The Swedish housing market has had an increased demand in the past ten years, which has led to an increased demand in terms of time-efficient housing construction. The Swedish housing construction has unfortunately not developed its production at the pace required to satisfy the demand. The consequence of this has led to even more pressure in time-efficiency, which has proven to be one of the dominant reasons why errors and damages in production occur. The costs for correcting these errors and damages has been estimated between 59 – 73 billion Swedish crowns. To avoid these costs and to minimize the risks of errors and damage, companies within the construction industry should focus on further development in their production. Lean Production is one way of increasing production efficiency, while maintaining quality. Lean Production is a well-known term for efficient production, and construction have tried to implement its principles many times before, though without success. This study investigates how a construction company can deal with obstacles regarding standardization and successfully implement standardized work in its production. These obstacles for standardization have been shown to be lack of repetitive work activities, unpredictability, and the fact that construction is considered conservative. Furthermore, the study focuses on work instructions and how these can play a significant role in effective and quality-assuring work. The aim of this study has been to investigate how a construction company can develop their work preparations to increase production efficiency while maintaining quality, based on the manufacturing industry’s strategies for standardized work. Furthermore, the goal of this study has been to make suggestions on how to handle obstacles regarding different levels of standardization in construction, as well as contributing to further research within the subject. The results of the study indicate that by using standardized work in construction, similar to what can be found in manufacturing, there are great possibilities for construction companies to increase their production efficiency. Two time-studies were conducted, where the results showed a decrease in production time by roughly 34% for the first time-study and a decrease in production time by 67% for the second time-study. The results also indicate that there are possibilities to implement standardized work in construction, without jeopardizing the craftsmanship-pride that exists in the construction industry, and therefore increase motivation and commitment. Craftsmanship-pride, motivation and commitment has earlier been reviewed as an obstacle for a successful standardization in construction. Based on the reflections of the participants in the study, standardized work should contribute to a deeper understanding of each work step and its instructions and how the methods of standardized work also can provide an even better work instruction. Two suggestions are submitted in the form of two methods with the purpose of serving as proposals on how construction contractors can use standardization on different levels in their production. Method 1 is presented as most suitable for applying on work that tend to be more recurring in one or more construction projects. This method is similar to what can be found in the manufacturing, which therefore should be able to benefit from all principles in Toyota’s philosophy of Lean Production. Method 2 considered most suitable for applying on more specific and critical work, that rarely looks the same in one or more construction projects. Based on their workflow, the methods should be able to facilitate the implementation of standardized work, while also addressing obstacles to increase production efficiency. Furthermore, the methods should also contribute to continuous improvement to decrease learning curves and increase experience feedback.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:ltu-81901 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Nilzén, Emil |
| Publisher | Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för samhällsbyggnad och naturresurser |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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