A product platform approach to support the design phase of industrialised house building : A framework conceptualisation when using mixed production strategies

Abstract: The ability to offer unique solutions that meet customer demands has been considered a competitive advantage in the industrialised house building (IHB) industry. However, IHB companies are struggling due to varying customer needs and the simultaneous need to fulfil legal regulations, market demands, and production constraints. This has forced companies to develop unique solutions for every housing project to satisfy individual requirements, which automatically drives them to follow an engineer-to-order (ETO)-based strategy. The high involvement of customers in the design process results in the need for considerable engineering activities to validate and adjust to the customer demands, thereby providing individualised solutions. Moreover, designers adopt different production strategies based on the degree of pre-engineering. Product platform approaches have been acknowledged as one of the prominent means to improve both internal and external efficiencies. However, the use of traditional platform-based strategies does not suffice for the design of ETO-based components in an IHB system. A systematic approach is required to align the product platform and different production strategies so that customer requirements can be easily managed. Thus, this research aims to outline the means to support the design phase of IHB by applying a product platform approach when using a mixed production strategy.A Swedish multi-storey house building company that uses a glulam-based post and beam building system was used as the main case in this research. Empirical data were collected mainly from interviews, observations, workshops, and document analysis. This research proposes a framework for the systematic development and use of the product platform by following an inductive approach. Further, a parametric design platform method is proposed to achieve a platform-based development for ETO-based components by identifying, formalising, and reusing the design assets. The findings reveal how the transition of production strategies can be managed with supporting tools and methods. Moreover, this thesis emphasizes the importance of adopting the design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA) in IHB. In addition, the research contributes to the existing knowledge on product platforms in IHB by providing the context of mixed production strategies and best practices to improve the IHB design process.