Differences on automation practices in wooden single-family houses manufacturing : Four case studies

Abstract

In densely forested countries, forest and wood-based products are an important contributing factor to the country’s economy and also a valuable resource for house manufacturing. With rising demand for housing in Europe, wooden houses have become more of an alternative to concrete houses. Although wooden houses have always been popular in Nordic countries, higher demand puts more pressure on seemingly outdated production facilities and personnel in order to supply the market. Whereas many other industries strive to modern production concepts such as Industry 4.0 to adapt to new market conditions, industrial timber house building is still characterized by a high amount of manual labor. In Europe´s highly industrialized countries, labor costs influence wooden house manufacturers rather negatively and exert great pressure on them to stay competitive. Some companies have chosen outsourcing of their operations and production as means to survive. Another way, already successfully proven in other industries, is the automation and digitalization of production processes. Effective implementation of automation equipment depends on several factors, e.g. production volume, applied material, chosen application or cycle times. It is not entirely clear which factors are contributing to the successful change to a more automated production. Based on an Industry 4.0 readiness model, the purpose of this study is to seek out which dimensions correlate with each other in order to support improved production processes and efficiency for wooden single-house manufactures. By applying a comparative case study approach, automation standards and practices in Sweden, Germany and Austria, are described and compared. Results of this case study reveal that a production strategy together with sound digital support and information sharing leads to the best production systems for single-wooden houses manufacturers.