate in the customer oriented development activities. Customer satisfaction focused reward system can be considered.

SME internationalisation from a network perspective : an empirical study on a Finnish-Greek business network

The study examines the internationalisation process of a contemporary SME firm and explores the impact of its business network on this development. The objective of the study is to understand SME internationalisation and its dynamics from a network perspective. The purpose of this research project is to describe and explore the development process of a firm and its business network by identifying the changes, critical events and influence factors that form this development. It is a qualitative case study, which focuses on a Finnish focal firm and its respective business network as it expands into the Greek market. It is a longitudinal research process, which covers a period of time from 1994 to 2004. The empirical study concentrates on the paper trading and converting business. The study builds on the network theory and the framework provided by Johanson and Mattsson's (1988) model on network internationalisation. The incremental internationalisation theories and network theories form the theoretical focus. The research project is organised according to a process view. The focal firm evolves from a domestically-oriented small subsidiary into an internationally experienced company, which has activities in several market areas and numerous business networks in various market segments and product categories. The findings illustrate the importance of both the domestic and foreign business network context in a firm's internationalisation process. The results of the study suggest theoretical modifications on a firm's internationalisation process by broadening the perspective and incorporating the strategic context of a firm. The findings suggest that internationalisation process is a non-linear process, which does not have a deterministic order in its development. The findings emphasise the significance of relational networks, both managerial and entrepreneurial, for establishing position in foreign markets. It implies that a firm's evolution is significantly influenced by its business network and by critical events. Business networks gain coherence due to common goals and they use accumulated capabilities to exploit market opportunities. The business network sets constraints and provides opportunities, which makes the related decision making strategically important. The firm co-evolves with its business network. The research project provides an instrumental case study with a description of an SME internationalisation process. It contributes to existing knowledge by illustrating dynamics in an international business network and by pinpointing the importance of suppliers, customers, partners, ownerships and competition to the internationalisation process.

Value co-creation in industrial buyer-seller partnerships - creating and exploiting interdependencies : an empirical case study

In summary the main findings of the study are that there seems to be is no universal definition of value in the context of industrial relationships, but a notion that it is context-, time-, and actor dependent. Value co-creation is a suitable concept in the context of buyerseller relationships. The evolution of a relationship from a transactional to a partnership is long and eventful - a process where the outcome is impossible to estimate in advance. The process is filled with differenttypes of events and also conflicts, which as a matter of fact can be seen as constructive forces in relationship development. The perceived value of a relationship is an antecedent to pursuing a high-involvement strategy; once a partnership exists, the value co-creation potential is realizable through exploiting interdependencies. Those interdependencies are the trigger for value co-creation potential. The value cocreation potential is realized though different processes of value co-creation either to achieve efficiency in exchange or effective use of resources. The logic of buyer-seller partnerships is to create and exploit interdependencies in order to create both efficiency and effective use of resources. (Summary of main findings p. 176)

The Cellular Oxygen Sensor PHD2 in Cancer Growth

Adequate supply of oxygen is essential for the survival of multicellular organisms. However, in several conditions the supply of oxygen can be disturbed and the tissue oxygenation is compromised. This condition is termed hypoxia. Oxygen homeostasis is maintained by the regulation of both the use and delivery of oxygen through complex, sensitive and cell-type specific transcriptional responses to hypoxia. This is mainly achieved by one master regulator, a transcription factor called hypoxiainducible factor 1 (HIF-1). The amount of HIF-1 is under tight oxygen-dependent control by a family of oxygen-dependent prolyl hydroxylase domain proteins (PHDs) that function as the cellular oxygen sensors. Three family members (PHD1-3) are known to regulate HIF of which the PHD2 isoform is thought to be the main regulator of HIF-1. The supply of oxygen can be disturbed in pathophysiological conditions, such as ischemic disorders and cancer. Cancer cells in the hypoxic parts of the tumors exploit the ability of HIF-1 to turn on the mechanisms for their survival, resistance to treatment, and escape from the oxygen- and nutrient-deprived environment. In this study, the expression and regulation of PHD2 were studied in normal and cancerous tissues, and its significance in tumor growth. The results show that the expression of PHD2 is induced in hypoxic cells. It is overexpressed in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas and colon adenocarcinomas. Although PHD2 normally resides in the cytoplasm, nuclear translocation of PHD2 was also seen in a subset of tumor cells. Together with the overexpression, the nuclear localization correlated with the aggressiveness of the tumors. The nuclear localization of PHD2 caused an increase in the anchorage-independent growth of cancer cells. This study provides information on the role of PHD2, the main regulator of HIF expression, in cancer progression. This knowledge may prove to be valuable in targeting the HIF pathway in cancer treatment.

Asiakasräätälöidyn tuotteen vaihtoprojektin kehittäminen palvelutuotannossa

Työ on tehty Lindström Oy:lle tavoitteena löytää tuotevaihtoprojektien kulminaatiopisteet, joissa prosessin sujuvuutta, tiedonhallintaa ja toimintamalleja voitaisiin kehittää. Tavoitteena oli hyödyntää teoriatiedon ja empiirisen tutkimuksen tietämys toimintamalleiksi asiakasräätälöityjen tuotteiden vaihtoprojektissa. Tarkoituksena on ollut huomioida elinkaarihallinta osana tuotekehitystä sekä tuotetiedon hallinta ja sen ohjaava vaikutus projektin eri vaiheissa. Asiakaslähtöisyys ja elinkaarihallinta sekä tietojohtaminen ovat olleet tutkimuksen näkökulmina. Työssä yhdistettiin teorian pohjustama tuotetieto, tuotekehityksen prosessit sekä projektihallinta empiirisen tutkimustuloksen luomiksi kehittämisehdotuksiksi. Tuotevaihtoprojekteihin luotiin kaksi toimintamallia, joissa hyödynnetään tiedon kerääntymistä tietojärjestelmiin. Tuloksissa elinkaarihallinta ehdotetaan linkitettäväksi osaksi tuotekehitysprosessia, jolloin asiakkaan saama arvon lisäys on suoraan taloudellisestikin mitattavissa. Lisäksi työn tuloksena ehdotetaan, että tuotekehityksen systemaattista tiedon keruuta alkuvaiheessaan kehitetään sekä asiakkaan tarvetiedon tarkempaa ja määritellympää tiedon kirjaamista lisätään, tietojärjestelmien suomin mahdollisuuksin.

Osaamisen johtaminen tietohallintopalveluita tarjoavan organisaation suorituskyvyn kehittämisessä

Tässä diplomityössä tutkitaan osaamisen johtamisen järjestelmää strategisesta näkö-kulmasta tietohallintopalveluita tuottavassa organisaatiossa. Tutkimuksen tarkoitukse-na oli kehittää osaamisen johtamisen kokonaisuutta kohdeorganisaation suorituskyvyn kehittämiseksi. Tutkimuksen lähtökohtana ovat organisaation arvot, missio ja visio sekä näiden kautta rakentuva organisaation osaamisen strategia. Osaamisen strategian näkökulmasta tarkastellaan asiantuntijuutta, osaamisen johtamista ja organisaation ydinosaamisia. Teoreettisesta näkökulmasta tutkitaan myös verkostoitumista ja oppi-misen verkostomallin hyödyntämismahdollisuuksia kohdeorganisaatiossa. Empiirinen aineisto kerättiin laadullisella teemahaastattelulla. Tutkimuksessa saatiin selkeä kuva kohdeorganisaation osaamisen johtamisen kokonai-suudesta. Verkostoituminen ja verkostomainen työskentely ovat kohdeorganisaatiossa erittäin suuressa roolissa, joten oppimisen verkostomallia voitaisiin hyödyntää organi-saatiossa tehokkaasti. Tämä edellyttää kuitenkin verkoston johtamista ja tavoitteellista osallistumista verkostoihin sekä asetettujen tavoitteiden mittaamista.

Virtuaalisen lajittelujärjestelmän hyödyntäminen postipalveluyrityksen tuotannollisessa prosessissa

Työn tavoitteena oli kehittää toimintoperusteista kustannuslaskentaa soveltamalla laskentamalli, jonka avulla on mahdollista tutkia postipalveluyrityksen tuotannollisen prosessin kokonaistuottavuuden kannalta optimaalista tapaa hyödyntää virtuaalista lajittelujärjestelmää. Kimputuksen osalta syntyi teoreettinen laskentamalli, mutta kuljetusyksiköinnin osalta pyrittiin muodostamaan todellista prosessia mahdollisimman hyvin noudattava malli, jonka tuloksia on helppo tutkia erilaisilla kustannus- ja lähetysparametreillä. Virtuaalisen lajittelujärjestelmän tuotannollisen hyödyntämisen ohella työssä oli tarkoitus toteuttaa alustavaa analyysia siitä, millä tapaa järjestelmän avulla voidaan tuottaa myös muuta lisäarvoa postipalvelutuotannolle. Analyysissa havaittiin alustavia hyödyntämismahdollisuuksia palvelutuotannon kuormitussuunnittelun, osoitelaatusidonnaisten toimintojen sekä postiin jätön ja prosessiin ohjauksen osalta. Ottamatta kantaa hyödyntämismahdollisuuksien toteutettavuuteen analyysin keskeinen tulos oli kuitenkin se, että järjestelmän hyödyntämisen osalta tutkimattomia teitä on vielä lukuisia.

Preferred Offer as a Method in Competitive Bidding

The objective of this master’s thesis was to find means and measures by which an industrial manufacturing company could find cost-competitive solutions in a price-driven market situation. Initially, it was essential to find individual high customer value spots from the offering. The study addressed this in an innovative way by providing the desired information for the entire range of offering. The research was carried out using the constructivist approach method. Firstly, the project and solution marketing literature was reviewed in order to establish an overview of the processes and strategies involved. This information was then used in conjunction with the company’s specific offering data to conduct a construction. This construction can be used in various functions within the target company to streamline and optimize the specifications into so-called “preferred offers”. The study also presents channels and methods with which to exploit the construction in practice in the target company. The study aimed to bring concrete improvements in competitiveness and profitability. One result of this study was the creation of a training material for internal use. This material is now used in several countries to inform and present to the staff the cost-competitive aspects of the target company’s offering.

Lannoitetehtaan prosessivesien käsittelyvaihtoehtojen soveltuvuuden arviointi

Phosphorus and nitrogen cause eutrophication of water bodies, causing severe damage to the ecosystem. Eutrophication of the waters causes oxygen depletion, which in turn increases fish mortality, releasing toxins in waters. The released toxins can cause damage to animals and humans, which is the reason in many countries to set emission limits for waste water. Nutrients exist naturally, but due to human activities there is high nutrient leaching to water bodies. Human activity is one of the main reasons to the eutrophication. The aim of this thesis was to estimate the suitability of different water treatment options for Yara Finland’s fertilizer plant’s process waters in Siilinjärvi. The fertilizer plant process waters are high concentrate and especially nitrogen concentrations are high, which bring challenge to the treatment. At the theoretical part was investigated conventional and as well advanced wastewater treatment methods like reverse osmosis, adsorption and ion exchange. Beside different treatment methods corporate environmental requirements, responsibility and strategies were researched. At the empirical part of the thesis the goal was to find out possibil-ities to intensify the efficiency of purification at lamella clarifier with chemical precipitation. In addition possibility to use already existing chemical purifying plant for process waters was estimated. As a result of the research Yara has a possibility to intensify lamella clarifier’s action by addi-tion of calcium hydroxide and thus to obtain the phosphorus and fluorine to precipitate out of the water. But in practice this would be too expensive. It is possible to eliminate nitrogen compounds by adsorption or ammonia stripping, both methods requires additional testing. It is possible to process waters in chemical purifying plant, if ammonium nitrogen has been reduced before. Reverse osmosis is possible to exploit for the phosphoric acid plant’s waters.

Pyhät naiset äiti-Venäjällä : tuoreita näkökulmia venäläiseen kulttuuriin

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Creating possibilities for collective creativity : Brokerage Functions in Practice-Based Innovation

In the network era, creative achievements like innovations are more and more often created in interaction among different actors. The complexity of today‘s problems transcends the individual human mind, requiring not only individual but also collective creativity. In collective creativity, it is impossible to trace the source of new ideas to an individual. Instead, creative activity emerges from the collaboration and contribution of many individuals, thereby blurring the contribution of specific individuals in creating ideas. Collective creativity is often associated with diversity of knowledge, skills, experiences and perspectives. Collaboration between diverse actors thus triggers creativity and gives possibilities for collective creativity. This dissertation investigates collective creativity in the context of practice-based innovation. Practice-based innovation processes are triggered by problem setting in a practical context and conducted in non-linear processes utilising scientific and practical knowledge production and creation in cross-disciplinary innovation networks. In these networks diversity or distances between innovation actors are essential. Innovation potential may be found in exploiting different kinds of distances. This dissertation presents different kinds of distances, such as cognitive, functional and organisational which could be considered as sources of creativity and thus innovation. However, formation and functioning of these kinds of innovation networks can be problematic. Distances between innovating actors may be so great that a special interpretation function is needed – that is, brokerage. This dissertation defines factors that enhance collective creativity in practice-based innovation and especially in the fuzzy front end phase of innovation processes. The first objective of this dissertation is to study individual and collective creativity at the employee level and identify those factors that support individual and collective creativity in the organisation. The second objective is to study how organisations use external knowledge to support collective creativity in their innovation processes in open multi-actor innovation. The third objective is to define how brokerage functions create possibilities for collective creativity especially in the context of practice-based innovation. The research objectives have been studied through five substudies using a case-study strategy. Each substudy highlights various aspects of creativity and collective creativity. The empirical data consist of materials from innovation projects arranged in the Lahti region, Finland, or materials from the development of innovation methods in the Lahti region. The Lahti region has been chosen as the research context because the innovation policy of the region emphasises especially the promotion of practice-based innovations. The results of this dissertation indicate that all possibilities of collective creativity are not utilised in internal operations of organisations. The dissertation introduces several factors that could support collective creativity in organisations. However, creativity as a social construct is understood and experienced differently in different organisations, and these differences should be taken into account when supporting creativity in organisations. The increasing complexity of most potential innovations requires collaborative creative efforts that often exceed the boundaries of the organisation and call for the involvement of external expertise. In practice-based innovation different distances are considered as sources of creativity. This dissertation gives practical implications on how it is possible to exploit different kinds of distances knowingly. It underlines especially the importance of brokerage functions in open, practice-based innovation in order to create possibilities for collective creativity. As a contribution of this dissertation, a model of brokerage functions in practice-based innovation is formulated. According to the model, the results and success of brokerage functions are based on the context of brokerage as well as the roles, tasks, skills and capabilities of brokers. The brokerage functions in practice-based innovation are also possible to divide into social and cognitive brokerage.

Tactile-Proprioceptive Robotic Grasping

Robotic grasping has been studied increasingly for a few decades. While progress has been made in this field, robotic hands are still nowhere near the capability of human hands. However, in the past few years, the increase in computational power and the availability of commercial tactile sensors have made it easier to develop techniques that exploit the feedback from the hand itself, the sense of touch. The focus of this thesis lies in the use of this sense. The work described in this thesis focuses on robotic grasping from two different viewpoints: robotic systems and data-driven grasping. The robotic systems viewpoint describes a complete architecture for the act of grasping and, to a lesser extent, more general manipulation. Two central claims that the architecture was designed for are hardware independence and the use of sensors during grasping. These properties enables the use of multiple different robotic platforms within the architecture. Secondly, new data-driven methods are proposed that can be incorporated into the grasping process. The first of these methods is a novel way of learning grasp stability from the tactile and haptic feedback of the hand instead of analytically solving the stability from a set of known contacts between the hand and the object. By learning from the data directly, there is no need to know the properties of the hand, such as kinematics, enabling the method to be utilized with complex hands. The second novel method, probabilistic grasping, combines the fields of tactile exploration and grasp planning. By employing well-known statistical methods and pre-existing knowledge of an object, object properties, such as pose, can be inferred with related uncertainty. This uncertainty is utilized by a grasp planning process which plans for stable grasps under the inferred uncertainty.

Exploration and Design of Power-Efficient Networked Many-Core Systems

Multiprocessing is a promising solution to meet the requirements of near future applications. To get full benefit from parallel processing, a manycore system needs efficient, on-chip communication architecture. Networkon- Chip (NoC) is a general purpose communication concept that offers highthroughput, reduced power consumption, and keeps complexity in check by a regular composition of basic building blocks. This thesis presents power efficient communication approaches for networked many-core systems. We address a range of issues being important for designing power-efficient manycore systems at two different levels: the network-level and the router-level. From the network-level point of view, exploiting state-of-the-art concepts such as Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS), Voltage/ Frequency Island (VFI), and 3D Networks-on-Chip approaches may be a solution to the excessive power consumption demanded by today’s and future many-core systems. To this end, a low-cost 3D NoC architecture, based on high-speed GALS-based vertical channels, is proposed to mitigate high peak temperatures, power densities, and area footprints of vertical interconnects in 3D ICs. To further exploit the beneficial feature of a negligible inter-layer distance of 3D ICs, we propose a novel hybridization scheme for inter-layer communication. In addition, an efficient adaptive routing algorithm is presented which enables congestion-aware and reliable communication for the hybridized NoC architecture. An integrated monitoring and management platform on top of this architecture is also developed in order to implement more scalable power optimization techniques. From the router-level perspective, four design styles for implementing power-efficient reconfigurable interfaces in VFI-based NoC systems are proposed. To enhance the utilization of virtual channel buffers and to manage their power consumption, a partial virtual channel sharing method for NoC routers is devised and implemented. Extensive experiments with synthetic and real benchmarks show significant power savings and mitigated hotspots with similar performance compared to latest NoC architectures. The thesis concludes that careful codesigned elements from different network levels enable considerable power savings for many-core systems.