| 1. |
- Uusitalo, Petri, et al.
(författare)
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Detecting and understanding bottlenecks in production using multiple methods
- 2017
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Ingår i: ICCREM 2016. - Reston, VA : American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). - 9780784480274 ; , s. 307-315
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In a competitive situation where clients demand for high responsiveness to order-specific requirements, suppliers of volumetric preassemblies are struggling to maintain efficiency in production. In operation management literature, bottleneck detection has been suggested as key to continuous improvement processes in manufacturing. Yet, there is no consensus on definition and detection of bottlenecks. In an ongoing study, aiming to better understand manufacturing implications of high responsiveness to unique clients' specifications, a volumetric preassembly company providing prefabricated bathroom pods was addressed. Bottlenecks were explored based on three methods suggested in the literature i.e. by asking knowledgeable employees, by observing WIP inventory, and by analyzing process data in a field experiment. By juxtaposing the results, a mixed and somewhat contradictory view was displayed of bottlenecks and their potential root causes. Thus, a more complex view emerges of how to understand and address bottlenecks to improve production efficiency, highlighting the need to potentially extend shop-floor assessments to include supplier and client interfaces.
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| 2. |
- Mattsson, Tuve, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a wood based material biorefinery - A demonstrator
- 2015
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Ingår i: 6th Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference, NWBC 2015. - : VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. - 9789513883539 ; , s. 92-101
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wood, the most abundant ligno-cellulosic raw material available, is a key potential feedstock for production of more sustainable alternatives to fossil-based materials. However advances within the fields of extraction and treatment processes within what is often referred to as the biorefinery concept is essential to allow for such transition. In this study, several different methods for the extraction and separation of wood constituents have been combined in a single process with the purpose of achieving a high overall efficiency of material extraction and utilisation. The work builds on several activities within the Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC). The aim is to present a laboratory-scale demonstrator that illustrates how the different constituents can be separated from the wood matrix for later use in the production of bio-based materials and chemicals. The process steps involved have been tested as integral steps in a linked process for a scale of operations that range from the kilogram-scale down to the gram-scale. Industrially chipped softwood, containing mainly spruce with some pine, was used as raw material.
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| 3. |
- Stehn, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Managing tension between exploitation and exploration in industrialized house-building
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Propose - Aim of this paper is to understand what constitutes exploitation, exploration and how the tension between exploitation and exploration is managed over-time. Dynamic capabilities provide means for companies to successfully survive in the long-run. However, these capabilities are poorly understood and less studied in house-building. Industrialized house-building often involves long-term investments and therefore provide a contemporary setting for studying dynamic capabilities empirically.Design/method/approach - A longitudinal case study was conducted to understand how an industrialized house-building company exploits and explores, reconfigures resources over time and deals with tensions between exploitative and explorative actions.Findings - The findings show several managerial activities to manage short-term variation and exploitation and long-term variation and exploration. The study also reveals how activities are employed to handle the tension between exploration and exploitation.Originality/value - The results challenge the assumption that trade-offs need to be made between innovation and efficiency. In contrast to previous findings, the study shows that the case company is not constrained in terms of a combined exploitative and explorative strategy to house-building.
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| 4. |
- Stehn, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding industrialised house building as a company’s dynamic capabilities
- 2021
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Ingår i: Construction Innovation. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1471-4175 .- 1477-0857. ; 21:1, s. 5-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – To further the understanding of industrialised house building (IHB) from a temporal, emergentcorporate-ability perspective, this study aims to trace the build-up of corporate assets in an IHB company overtime. The research draws on dynamic capabilities, acknowledging not only what assets the company havedeveloped and currently are exploiting, but also how these assets were develop and managed (i.e. enhanced,combined, protected and potentially reconfigured) to sustain long-term competitiveness.Design/methodology/approach – A case study design was used to form a narrative that covers theevolution of an IHB company over a 25-year period. Corporate archival material, analysis of original data from alarge number of research studies during 1993-2013 and retrospective reflections of owners and managers,including crosschecking interpretations of archivalmaterial, developed and triangulated the narrative.Findings – The study presents rich empirical findings on the build-up of corporate assets. Starting from asuccessive process of exploration and exploitation formation of dynamic capabilities eventually played outinto an exponential dynamic capability build-up. The IHB case company displays the ability to not onlycontinuously exploit and renew resources and competences, but also to sense, seize and reconfigurecumulative assets over time. The exponential development of dynamic capabilities resonates to literature onhigher-order dynamic capabilities implying that: the accumulated and higher-order dynamic capabilities aredifficult to imitate and a (any) company must possess higher-order dynamic capabilities to be able to exploitand/or take up IHB.Originality/value – The study is complementing and potentially challenging frequent framings of the IHBconcept. Previous research has addressed and characterised IHB mainly by encapsulating a moment in timeand, thus, characteristics are momentary and represent static views on IHB. However, IHB has seen a strongdevelopment over the past 25 years, and the study reflects on this development from the perspective of one ofthe IHB-forerunner companies in Sweden. By exploring from a company perspective the developments,reconfiguration and capacity to develop/reconfigure over time in a changing environment, the studyintroduces an alternative understanding of IHB as dynamic capabilities.
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| 5. |
- Uusitalo, Petri, 1978-
(författare)
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Understanding development of dynamic capabilities in industrialized house building : A case study
- 2018
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Industrialized house building of multi-storey residential buildings is not only gaining practical importance in Sweden but is also emphasized as a way for companies to address the demands for lower and more predictable production costs, shorter delivery times and higher product quality. However, to be competitive on the market, IHB companies need to protect and capitalize their specific investments into platforms and organizations. The engagement inplatforms and industrialized way of working, it is not just about the complexity of integration but it is also about having a capability over time to handle this market variation (i.e. dynamic capabilities). Industrialized house building has mainly been investigated from an operational view, leaving a gap in the characterization from a strategical (dynamic) view.Purpose of this research is to increase understanding about industrialized house building, from a dynamic capability view, described the characteristics of industrialized house building through exploring and describing the evolution and development of and industrialized house building company. An in-depth, longitudinal case study approach was adopted to get and deeper understanding of the development of dynamic capabilities in an industrialized house building company. The unit of analysis was the long-term interaction between house-market development, the case company’s business development, and external collaboration activities between the years 1993 and 2018. The findings from the case study were then analyzed against a theoretical framework based on dynamic capabilities.Industrialized house building can be characterized by a set of dynamic capabilities constructs that are evolved and developed in order to cope with the changing conditions derived from both internal and external factors, entailed in entrepreneurship and long-term thinking. The findings indicate that the organization's focus may vary between different kinds of dynamic capabilities over-time. In addition, findings indicate that development of dynamic capabilities supporting collaboration and building trust to the market was of importance at the beginning of their journey. These dynamic capabilities evolved in close relations with external partners, due to external market pressure. This study also indicates that path dependency affects the development of dynamic capability, through collaboration, trust, and learning – which influence how the company behaves and through their investments in a platform constraining future actions.
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| 6. |
- Uusitalo, Petri, 1978-
(författare)
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Using and Managing Resources in Industrialized House-Building : Characterization of a Swedish Industrialized House-Building Company from a Resource-Based View
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Global reports stress the importance of developing the construction industry to address productivity related issues and challenges with urbanization. McKinsey conclude that the construction industry could be more efficient by how they manage and employ resources to address the low productivity. With an expected intensified urbanization and rapidly changing global economic landscape, pressure is put on the current housing production pace. Therefore, industrialization has been promoted to make industries sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of innovation focusing on industrial processes. Technology companies has started to take an interest in the construction market as they see a potential in industrialization and scalability of the house-building and have made heavy investments in construction companies using prefabricated or modular manufacturing technics to build houses.Although industrialized house-building companies have been the subjects of wide-range of research, research into how to utilize industrialized house-building can be important and interesting not only to confront the low productivity but also increased resource-use efficiency and give an explanation how to benefit from the global interest into investing in industrialized house-building. Therefore, an increased understanding of industrialized house-building from a resource-based perspective, exemplified from a Swedish perspective, is considered to be of importance for further development the building industry.The contribution of this thesis is a synthesis of four different constructs (entrepreneurial orientation, dynamic capability, path dependency and technology transfer) discussed in three academic papers to characterize and build a further understanding of how an IHB company employ and manage their resources.Findings shows that on a corporate level, the industrialized house-building company managed resources in many different ways and they did so to secure their business and they showed different approaches towards how they employed resources. From a theoretical perspective, entrepreneurial orientation has a more proactive, long-term, and strategical focus on employing resources (both tangible and intangible) looking more at the bigger picture. Dynamic capability has a more reactive (addresses different aspects of change as it happens) and tactical focus on employing resources looking more at the small steps of sensing and seizing and reconfiguring of resources. Technology transfer can be expressed as an active process (two-way communication) on an operational level on how to employ resources between parties.Entrepreneurial orientation enabled the case company to continuously exploit and renew resources and competences but also to sense, seize, and reconfigure cumulative assets over time, which displayed as exponential build-up of dynamic capabilities. How the company worked with developing corporate assets showed that continuous development of dynamic capabilities also influenced the industry path dependency, by working with decreasing process variation caused by external factors. Later by exponentially develop dynamic capabilities, exploring Lean to renew the corporate culture; the increased standardized work operationalized their accumulated resources. Through small steps of exploitation and exploration and reconfiguration of working methods, the company continuously improved operations; routinized learning and use of built-up assets. The way they worked by constantly sense, seize and reconfigure their operations, address the assumption that companies grow in a path dependent way. This, in turn, has led to the possibility to employ resources through technology transfer of the industrialized house-building platform, into a business.
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