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The demand for affordable, high-quality homes and premises has increased as society has evolved. Construction companies have shown that an industrialised housebuilding (IHB) platform strategy is an effective way of meeting exacting customer requirements. We decided to apply a managerial perspective and consider the IHB platform as a technological solution when investigating technology transfer (TT) in a construction context. Drawing on a meta-analysis of the literature and a qualitative case study at an IHB company, this work examines how two construction companies participate in TT. The results show that the IHB platform strategy can help a company overcome uncertainties associated with the TT process. Furthermore, the platform strategy supports the transferability of IHB to different markets, which, in turn, provides unique opportunities for companies from other contexts to enter the construction market. Our findings also revealed that CEOs from three construction companies were not only interested in TT due to potential profit improvements, but also considered how the process could benefit their employees and the community. This may be a result that is specific to Nordic culture or insight into a unique characteristic of the broad construction industry. This study contributes knowledge to the scarce research field of TT in a construction context. It provides evidence for how further cases of TT may disrupt the construction industry in terms of new business models or companies from the diverse field entering the market. Validerad;2021;Nivå 2;2021-09-30 (alebob);Funder: Aalto University’s research project “Building 2030—industrialised construction”; The Finnish Science Foundation for Economics and Technology

It is generally acknowledged that good-quality design is a prerequisite for good quality and productive construction work. One proposed measure to improve the quality of construction has been contractors’ involvement in the design phase, and this phenomenon has been studied by several researchers. However, such approaches have not adequately addressed how this involvement affects the quality of the design. In this study, the aim was to study the effects of the early involvement of contactors on design quality based on evaluating the design quality factors. A case study was used to collect data and content analysis to analyze structural drawings and design meeting minutes of a large-scale infrastructure project. Particularly, the focus was on gathering information on the quality of the design and how it was addressed in the design coordination. We combined this quantitative data with qualitative open-ended thematic interviews, including respondents who led and coordinated the design on both the client and contractor sides. Our findings suggest that despite the vast amount of design changes, contractors’ involvement and development work in the detailed design phase improved design quality and constructability. Our findings also suggest that the contractor’s involvement during the schematic design phase had a design-enhancing effect in the detailed design phase. This study contributes to our understanding of contractors’ valuable role in design quality.

This study investigates how data-based continuous improvement could be applied in construction projects utilizing takt production. The purpose is to define a process model that will guide how such a continuous improvement system can be created in an organization utilizing takt production methods, and how the system can then be improved. This research follows design science approach to highlight the practicality of the solution. Research consists of diagnosis, process model creation, validation of the process model, discussion, and conclusion. Diagnosis is performed with a literature review and empirical research, including interviews and observations of current practices in a case company. Validation is performed by collecting external feedback and by organizing internal interviews. The findings indicate that the created process model provides a system that can be used to improve the takt production process with data, and that the process can be supported by also handling tacit knowledge. A defined learning system will help in tackling the current barriers facing the construction industry related to inefficient data processing and unclear knowledge management. As the system utilizes the terminology and theory of takt production, it is proposed that the system can be expanded to other projects and construction functions with further research.

Building Design Management (DM) is challenging due to the fragmentation of project partners, the iterative nature of design and the tradition of informal management of designers. Therefore, many contractors do not trust the promises of designers and protect the construction schedule with schedule buffers that increase project lead times. To act upon this situation, several researchers have suggested using the Last Planner™ System (LPS) as a method for DM. Using two case studies, we present how the use of the LPS method as a tool for Daily Management (DAM) increases the reliability of the design and how, correspondingly, not using it can affect design reliability. So far, very little attention has been paid to the role of DAM in DM, and this short article seeks to provide new insights into this research gap for both researchers in the field and DM professionals. These early and exploratory results, despite the limited number of cases, can be utilised in further research as well as in practical project management, especially when the reduction of schedule buffers between construction and design is targeted

PurposeTo further the understanding of industrialised house building (IHB) from a temporal, emergent corporate-ability perspective, this study aims to trace the build-up of corporate assets in an IHB company over time. The research draws on dynamic capabilities, acknowledging not only what assets the company have developed and currently are exploiting, but also how these assets were develop and managed (i.e. enhanced, combined, protected and potentially reconfigured) to sustain long-term competitiveness.Design/methodology/approachA case study design was used to form a narrative that covers the evolution of an IHB company over a 25-year period. Corporate archival material, analysis of original data from a large number of research studies during 1993-2013 and retrospective reflections of owners and managers, including crosschecking interpretations of archival material, developed and triangulated the narrative.FindingsThe study presents rich empirical findings on the build-up of corporate assets. Starting from a successive process of exploration and exploitation formation of dynamic capabilities eventually played out into an exponential dynamic capability build-up. The IHB case company displays the ability to not only continuously exploit and renew resources and competences, but also to sense, seize and reconfigure cumulative assets over time. The exponential development of dynamic capabilities resonates to literature on higher-order dynamic capabilities implying that: the accumulated and higher-order dynamic capabilities are difficult to imitate and a (any) company must possess higher-order dynamic capabilities to be able to exploit and/or take up IHB.Originality/valueThe study is complementing and potentially challenging frequent framings of the IHB concept. Previous research has addressed and characterised IHB mainly by encapsulating a moment in time and, thus, characteristics are momentary and represent static views on IHB. However, IHB has seen a strong development over the past 25 years, and the study reflects on this development from the perspective of one of the IHB-forerunner companies in Sweden. By exploring from a company perspective the developments, reconfiguration and capacity to develop/reconfigure over time in a changing environment, the study introduces an alternative understanding of IHB as dynamic capabilities.

Supplier firms are integrating downstream closer to the construction client. Sawmills have tried for decades to start producing timber buildings in order to capitalise on their core product; sawn timber. Their efforts have often failed, which is attributed to the different business logics between sawing timber and constructing buildings. This research identifies the supply chain structure as an important classification of production and business logic. Many firms operate make-to-stock, make-to-order and even engineer-to-order within the same firm, thus utilising the same or overlapping resources. From a theoretical viewpoint, this paper explores the problem of multiplicity in supply chains within construction and construction supplier firms. Literature on operations strategies, operations management, and supply chain structures is covered and put into perspective. It is an important capability to handle diversity in supply chain structures, not only when expanding business, but also in balancing different product categories internally e.g. to handle variations in market demand. The effect on internal resource utilisation can be vast. Operations management must take the differences in supply chain structures into account when developing key performance indicators and operations management strategies.

In a competitive situation where clients demand for high responsiveness to order-specific requirements, suppliers of volumetric preassemblies are struggling to maintain efficiency in production. In ...

To achieve competitive advantage, companies have different capabilities that supports a reciprocal and dynamic effectiveness way of operating. This research aim to extend theory about business models and get deeper understanding on how industrialized house building coordination takes place and the dynamic aspects of the coordination. It was conducted as case study, using two deliberately different industrialized house building companies. The results indicates processes links to reciprocal dynamic effectiveness here are complex, no single answer as for how reciprocal dynamic effectiveness in IHB can be described, due to because its complexity. The empirical data, implies that if a company takes active actions in jointly inall all four dimensions in the model must be considered. The theoretical contribution lies in the definition of reciprocal and dynamic effectiveness needed to maintain a viable business model