22nd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction - Oslo, Norway - 2014

Parametric Value Stream Mapping Framework: A Case Study of a Small Swedish Industrialized House-Building Supplier

Jarkko Erikshammar1, Erik Alestig2 & Weizhuo Lu3

1Lic. Eng., M.Sc., Div. of Structural and Construction Engineering - Timber Structures, Luleå University of Technology, 97187 Luleå, Sweden, Phone +46920491860, www.ltu.se, [email protected]
2M.Sc, Prolog Bygglogistik AB, Högbergsgatan 33, 116 20 Stockholm, Sweden, Phone +46107099923, [email protected]
3Ph.D., Div. of Structural and Construction Engineering – Construction management, Luleå University of Technology, 97187 Luleå, Sweden, Phone +46920491362, www.ltu.se, [email protected]

Abstract

Industrialized house-building is based on repetitive processes used in the supply, design, manufacturing and erection of pre-configured houses. Industrialized house- building contractors are dependent on many small suppliers and sub-contractors in their supply chain. These small suppliers, with limited resources and capabilities, need to be able to develop products and processes in order to deliver future customer value without wasting development resources on non-viable products. Our question is whether product development by small and medium-sized (SME) industrialized house-building suppliers could be supported by parametric Value Stream Mapping. The objective is to explore a process design framework in which Value stream Mapping (VSM) is used to identify improvements and to generate product development suggestions, based on a set of parameters defined as P1, P2..., Pn. The testing was carried out at a Swedish SME supplier to the industrialized house- building sector, using a newly-developed roofing board with an integrated membrane, with the parameters (P1) customer needs, (P2) waste on construction site and (P3) construction worker safety. Data were collected using interviews and video-recorded participant observations on two construction sites. Findings indicate that VSM cannot describe attributes of a product other than those associated with production flow. However, parametric VSM helped the case study company to stop current development and instead suggest valuable product attributes. The implications are that parametric VSM enhances the application of VSM. Parametric VSM can be used by SME suppliers as an input to product development in order to validate product attributes before launch. However, this is based on a single case study and further research is needed.

Keywords

Value Stream Map, Product Development, Industrialized House-building, Small Business, Process Design

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Reference

Erikshammar, J. , Alestig, E. & Lu, W. 2014. Parametric Value Stream Mapping Framework: A Case Study of a Small Swedish Industrialized House-Building Supplier, 22nd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , 425-435. doi.org/

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