With a glulam-based post-beam building system, a variety of building solutions is offered on the market for multi-story buildings. The building system must be adaptable to the demands of each project. However, short lead-time, efficient manufacturing and assembly must be ensured. The use of product platforms has been acknowledged as an enabler to manage external (customer) and internal (production) efficiency. The building system cannot be locked to a set of standard components as a high level of customisation is required. A set of methods and tools is needed to support the design work and to ensure that solutions stay inside the boundaries of the platform definition. The aim of this work is to map the state-of-practice in the design phase for a glulam building system from a platform theory perspective and outline a path forward for applying a sustainable platform development in companies where a component-based product platform does not suffice. Empirical data were gathered from an on-going product platform development including interviews and document analysis. The results show the lack of definition in platform-based product development from a theoretical perspective and need for development of support methods for design that align with different production strategies

The house building industry has been characterised as less productive compared to the manufacturing industry with numerous and challenging activities including a complex integration process. For the last 20 years, industrialised house building has gained increased research and industry attention and is identified as a potential way to improve the overall house building productivity. In the overall process, the design phase has been identified as the bottleneck with several disciplines which have to be coordinated to generate a design solution that meets various customer and market requirements. Many aspects of a building's performance depend on the decisions taken in the early design process. These decisions can have a substantial impact on the overall design, lead time, cost and quality of the final product. However, there are many other important factors which need to be considered by designers during the design phase. Less attention has been paid to the identification of these factors within the design phase of the industrialised house building. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to identify challenges and outline the critical success factors to be considered in the design phase of the Swedish industrialised house building. Qualitative research was conducted in combination with literature reviews and multiple case studies linking three Swedish house building companies. Empirical data were gathered from 20 semi-structured interviews. The study identified common challenges in the house building industry and 20 critical factors that should be addressed in the design phase from both literature and practitioners view. The result shows that fixed production is crucial for identifying the critical factors rather than a building system. Also, many challenges identified from this study could be managed by developing a platform-based approach with support tools and methods for critical factors in the design phase.

Industrialised house builders in Sweden have been challenged to meet the demand for housing solutions as the population has increased at a faster rate. As a result, the housing industry is currently faced with objectives to improve productivity and internal efficiency while also controlling the production cost of houses without compromising external efficiency. To remain competitive, many companies developed own building system (BS) based on fixed or partially fixed production systems with different prefabrication techniques. The challenges remain in the design phase and proper methods and tools are required to manage it. In many industries, the product platform approach has been used as a means to achieve both internal and external efficiency. However, little attention has been paid in relating the platform approach to building system support in the design phase of Industrialised house building (IHB). Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to explore the current state of the industrialised house building system and outline design support solutions for the building system from a product platform approach. Qualitative research was conducted by linking a single case company working with post and beam building system in combination with a literature review. Empirical data were gathered from five semi-structured interviews and two workshop sections. A cause-effect analysis has been conducted to realize the potential causes of challenges in the design process. The result illustrates a methodology with principle solutions that can be used as design support for the case company as a path forward and improve further from a product platform perspective.

House building projects are distinctive, and the degree of customisation creates bottlenecks in the design process and challenges for production, which results in longer lead time and higher costs. Aligned with a product platform approach, previous studies have introduced cost-effective approaches such as standardisation, modularization, configurators, etc. Still, components that cannot be completely modularized and configured due to high complexity level, may require a lot of engineering efforts during development. A platform approach that can be used to support engineer-to-order products that change over time still needs to be explored. The application of parametric modelling to automate the design process in the construction industry has the potential to further increase both the design and production efficiency. Thus, the objective of this research is to apply parametric modelling in the design of steel connectors used in a glulam based post and beam building system as part of a flexible product platform for increased design and production efficiency. A single case study has been carried out with a Swedish multi-storey house building company. Empirical data were gathered from a workshop with the design team followed by interviews, and document analysis. A computer-supported method for the steel bracket connectors has been developed, that connects post and beam components with pre-defined rules and constraints as part of the platform development. The result contributes to expanding knowledge about the development of a flexible product platform for improved design process and downstream production of customised components with parametric modelling support in the industrial post and beam buildng system.