Gustav Jansson

Platform use in systems building

The practice of reusing processes and technical solutions leads to the formation of product platforms in house building. Product platforms originate from industries employing a make-to-order production strategy, e.g. the automotive industry. To test how the product platform concept is useful in engineer-to-order production strategies, a case study at two Swedish house-builders was made. Key factors that affect platform use in systems buildings were sought. The smaller company operates a supplier-led platform focusing on commonalities in process knowledge. There is less definition of the product itself to allow for distinctiveness in the product offer. The larger company has a decentralized business and operates a client-driven platform with fragmented standardization. Focus is put on creating commonality through defining the product and handling distinctiveness through an iterative design procedure. Product families were not in use at the case study companies. The companies transform standardized platform solutions into project uniqueness by using support methods. Four platform support methods emerged from the case studies: design planning, collaborative design, design optimization, and requirements iteration. The balance between commonality and distinctiveness in the platform is important to attend to in each house-building project. The engineer-to-order production strategy hinders the implementation of a fully parameterized platform. The product platform concept is therefore expanded with support methods to handle distinctiveness, i.e. project uniqueness. The product platform assets: components, processes, relationships and knowledge, are present also in platforms used in systems building.

The role of experience feedback channels in the continuous development of house-building platforms

Purpose – This paper aims to describe how the experience feedback (EF) from building projects contributes to product platform development in house-building companies. House-building companies seek improvements to decrease costs, improve flow and decrease variability. Industrialised concepts using predefinitions in product platforms have provided a way of storing and reusing knowledge in project-based house-building organisations. However, the innovation in platforms is mainly incremental and based on EF from implementations in projects. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative data were gathered via interviews, archival studies and observations, and analysed to identify the underlying structures used to manage the incorporation of EF during platform development. Four different EF channels were studied at one Scandinavian house-builder. The data are explained using an analytical framework based on diffusion of innovation, product platforms and EF. Findings – EF is distributed over the value chain to impro...

An indicator for superfluous iteration in offsite building design processes

Enhancement of iteration management in the design phase is important for successful offsite building projects. Design iteration has two aspects. Although iteration is necessary to deal with design requirements when solving complex problems (i.e. increasing quality through iteration), it has also been identified in numerous studies to be one of the main causes of design errors and time and cost overruns (i.e. superfluous iteration), as it increases scheduling and design complexity. Current building project management tools do not provide a means to control the reduction of superfluous iteration. One problem is that existing research has difficulty precisely relating the effects of specific management actions to superfluous iteration. The idea of this study is to develop an indicator, the sequence deviation quotient (SDQ), which reflects the amount of superfluous design iteration in a project. It can be thought of as a tool supporting project managers to make systematic and continuous (from project to project) design process improvement. A premise is that the impact of varying project conditions on the process structure of design processes, i.e. the precedence relationships between the design activities, is only small. In this paper, we provide a definition of superfluous iteration. We tested the feasibility of the SDQ by subjecting it to project variation and input perturbation by means of a Monte Carlo simulation. The simulations are based on the data from a real offsite design building process, the designing of a 1100 m2 residential building in Sweden.

Modularization based on commonalities in house-building requirements

Some of the requirements governing the design of houses are common between projects. This opens up for using modularization based on product commonalities. Though modularization is well known in th ...

Advancement of Platform Development in Industrialised Building

Abstract Demand for productivity in house-building is today causing changes of work methods in the building industry, for example bythe utilization of house-building platforms. This requires development processes separated from those of individual house products. The aim of this study is to examine how platform development processes in the building industry are carried out and how product development theories fit to the studied context. A qualitative case studyanalysis shows how a house-building platform can be developed in a sequential manner with product development theories that could capture values fromthe construction company, property owner and from end user.

The effect of pre-engineering on design management methods

Several methods exist for design management such as Agile project management, the Last Planner System®, and configuration in diverse variants. Construction can be realized using different degrees o ...