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.

During the past years, wooden one and two family houses showed a higher growth rate on the German construction market compared to conventional material like brick and stone. Wood as construction material became more and more attractive. Furthermore, a growing demand on multifamily houses could be recognized, yet, wood has not been considered as an alternative in this field of application until now. Trying to understand the end-users attitudes towards wooden multifamily houses, this licentiate thesis aims at exploring German end-users’ perceptions of wooden multifamily houses. To collect the necessary data, the Association Pattern Technique (APT) was applied, which is a two-stage method and has its foundations in the Means-End theory. In the first stage, 31 in-depth laddering interviews were carried out, which served as the base for the matrix-survey in the second stage, where 229 answers were received. Extending the existing method in the matrix-survey stage allowed for important additional data to be uncovered. The results show that individuals associate certain product attributes with wooden multifamily houses and that these attributes are thought to entail specific consequences. These consequences are in turn linked with the personal values of the respondents. The most dominant perceptual orientations of different groups of respondents are shown and significant differences could be found in how individuals in German perceive wooden multifamily houses depending on age, income and habitation.

<p>During the past years, wooden one and two family houses showed a higher growth rate on the German construction market compared to conventional material like brick and stone. Wood as construction material became more and more attractive. Furthermore, a growing demand on multifamily houses could be recognized, yet, wood has not been considered as an alternative in this field of application until now. Trying to understand the end-users attitudes towards wooden multifamily houses, this licentiate thesis aims at exploring German end-users’ perceptions of wooden multifamily houses.</p><p>To collect the necessary data, the Association Pattern Technique (APT) was applied, which is a two-stage method and has its foundations in the Means-End theory. In the first stage, 31 in-depth laddering interviews were carried out, which served as the base for the matrix-survey in the second stage, where 229 answers were received. Extending the existing method in the matrix-survey stage allowed for important additional data to be uncovered.</p><p>The results show that individuals associate certain product attributes with wooden multifamily houses and that these attributes are thought to entail specific consequences. These consequences are in turn linked with the personal values of the respondents. The most dominant perceptual orientations of different groups of respondents are shown and significant differences could be found in how individuals in German perceive wooden multifamily houses depending on age, income and habitation.</p>