Bättre utnyttjande av nya och befintliga förrådslokaler på SSAB Tunnplåt

The purpose of this assignment at SSAB Tunnplåt in Borlänge was mainly to investigate and describe the circumstances for the spare parts stored in storage facilities within the area of operation. Even new facilities which could serve as storage rooms and their opportunities for storing spare parts were an important part of the investigation. This because of the need for improved storing of spare parts. Furthermore, market offers where reviewed for storage of spare parts in more tailored designs. The work will culminate in proposals for improvement which is of importance for the development surrounding the storage and handling of spare parts. This is since the design and management of existing storage facilities is not perceived as satisfactory with regards to spare parts characteristics. Moreover, the amount of stock locations is too few in relation to the actual need. The approach used to achieve objectives of the work was an advanced mapping for collection of vital data. The mapping consisted of interviews with involved parties, both internal and external, for the most comprehensive picture of the problems as possible. In addition, a literature survey was conducted to identify possible options for the objectives of the work as well as a personal study of existing and new storage facilities. Furthermore, the market offers for improved conditions in storage rooms were examined. A clear picture of internal logistics and warehouse activities for spare parts at SSAB Tunnplåt has been obtained during this work. From this picture, it is concluded that work in and around storage facilities can be made more efficient. SSAB Tunnplåt should additionally make efforts in the storage facilities for better use of the available storage space. A number of proposals for improvement for each studied storage facility and spare parts management in general have been conducted. These proposals for improvement include presentations to improve the design of the studied storage facilities towards enabling more stock locations. The proposals also include additional equipment for handling spare parts, scrap handling, as well as expansions of the maintenance system which supports activities in the spare parts management.

A testing and demonstration facility for PV systems and components

A test and demonstration facility for PV and PV hybrid systems and system components has been designed and installed at Dalarna University in Sweden. The facility allows studies of complete PV systems or single components in a range of 0.1-10 kW. The facility includes two grid-connected PV systems, a PV Hybrid off-grid system, three emulators and the necessary measurement and control equipment. Tests can be done manually or automatically through programmed test procedures controlled that will be implemented in Labview. The facility shall be used by researchers, professionals of the industry and engineering students.

A stopping rule while searching for optimal solution of facility-location

Solutions to combinatorial optimization, such as p-median problems of locating facilities, frequently rely on heuristics to minimize the objective function. The minimum is sought iteratively and a criterion is needed to decide when the procedure (almost) attains it. However, pre-setting the number of iterations dominates in OR applications, which implies that the quality of the solution cannot be ascertained. A small branch of the literature suggests using statistical principles to estimate the minimum and use the estimate for either stopping or evaluating the quality of the solution. In this paper we use test-problems taken from Baesley's OR-library and apply Simulated Annealing on these p-median problems. We do this for the purpose of comparing suggested methods of minimum estimation and, eventually, provide a recommendation for practioners. An illustration ends the paper being a problem of locating some 70 distribution centers of the Swedish Post in a region.