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This thesis addresses innovation in affordable housing. Many people face homelessness or suffer from the burden of renting a house that they cannot afford. In Boston, Massachusetts only 35% of the population are homeowners, resulting in more people renting in the city if they manage to find housing there at all. The increasing cost of housing in the United States presents a significant obstacle for immigrant families, many of whom are already struggling to make a living due to language barriers and limited access to employment opportunities. As housing prices continue to rise across the country, immigrant families face mounting challenges in securing safe and affordable housing, which can result in overcrowding, homelessness, and other adverse outcomes that exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities. To address the housing problem this research engages the solution of high-quality affordable housing for immigrant families in Chelsea, MA (a suburban neighborhood of Boston) by analyzing density and methods of prefabrication. Along with the solution of affordability, the intellectual node of the thesis also discusses the importance of suburbia and its advantage vi of providing a nurturing community. This thesis intends to develop certain functional parameters of design using a Prefabricated Panelized Approach. The prefabricated design for affordability approach provides a technique which can save time and money using off-site manufacturing of products and on-site assembly. This kind of development offers an opportunity to optimize the construction process and an efficient way to build affordable housing. Through this approach, the thesis intends to provide opportunities for home ownership, promote a sense of community among immigrant families, and offer language support to facilitate their growth.

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Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur informationsflödet på en prefabriceringsfabrik fungerar, från konstruktion till produktion. Mer konkret inriktar den sig till att identifiera effektiva och ineffektiva steg i flödet samt förbättringsmöjligheter för att kunna optimera personalens dagliga arbete. Eftersom ingen tidigare kunskap kring var problemen inom informationsflödet på fallföretaget fanns, kunde inte någon teoretiskt koppling formuleras innan fallstudien var genomförd. Fallstudien utgjordes av metoderna observation och intervju där kvalitativ data insamlades. Observationen genomfördes för att kartlägga processen av informationsflödet på fallföretaget. Intervjuerna genomfördes för att få de anställdas åsikter och hitta vart problemen låg. Efter fallstudien kunde teoriområdena klargöras och en litteraturstudie utfördes. De problemområden som framgick utifrån undersökningen grundar sig främst i tidsbrist. Detta bland annat på grund av tidskrävande aktiviteter som manuell hantering vid uppförandet av tillverkningsritningar och revideringar i fallföretagets planeringar. Förbättringsförslaget författarna presenterar är därmed en uppgradering av ritprogram samt implementering av ett planeringssystem. Tidsbristen ansågs även leda till brister inom kommunikationen. Författarna anser att det, av olika skäl, är viktigt att behålla den personliga kontakten och komplettera denna med system. Studien ämnar sig till att bidra med kunskap kring hur ett informationsflöde på en prefabriceringsfabrik kan vara utformat. Den stärker teorier kring varför det är viktigt att behålla den fysiska kommunikationen när uppdaterade system implementeras. Den har vidare bidragit med förslag kring vilka delar som kan effektiviseras inom ett informationsflöde där prefabelement tillverkas. Arbetet begränsades till att enbart genomföras på en prefabriceringsfabrik och kollar bara på flödet mellan konstruktion till produktion. Inga ekonomiska aspekter har beaktats och endast ett företag har deltagit i undersökningen. / The study aimed to investigate how the information flow at an off-site fabrication is working, from design-stage to production. More specifically, it focus on identifying effective and ineffective parts in the information flow, along with improvement opportunities to optimize the personnel’s daily work. Since the authors had no knowledge about where the problems in the information flow at the company was, they were not able to create a theoretical framework before the case study was made. The case study involved observation and interviews. The observation was made to identify the process and information flow at the company. The interviews were made to get the knowledge about the personnel’s opinion and to locate where the problems in the information flow occurred. With the case study as a base the theoretical framework could be made with a literature study. The problem areas that emerged from the case study are all mainly based from the lack of time. This is partly due to the time-consuming activities such as manual handling in the making of production technical drawing and revision of planning documents. The improvement proposal the authors present is to upgrade the computer-aided design software and to implement a planning system. The authors also consider the lack of time as a reason for shortcomings in the communication. The improvement proposal the authors present for this is to keep the personal contact and to supplement it with a system. The study intends to contribute with knowledge about how an information flow at an off-site fabrication may look like. It reinforces theories about why it is important to keep the personal communication when a system upgrade are implemented. The study has also contributed in proposals in which parts of the information flow that have potential to become more effective at an off-site fabrication. The study was limited to an off-site fabrication and only the information flow between design-stage and production was included in the study. No economic aspects were considered and only one company has participated in the study.

The gradually changing behavior of the population, towards urbanization, ledto an increased shortage of available housing. This development has resultedin a serious issue in Sweden, where too few firms are providing solutions formulti-family houses in wood. Potential firms that could fill this increasingdemand are those in the single-family house industry. Yet, these firms mightface considerable problems with productivity, predominately derived fromincreasing production costs and inadequate production development.Developing these firms are associated with long-term investments, whichis investigated by evaluating the industry structure for sellers, highlightingthe financial and market situation within their industry. These factors aregrowing in importance due to the current market concentration, where morefirms are required to focus on product development driven by the demand toprefabricate wooden elements, volumes or modules in an industrialized way.This thesis studies Swedish firms producing wooden single-familyhouses, with the aim to investigate their possibilities to enter the woodenmulti-family house industry in Sweden.Investigations will be conducted by applying Altman’s Z’ value, riskposition model, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, the Herfindahl-Hirschmannumber equivalent, productivity ratio model for profitability and finally amodel measuring market Concentration Ratio.Results show that the industry tends towards perfect competition with toomany firms involved, i.e. firms mainly have to compete by prices. Further,firms are grouped into three zones; risk, grey or safe zone. The levels withinthese zone show a reduction of firms in the red zone over time. Related to thecurrent risks, many firms have promising positions to invest in productdevelopment towards wooden multi-family houses, in addition to theircurrent products, even though firm productivity has declined during thestudied time frame. The results that the investigated firms have goodpossibilities gaining a competitive advantage by diversifying into thegrowing wooden multi-family house industry.

Introduction (and purpose) – Since the 1970s, digital development and modeling has improved from simple digital illustrations of a building to advanced software, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), that allows contractors to easily collaborate on a shared model. These advanced modelling systems create the opportunity to optimize planning as well as produce a higher quality product by modelling how all the various parts of a build work together and decreasing the number of potential errors that occur on-site. To better understand how BIM can improve production, this study aims to investigate the current use of BIM and potential areas of opportunity within the prefabricated housing construction sector. Method – Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with five employees of five separate companies active in the Swedish production industry of single-family houses. Additional data was collected through a survey that was shared with a total of 17 companies, three of which partook in the survey and shared it with the companies’ employees. Results – The interviews and surveys revealed limited use of BIM technology in current developmental practice, although the company representatives still expressed interest in future technological advancement. The company representatives endorsed the ability to automate work processes in both the planning phase as well as the production phase as the greatest reason for expanding future usage. The survey revealed interest in using BIM technology to provide the opportunity to reduce the number of mistakes that occur between different contractors, where collisions may occur between unique models that have not been integrated by a single system. Analysis – According to the interview respondents, the use of BIM technology could create opportunities for businesses to remain relevant by more easily integrating future technological developments. In addition, the use of BIM technology can attract new, competent personnel. The possibility of using cloud-based BIM allows a greater degree of customer involvement in projects. However, the economic value of BIM implementation is not clear as changing established work processes may require new procedures in the company. Therefore, changing to a BIM-based work system may not be economically advantageous to companies that already have a working business model. Discussion – While indicating an interest in future development using BIM, this study revealed currently limited use of BIM technology in prefabricated housing companies, where companies currently dedicate various amounts of recourses for its technological development. A larger, randomized sample would allow for a more generalizable idea of BIM use, as this study’s results could be biased by including opinions only of those who chose to respond from a limited number of companies. The volunteer method of data collection may have skewed results, as people who choose to respond often have strong opinions about the topic. However, using a mixture of interviews and surveys did allow collection of both qualitative and quantitative data and provided an initial look into current opinions about BIM as well as areas where participants believed it could help in production, even if it is not currently in use. / Introduktion (och syfte) – Sedan 1970-talet har utvecklingen av digitala verktyg gått från enkla illustrationer, till Byggnadsinformationsmodellering (BIM), en avancerad samarbetsteknologi som tillåter olika yrkesgrupper att arbeta i en gemensam modell. Tekniken möjliggör både optimeringsmöjligheter vid planering och höjd produktionskvalitet där modelleringen av en byggnad kan minska andelen kollisioner som riskerar uppstå vid montage. För att bättre förstå hur BIM kan förbättra produktion fokuserade studien på att utvärdera nuvarande och framtida potentiella användningsområden inom den prefabricerade småhussektorn. Metod – Datainsamlingen bestod av fem semistrukturerade intervjuer från fem enskilda företag inom den svenska småhusbranschen. Intervjuerna kompletterades med en enkät som delades med totalt 17 företag, varav tre företags medarbetare delade enkäten internt inom företaget. Resultat – Både intervjuerna och enkäten visade ett begränsat användande av BIMteknik i företagens arbetsmetoder, trots det uppgav företagsrepresentanterna ett intresse i framtida teknikutveckling. Företagsrepresentanterna förespråkade möjligheterna att automatisera både projektering och produktion som drivande orsaker för fortsatt teknisk utveckling. Enkätundersökningen visade ett intresse att, i deras arbete använda BIMteknik för ökad kommunikation mellan yrkesgrupper, där potentiella kollisioner mellan modeller från olika system kan hanteras på ett effektivare sätt. Analys – Användandet av BIM-teknik kunde öka företagens möjlighet att lättare implementera framtida teknisk utveckling. Samtidigt som ett högt teknikanvändande kan attrahera ny kompetent personal. Möjligheten att förlägga BIM-tekniken till webbtjänster tillåter beställare att bli mer involverade i sitt husprojekt. Trots det är det inte klart vilket ekonomiskt värde BIM-användandet ger, där implementeringen av ett nytt system kan kräva att justering av flera redan befintliga system inom företaget. Implementeringen av ett BIM-baserat arbetssystem är därför inte en självklar investering för företag som redan i dag har en fungerande verksamhet. Diskussion – Trots ett, i dagsläget, begränsat användande av BIM-teknik visade företagen i den prefabricerande småhusindustrin ett intresse i teknikens framtida utveckling, där företag dedicerar varierande mängd resurser för teknikens utveckling. Fortsatta studier föreslås genomföra med mer omfattande, och slumpmässiga datainsamlingar eftersom undersökningen, som använt ett begränsat antal företag, har krävt att respondenten har velat delta i studien och kan med det tros kunnat gett en partisk bild om ämnet. Användandet av intervjuer för kvalitativa data och enkät för kvantitativa data tillät för en bredare spektrum av åsikter att bli hörda rörande det aktuella användandet av BIM-teknik, och inom