Meiling, J and Johnsson, H (2008) Feedback in industrialised housing: Why does it not happen? In: Dainty, A (ed.) Proceedings of 24th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2008, Cardiff, UK.
Abstract
The construction industry is based on craftsmanship and the construction hero is someone who handles every appearing situation with a somewhat good result. Quality work in manufacturing relies on repetitiveness, standardisation and follow-up, whereas construction is about uniqueness, responsiveness to problems and flexibility in solutions. A category of construction companies have met the contradiction between construction and manufacturing – industrialised house builders. This category of companies work with the prefabrication of building parts for later assembly at the building site. The degree of prefabrication ranges from manufacturing open walls and floors up to producing entire volume modules with complete interior cladding. In lean theories as well as quality management, the notion of continuous improvement and experience feedback is strong. Yet, why is this mechanism almost non-existent with traditional construction companies? Industrial house builders benefit more from experience feedback than traditional construction firms, since the repetitiveness is higher. This paper aims to explore why experience feedback, in Sweden, does not function in today’s industrialised building process. The manufacturing process of four industrial house builders in Sweden was studied and mapped. The results show that much focus was put on streamlining the production process at the factory, but that experience feedback between departments at the company was small and non-existent from quality audits within the company. A change in company culture and leadership is needed to start addressing this problem.feedback, industrialised housing, quality management.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | feedback; industrialised housing; quality management |
| Index terms: | module, standardization, housing, cladding, quality management, construction industry, prefabrication, industrialized building, traditional construction, quality audit, Sweden, construction company, production process, builder, streamlining, continuous improvement, manufacturing process, building site |
| Subjects: | practitioner, construction type, organization, building materials, Geography, site and location studies, manufacturing engineering, management, architectural elements, performance measurement, heritage and conservation, industry analysis, quality assurance, building construction |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Quality Management, Business Strategy, Engineering Principles, Geographical Context, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Construction Technology |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here