Supplying engineer-to-order joinery products to the construction Industry

Abstract: The supplying of engineer-to-order joinery products to the construction industryis considered a novel research area in the wood-related literature as well as in theconstruction-related literature. The process of supplying the construction industrywith highly refined one-of-a-kind wood products is examined in this thesis, andmore specifically, an organization using a mixture of concept-to-order and designto-order production strategies to produce Engineer-to-order Joinery Products. Thefocus in this work is on the possibilities for innovation in the industry of supplyingengineer-to-order joinery products and on improved integration with theconstruction industry.The construction industry has been criticized for not keeping up with otherproduction industries in terms of quality, cost efficiency, innovation, andproduction methods. The development of Lean production principles and supplychain management are innovations commonly suggested as improvements inincreasing the degree of industrialization to the construction industry, and this isalso reflected in this work where waste in the process has been identified.The work is weighted towards a qualitative research approach, and real-world casestudies have been used for the empirical data collection.Results from the studied cases indicate that the process of supplying engineer-toorderjoinery products to construction has the potential for improved efficiency.Violations of Lean principles are identified, and these have effects on the process ofsupplying joinery products to construction. Much of the identified waste can findits cause in these violations. Innovation in adopting Lean principles and managinginformation, supply chain, planning, and coordination is believed to be essential forimproving total process performance in supplying engineer-to-order joineryproducts to construction.The supplying of engineer-to-order joinery products faces opportunities andchallenges similar to those in the industrialized housing industry. An increased levelof prefabrication, decreased assembly time, and increased predictability of on-sitework seem possible if confronting the root causes found in this work.