The increasing housing shortage occurring in society has for a long time created a great need to build housing quickly and cost-effectively. This has led to more and more industrialization of its building process, where housing is manufactured in modular form in the factory. With industrial processes, companies can give freedom to workers to take responsibility for the process in which they participate, and thus contribute with improvements and standardization in the process. One concept that is very suitable for this is The Toyota Production system (TPS), also called Lean production. Today, there are studies where Lean has been combined with the building process. The purpose of this study is to investigate and study whether the building process for prefabricated houses can be streamlined using the Lean method and, if so, how. As an efficiency improvement is sought in this study, questions about the basic principles of Lean will be involved.
A qualitative data collection is done, which is based on an interview study. The questions for these interviews have been formulated with the help of literature contained within the subject. The interview questions are structured by being open where the respondent is given the opportunity to speak freely and in detail about the topic.
Two companies were selected for this study. One company is a Stockholm stationed company that deals with prefabricated construction. These do not use the Lean working method as standard in their work. The other company is a company that also deals with prefabricated construction on a larger scale and that they use the Lean working method throughout their organization.
The theory behind the study is the actual implementation of Lean in an existing building process that does not use the working method. By introducing Lean's basic principles into a company that does not use it today, this study will describe what elements can be applied from Lean's perspective.
Finally, improvement measures, based on Lean's principles, are being introduced to improve and streamline the construction process of prefabricated construction at the particular company where the study was conducted.
The aim of the study is to describe and analyze the construction process for industrial companies, the obstacles that arise in the process and how can Lean streamline the construction process from the 14 principles.
Key-word: Efficiency, Lean, Prefabricated, Modular house, Construction, Construction process, Elimination, The Toyota Way, Lean principle