Johnsson, H (2013) Production strategies for pre-engineering in house-building: Exploring product development platforms. Construction Management and Economics, 31(9), pp. 941-958. ISSN 1466433X
Abstract
Construction is a trade where the dominating production strategy is engineer-to-order. House-builders can pre-engineer their design to different degrees, resulting in variations of the engineer-to-order strategy: design-to-order, adapt-to-order, and engineer-to-stock. This variation causes different settings for the use of platforms in house-building. The aim of this research is to diversify the engineer-to-order production strategy and its consequences for platform organization by studying its use in house-building. The multiple case study on four engineering/contractor firms reports the core capabilities for engineer-to-order firms: procurement and tendering, market knowledge, engineering, multi-skilled manufacturing, and coordination of sales and manufacturing. Design-to-order, adapt-to-order and engineer-to stock were shown to be production strategies in use in house-building. In design-to-order platforms parts of the platform are undefined while engineer-to-stock platforms are fully predefined. Coordination between market and manufacturing is a crucial capability when engaging in platform organization. When an engineering firm and a contractor collaborate to fulfil client needs, the coordination capability between market and manufacturing was shown to be low. The case study shows that specialized contractors who integrate the supply chain towards a specific market segment benefit fully from the platform concept, while contractors with a wider scope could focus on standardization of processes rather than products.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | engineer-to-order; industrialized building; prefabrication; supply chain structures; systems building |
| Index terms: | standardization, industrialized building, prefabrication, coordination, contractor firm, production strategy, case study, platform, engineer, variation, engineer-to-order, product development, market segment, engineering firm, strategy, builder |
| Subjects: | practitioner, innovation studies, profession, data collection methods, organization, firms, contractual condition, digital design, performance measurement, manufacturing engineering, management, market analysis, building construction |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Contract Administration, Digital Applications, Quality Management, Roles and Professions, Construction Technology, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Engineering Principles |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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