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Industrialized house building of multi-storey residential buildings is not only gaining practical importance in Sweden but is also emphasized as a way for companies to address the demands for lower and more predictable production costs, shorter delivery times and higher product quality. However, to be competitive on the market, IHB companies need to protect and capitalize their specific investments into platforms and organizations. The engagement inplatforms and industrialized way of working, it is not just about the complexity of integration but it is also about having a capability over time to handle this market variation (i.e. dynamic capabilities). Industrialized house building has mainly been investigated from an operational view, leaving a gap in the characterization from a strategical (dynamic) view. Purpose of this research is to increase understanding about industrialized house building, from a dynamic capability view, described the characteristics of industrialized house building through exploring and describing the evolution and development of and industrialized house building company. An in-depth, longitudinal case study approach was adopted to get and deeper understanding of the development of dynamic capabilities in an industrialized house building company. The unit of analysis was the long-term interaction between house-market development, the case company’s business development, and external collaboration activities between the years 1993 and 2018. The findings from the case study were then analyzed against a theoretical framework based on dynamic capabilities. Industrialized house building can be characterized by a set of dynamic capabilities constructs that are evolved and developed in order to cope with the changing conditions derived from both internal and external factors, entailed in entrepreneurship and long-term thinking. The findings indicate that the organization's focus may vary between different kinds of dynamic capabilities over-time. In addition, findings indicate that development of dynamic capabilities supporting collaboration and building trust to the market was of importance at the beginning of their journey. These dynamic capabilities evolved in close relations with external partners, due to external market pressure. This study also indicates that path dependency affects the development of dynamic capability, through collaboration, trust, and learning – which influence how the company behaves and through their investments in a platform constraining future actions.

A production strategy enables companies to effectively manage the different challenges that the production function face in a competitive environment. A production strategy helps a company to make operational and strategic decisions that follow a logical pattern and supports the corporate strategy and the competitive priorities of the company. When no strategy exists the decisions may be arbitrary and unpredictable leading to an under-achieving production system. Production strategy involves decisions that shape the long term capabilities of a producing company. For the traditional production industry there are a number of production strategy frameworks that facilitates the process of designing production systems. However, these frameworks typically leave project based production out of the scope or treat project based production as one type of production system, when in fact project based production systems can be multifaceted depending on product design and market requirements. This thesis focus on project based manufacturing in a house-building context. Houses can be produced by different types of production systems, and depending on how the production systems are designed they have strengths and weaknesses in different areas of competition. To be able to meet the increasing demand for residential houses, and improve performance in the house-building industry, the way houses are produced have to match different market requirements in a more effective and efficient way. To do this a production strategy has to exist. Typically there is a trade-off between productivity and flexibility, hence a production system designed to meet customer requirements concerning product design is probably not the best process choice if the customer thinks price and delivery time are the most important. A production strategy helps a company to make decisions so that the output of the production system meets customer requirements in the best possible way. Due to the fact that project based production is typically left out of the scope in traditional production strategy literature and that there is a lack of research concerning production strategy in a house-building context, the purpose of this research is: … to extend the production strategy body of knowledge concerning project based production in a house-building context. To fulfil the purpose the following four research questions are studied and answered: RQ1: What aspects can be useful in a classification matrix contrasting different production systems for house-building? RQ2: Which competitive priorities are important to measure when evaluating different production systems on a production strategy level in a house-building context, and how can they quantitatively be measured? RQ3: How does the characteristics of the production system, i.e. the process choice, affect information exchange in a house-building context? RQ4: How can a new production strategy be formulated and implemented in an industrialised house-building context and what challenges are important to consider in that process? To answer RQ1 a classification matrix was developed that classify production systems along two dimensions: a product dimension (degree of product standardisation) and a process dimension (degree of off-site assembly). The two dimensions are related, for example a high degree of standardisation should be matched with a high degree of off-site assembly and consequently a low degree of product standardisation should be matched with a low degree of off-suite assembly. A mismatch, e.g. high degree of off-site assembly and low degree of standardisation, typically leads to poor performance and should hence be avoided. To be able to see how different types of production systems perform in different areas of competition key performance indicators (KPIs) were developed. The KPIs presented in this research can be used to measure quality, delivery (speed and dependability), cost (level and dependability), and flexibility (volume and mix) at a production strategic level (RQ2). Furthermore, to answer RQ3, a production strategy perspective was taken on information exchange by relating information exchange to the design of the production system. The results indicate that employing different types of production systems leads to different approaches to information exchange. Employing a production systems using traditional production methods on-site and a low degree of product standardisation lead to a traditional approach to information exchange, e.g. project meetings, telephone and mail. Production systems employing some degree of off-site assembly have less complex and more stable supply chains and use ICT-solutions to a higher extent, which facilitates information exchange. The findings also indicate that a high degree of product standardisation facilitates the use of ICT-solutions such as ERP and BIM. RQ4 concerns the production strategy process, i.e. formulation and implementation. Failure in this processes can jeopardise the whole business. Based on a longitudinal case study of an industrialised house-builder a suggested production strategy process was developed, including both production strategy formulation and implementation. The study also identified context specific challenges that have to be considered in an industrialised house-building context, e.g. the complexity that comes with using two different production processes (off-site and on-site) in the same production system. The research is case based and a total number of eight different production systems have been studied. Data has been collected through interviews, observations, and review of company documents.

The construction industry has deteriorated during the past 40 years. Up to 35 % of the production cost is from wastes. The manufacturing industry has had an opposite development, in many cases owing to the contributions of Lean Production and various assessment tools. The assessment tools evaluate manufacturing plants regarding their implementation of Lean, where from improvement strategies can be developed. The goal of the master thesis was to develop an assessment tool that could be used for evaluating Lean construction, which is emerging in the business. The assessment tool is called Rapid Site Assessment (RSA). The foundation of the RSA is the Rapid Plant Assessment (RPA) which is performed by taking a brief plant tour, in a team of expert researchers. 20 polar questions are coupled to eleven categories, evaluated to identify the plants potential and develop an improvement strategy. Five more assessment tools have been combined with the RPA and validated with Lean Construction and Lean references. The master thesis has been exploratory with a deductive approach, where qualitatively data was acquired. The assessment tool based on the literature review was tested at six different house- building sites. Validity has been obtained by triangulation, a reviewing supervisor, and six different site tests. Reliability was guaranteed by distinguishing the line of work with help of an experienced supervisor, meticulous documentation, and regular guidance meetings. The result is the RSA consisting of 32 statements coupled to eleven categories: customer satisfaction; safety, environment, cleanliness and order; visual management; scheduling system; levels of inventory, use of space, and movement of material; teamwork and motivation; Condition and maintenance of equipment and tools; management of complexity and variability; supply chain integration; commitment to quality; commitment to continuous improvements. The six site tests revealed that the house-building industry has development potential. The interviews and the RSA evaluations were generally similar. The analysis showed that the RSA tests grasped the sites but was not sufficiently rich for a complete understanding. The assessment needed to be developed, and additional interviews were added to the assessment tool. The categories were mostly relevant, but interviews needed to be added to decrease biases, though this would include the interpretations of more individuals in the project. Comparing different professions perceptions would increase credibility. This could solve the issue that most data were gathered by communication with few employees on site, and not observations. Further, some statements also suited to many categories and could be broken up. The master thesis was thoroughly planned but some issues needed to be discussed. The thesis was independently performed, and the assessor was inexperienced in plants and construction sites which aggravated the assessments. The issues were solved by experience feedback from the research group and supervisor. Finally, the RPA was considered repetitive, resulting in a repetitive RSA, but this was not considered a problem though the data was analysed differently in the categories. However, the repetitiveness could aggravate performing an efficient report, which could decrease the readers creditability comprehension. In the future the RSA should be developed for different types of construction projects, roadworks and industries etc, and tested by other researchers to increase credibility. The master thesis demonstrated that the RSA could be developed by combining assessment tools, although it could not be performed in a brief tour. By adding interviews, credible improvement strategies can probably be developed from the RSA.

The future of the sawmill industry is uncertain; this is partly due to its internal structural changes, but also due to structural changes amongst their customers. Concurrently, competition within the industry is increasing, and therefore focus is constantly being placed on reducing costs and leveraging economies of scale. However, in order for sawmills to benefit from economies of scale, it is necessary to work with a well thought-out logistics strategy. This doctoral dissertation aims at identifying and describing the customers' logistics service requirements as well as describing and analyzing logistic strategies in the sawmill industry. The dissertation identifies and defines some of the sawmills customers' logistics service requirements and establishes a theoretical framework for logistics strategies, as well as it studies logistics strategies in the sawmill industry. House-builders and traditional retailers appear to focus on similar logistics service requirements, whereas the logistics service requirement of the DIY multiple retailers differ. Furthermore, this dissertation provides a general definition of logistics strategy that has been operationalized by generic logistics strategies. The sawmill industry makes use of generic logistics strategies such as differentiation and postponement. The individual sawmills ought to consider improving their process performance by implementing additional generic logistics strategies as well as increasing their utilization of generic logistics strategies that are already implemented. The sawmill industry's utilization of generic logistics strategies is however restricted by its own supplier market (including uncertainties of quality of incoming material), and also by the inherent nature of commodity products, as well as divergent material flows.

Criticism concerning quality deficiencies and high production costs for housing has made many construction companies make efforts to improve performance, inspired by ideas from the manufacturing industry and in particular the car industry. This is often referred to as industrialised building. The ideas are not new but so far their spread has been limited. This study covers two years of one current effort to industrialise house building in a Swedish construction company, the Peab group. An investment in a new factory for automated production of concrete building elements had been made and start up of production in the factory took place during the time of the study. Two subunits, a contractor and a structural building element supplier were involved in the industrialisation effort and the study is confined to these. To improve performance, a prefabricated building system including Peab standards was to be developed and used across the organisation, instead of the existing local solutions. A project, Peab Gemensamt System concept (PGS), was established to conduct the task. The focus for the study is on the facilitators and barriers to make organisational changes for the purpose of industrialising house building in a construction company. Observations were made at meetings with the PGS core team and the involved Peab group staff was interviewed. Notions of organisational competence and embedded knowledge and action were applied to describe the studied company’s specific organisational context and to identify facilitators and barriers. Conclusions concern how organisational context, content of change and the change process interrelated and formed the outcome. In this case, fundamental ideas for change became local attempts. Establishing a project, PGS, for conducting change was new to the target organisation. Facilitators were not created to allow the organisation to learn to change in this new way. The PGS project could therefore not contribute directly to change. One building project introduced a prefabricated building system. It was beyond the team’s control to make necessary changes to benefit from it. Therefore, temporary adaptations to prevailing organisational conditions were made. Another building project introduced a new way of working during the detail design stage. It was within the team’s control to make necessary changes to benefit from it. Existing organisational competence could therefore be enhanced. The new factory had the potential to rationalise production of building elements, but it did not automatically solve problems related to the collaboration between the building element supplier and the contractor. Issues for improving performance through the studied ideas for industrialisation emerge from this. These concern combining the contractor’s and building element supplier’s different ways of working; meeting customer requirements while realising certain industrialisation ideas; and the roles of the permanent and temporary organisations for embedding knowledge without losing flexibility. / QC 20100924

To meet the demand of future building requirements, and to improve productivity and competitiveness, there is a need to modernize and revise the current practices in the wooden single-family house industry. In several other sectors, intensive work is being done to adapt to the anticipated fourth industrial revolution. The manufacturing industry has already begun its transformation with concepts such as smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0. So far, smart manufacturing has not been discussed to any significant extent for the wooden single-family house industry, even though it might be a way for this industry to improve productivity and competitiveness. The research presented in this thesis aims at increased knowledge about what smart manufacturing means for the wooden single-family house industry. This requires investigating what smart wooden house manufacturingis, what challenges that might be associated with it, and how smart wooden house manufacturing can be realized. At the core of this thesis is the conceptualization of smart wooden house manufacturing—when realized, it is expected to contribute to improve the competitiveness of the wooden single family house industry. The findings presented here are based on three Research Studies. Two studies were case studies within the wooden single-family house industry. The third study was a traditional literature review. The findings revealed two definitions and 26 components of smart wooden house manufacturing. At large, smart wooden house manufacturing emphasizes digital transformation with a focus on digital information flow, how to add information, information compilation, and information distribution between systems/programs and departments. Some of the challenges associated with smart wooden house manufacturing are, e.g. culture, competence and manual transfer of information between systems. The findings indicate similarities of smart wooden house manufacturing within certain components of industrialized house building and Industry 4.0, these components could enable the realization of smart wooden house manufacturing. / För att möta efterfrågan på framtida byggkrav och för att förbättra produktiviteten och konkurrenskraften finns det ett behov av att modernisera och revidera nuvarande tillvägagångssätt inom träsmåhusindustrin. I flera andra sektorer arbetas det intensivt med att anpassa sig till den förväntade fjärde industriella revolutionen. Tillverkningsindustrin har redan påbörjat sin omvandling med koncept som smart manufacturing och Industry 4.0. Hittills har smart manufacturing inte diskuterats i någon större utsträckning för träsmåhusindustrin, även om det kan vara ett sätt för denna industri att förbättra produktiviteten och konkurrenskraften. Forskningen som presenteras i denna avhandling syftar till ökad kunskap om vad smart manufacturing innebär för träsmåhusindustrin. Detta kräver undersökning av vad smart trähustillverkning är, vilka utmaningar som kan vara förknippade med det och hur smart trähustillverkning kan realiseras. Kärnan i denna uppsats är begreppsframställningen av smart trähustillverkning—när det realiserats förväntas det bidra till att förbättra konkurrenskraften för träsmåhusindustrin. Resultaten som presenteras här är baserat på tre forskningsstudier. Två studier var fallstudier inom träsmåhusindustrin. Den tredje studien var en traditionell litteraturstudie. Resultaten avslöjade två definitioner och 26 komponenter av smart träshustillverkning. Sammanfattningsvis betonar smart trähustillverkning digital transformation med fokus på digitalt informationsflöde, hur man lägger till information, sammanställning av information och informationsfördelning mellan system / program och avdelningar. Några av utmaningarna associerade med smart trähustillverkning är t.ex. kultur, kompetens och manuell överföring av information mellan system. Resultaten indikerar likheter mellan smart träshustillverkning inom vissa komponenter av industriellt husbyggande och Industry 4.0, dessa komponenter skulle kunna möjliggöra realiseringen av smart trähustillverkning.

This thesis takes a point of departure in the problems to recruit and retain personnel in woodworking companies. Companies, actors of society and researchers started with the ambition to create work which people, especially young ones, would like to have and where employees want to stay. The research has been carried out within the att…-project in collaboration between Dalarna University and National Institute for Working Life. The primary purpose was to create deeper understanding of characteristics of attractive work. A distinction has been made between on the one hand what makes work attractive, and on the other hand changes of the attractiveness. The empirical problem with recruitment was a starting point, followed by an interaction between theory and empiricism. The relation to practioners can be described as interactive with usefulness in focus. Questionnaires, group discussions and interviews, as well as informal conversations, have been used in five separate studies. The attractiveness of work depends on the individual’s estimation of the totality of work based upon her/his life situation. Characteristic for attractive work is that it is dynamic and comparative. Positive factors of work are related to other employments or to the idea of attractive work. A model of attractive work which represents an overall picture regarding what makes work attractive contains about 80 qualities in 22 dimensions. One finding is that changes in one dimension influences other dimensions. Another finding is that changed estimations of work depends both on changed valuation of the importance of different aspects of work, and on changed conception of the aspects. It is not enough to do a single effort aimed at retaining and recruiting personnel since the attractiveness of work is dynamic and comparisons are made with other employments. Companies must continuously do efforts for more attractive work. Existing attractive qualities that are hidden from applicants can be displayed. Other qualities can be realized and added to. Knowledge about what makes work attractive and about the dynamic of the attractiveness is valuable to create more attractive work. / QC 20100713

The diploma thesis aims to elaboration of project documentation for a one-family house reconstruction. The project is based on the local plan of the village Boršov nad Vltavou. Proposal is made in two variations - A and B. Project is worked-out according to the variation A and elaborated in a range for issuing notification of simple building. The house is designed in compliance with the area plan of the municipality and it follows the surrounding building development with its character. Work on the project documentation respected all legal regulations concerning of building design. The drawing part has been processed by visualization cad application.

The construction industry is today well known for its way to work in projects where each one is unique and needs its own detail solutions, ways to work and different processes. That means that in the start up phase of each project there has been a need to start all over again since just a fraction of knowledge and solutions pass from one project to another. Companies has been able to work this way due to the fact that lately the interest level has been favourable and the customers has had a buying power which enable construction to be carried out this way. Today the interest is so low that it cannot almost go any lower and the construction industry is therefore forced to find new ways to build houses more efficiently and cheaper to be able to match the market. The answer to this problem was found in the manufacturing industry and the way they work with repeated processes. The construction industry has looked into manufacturing and their ways of working before when they looked at the car industry in the early 20th century but it took about 100 years from that for the industrialized house building that we know today to be born. One of Scandinavia´s largest construction companies Veidekke is currently putting an effort in developing an industrialized house building concept called VeidekkeMAX that consists of three different areas. The three areas are a technical platform, process and an organisation with the purpose to find more effective ways to construct houses without compromising with the final outputs quality. When the work today is carried out with more repeatable process than before it is possible to measure the development of industrialized house building by looking at the maturity of its processes within the company. This study´s aim is to investigate a maturity measurement tool from the manufacturing industry and use it in the construction industry. This study will measure the maturity of the concept VeidekkeMAX and the measurement tool being used is CMM. CMM was developed in the software industry and it measure maturity in five different levels. It is important that the measurement can be repeated so it is possible to see how the development is going. Specific fields within the concept have been chosen for investigation and the empirics for the study has been collected through interviews with employees in the chosen fields. The respondent’s answers have been evaluated and the result is presented in this paper. The result shows that today the maturity in VeidekkeMAX is low since the employees are working in different ways and the observed processes within the company today are individual and varies a lot. The result also shows that it is possible to use CMM within the construction industry but it is as most useful if there are clear processes to measure. This thesis also briefly investigates the question whether it is possible to take standardisation within the construction industry too far and each interviewed was asked for their opinions on where VeidekkeMAX is going. The result showed that within the company there is a fear to take it one step too far which shows the importance to make sure that every employee is on-board with the change and that everyone is motivated to work with the concept and help develop it making it more efficient. / Bostadsbyggbranschen är idag välkänd för sitt sätt att arbeta i projekt där varje projekt är unikt och kräver sina egna detaljlösningar, sätt att arbeta samt processer. Vad det innebär är att man inför varje nytt projekt har varit tvungen att till stora delar återuppfinna hjulet då relativt lite kunskap och lösningar har gått från ett projekt till nästa. Företag har kunnat arbeta på det här viset då ränteläget den senaste tiden har varit gynnsamt och kunderna har haft en köpkraft som möjliggör att producera bostäder på detta vis. Idag är räntan på en så låg nivå att den snart inte kan sjunka lägre och således måste byggbranschen hitta nya sätt att producera bostäder på ett effektivare och billigare sätt för att kunna matcha marknaden. Svaret fanns hos tillverkningsindustrin och hur de arbetar med återupprepande processer. Byggindustrin tittade redan på tidigt 1900-tal hur tillverkningsindustrin arbetar men från det tog dröjde drygt 100 år till innan det industriella husbyggandet, som det ser ut idag, skapades. Ett av Skandinaviens största bygg företag, Veidekke, bedriver i dagsläget en satsning inom det industriella husbyggandet som heter VeidekkeMAX som är ett koncept bestående av i tre olika delar. De tre delarna är en teknisk plattform, process och organisation som alla syftar till att bygga på ett effektivare sätt utan att kompromissa på slutproduktens kvalitet. När arbetet nu sker med flera återupprepande processer så öppnar sig möjligheterna att mäta utvecklingen för det industriella husbyggandet genom att se hur mogna dessa processer hos företaget är. Den här studien syftar till att undersöka huruvida det är möjligt att använda mognadsmätningsverktyg tagna från tillverkningsindustrin och sedan använda inom byggindustrin. Mognadsmätningen i denna studie kommer att ske av VeidekkeMAX och mätverktyget som testas är CMM. CMM kommer ursprungligen från mjukvaruindustrin och processmognaden mäts i fem olika nivåer. Viktigt är att mätningen går att återupprepa kontinuerligt för att på så vis kunna se hur utvecklingen sker. Specifika områden inom konceptet har valts ut för granskning och empirin för att genomföra mätningen samlas in genom intervjuer med anställda inom områdena. Därefter utvärderas deras svar och ett resultat av mätningen redovisas. Resultatet visade att mognaden inom VeidekkeMAX var relativt låg då de anställda arbetar på väldigt olika vis och de processer som observerade till stor del var individuella. Resultatet visar också att det går att använda mätverktyget CMM inom byggindustrin men det når sin största potential om det finns tydligt uppstyrda processer att mäta. Studien går även in på frågan om man kan gå för långt med standardisering inom byggbranschen och varje intervjuad anställd tillfrågades även om deras syn på vart VeidekkeMAX är på väg. Resultatet visar att det finns en rädsla att gå för långt och det belyser vikten av att se till att ha alla anställda med på tåget och se till att varje individ är motiverad till att hjälpa till att utveckla och förbättra satsningen.