Hvad kan bygge- og anlægsbranchen lære af fremstillingsindustrien?

Abstract

Denne kandidatafhandling med titlen ”Hvad kan bygge- og anlægsbranchen lære af fremstillingsindustrien?” er afslutningen på kandidatuddannelsen Cand. Scient. Techn. med specialisering i byggeledelse (CST-BL) udført ved Institut for Mekanik og Produktion ved Aalborg Universitet. Afhandlingen tager afsæt i, at bygge- og anlægsbranchen gennem tiden ofte er blevet kritiseret for lav arbejdskraftproduktivitet i forhold til andre brancher og lande samt for lav standard og dårlig kvalitet. I den forbindelse beskyldes branchen for at være traditionsbunden, konservativ, og at den ikke følger med den teknologiske, organisatoriske samt ledelsesmæssige udvikling. Samlet set gav det anledning til en nærmere analyse af baggrunden for bygge- og anlægsbranchens udviklingssituation, hvor fokus var på identifikation og diagnosticering af problemstillinger, herunder barrierer, årsager og virkninger i hele byggeprocessen. Grundtanken i gruppens arbejdsproces er en teknisk samfundsvidenskabelig tilgang baseret på den hermeneutiske metode. Det har været nødvendigt at foretage analyser på mikro-, makro- og mesoniveau for derigennem at skabe et holistisk overblik over branchens problemstillinger og eventuelle løsningsforslag. Denne tilgang resulterer i en teoretisk rapport, hvor fokus er på analyserne. Gennem problemanalysen blev det synliggjort, at bygge- og anlægsbranchen er konjunkturfølsom, politiskstyret, og at den økonomiske krise har påvirket branchen mærkbart. Endvidere fremkom det, at tildelingskriteriets laveste pris, kundernes og leverandørernes høje forhandlingsstyrke samt de lave indgangs- og udgangsbarrierer medvirker til at intensivere konkurrencen i branchen. Det videre analysearbejde viste, at der i branchen eksisterer mangfoldige problemstillinger, hvor en del kan anskues som barrierer, mens andre som årsager og virkninger. Samarbejds- samt ledelsesproblematikken fremstod som et gennemgående problem i faserne bl.a. grundet ringe ledelseskompetence, forskellige værdier, manglende styringsværktøjer, nye samarbejdspartnere fra projekt til projekt samt byggeprocessens faseskift. Dette kom bl.a. til udtryk gennem udbredt mistillid, suboptimering, dyrt byggeri, lav produktivitets- og effektivitetsudvikling. På baggrund af problemformuleringen blev tendenserne indenfor organisations- og ledelsesteori samt udvalgte produktionsfilosofier undersøgt. Gennem detailanalysen blev det påvist, at udviklingen inden for organisations- og ledelsesteori har været præget af to dominerende menneskesyn hhv. den mekanistiske og organiske. Endvidere fremkom det, at bygge- og anlægsbranchen kan inspireres og drage fordel af følgende teorier: Lean produktion, Concurrent Engineering, Agile Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management og Extended Enterprise & Virtual Enterprise (EE/VE) Med inspiration fra organisations- og ledelsesteori samt udvalgte produktionsfilosofier blev forbedringstiltag fremsat med udgangspunkt i McKinseys 7-S model. I den forbindelse blev det anbefalet, at branchens virksomheder bør ændre organisationsstrukturen, arbejde målrettet med strategi samt medtage produktionsfilosofier i deres strategiudvikling. Endvidere blev det foreslået, at virksomhederne bør anvende konceptet Ressource Bassin (EE/VE), og at Lean Construktion skal anvendes i større udstrækning. Lederne bør styrke deres lederskabsevner gennem indsigt i strategi, kommunikation og motivation. Hertil blev det foreslået, at lederne bør anvende en kombination af situationsbestemt ledelse, værdibaseret ledelse og værdiledelse. I den forbindelse skal virksomhederne være beviste om de reelle samarbejdes værdier samt udvikle, synliggøre og efterleve dem.

This master thesis with the title "What can the construction industry learn from the manufacturing industry?" is a final report on the M.Sc. program Management in the Building Industry, performed at the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Aalborg University. The starting point of the thesis is the prevalent critique of low productivity, as well as the bad standards and poor quality in the Danish construction sector compared to other industries and countries. In this context the industry is blamed for being tradition-bound, conservative, and that it does not follow technological, organizational and managerial development. Overall it gave reason to a more detailed analysis of the background for the construction industry’s development situation, where the focus was on identification and diagnosis of problems including barriers, causes and effects throughout the whole construction process. The basic idea of the group's work is a technical sociological approach based on the hermeneutic method. It has been necessary to carry out analyses on macro-, meso- and micro-levels, thereby creating a holistic overview of the industry's problems and proposal for possible solutions. This approach results in a theoretical report which focuses on the analyses. Through the problem analysis, it became visible that the construction sector is sensitive to the state of the market, politically driven and that the economic crisis has affected the industry significantly. Furthermore it appeared that the criterion lowest price, customers’ and suppliers’ high bargaining power as well as the low entry and exit barriers contribute to intensified competition in the industry. Further analysis showed that in the industry there are manifold problems where some can be seen as a barriers, while others as causes and effects. Cooperation and management issues appeared to be a recurrent problem in the stages of building process, due to poor management skills, different values, lack of management tools, changing partners from project to project and construction process phase shift. This is expressed among other things through widespread distrust, sub-optimization, expensive construction, low productivity- and efficiency-development. In view of the problem formulation, trends in organization and management theory as well as selected production philosophies were studied. Through the detailed analysis it appeared that the development of organizational and management theory has been characterized by two dominant humanity perspective; the mechanistic and organic respectively. Furthermore, it emerged that the construction industry can be inspired and take advantage of the following theories Lean manufacturing, Concurrent Engineering, Agile Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and the Virtual Enterprise. Inspired by organizational and management theory plus selected production philosophies improvement initiatives were proposed, based on the McKinsey 7-S model. In this regard, it was recommended that companies in the industry should change their organizational structure, work focusing on strategy and include production philosophies in their strategy development. It was additionally suggested that the companies should use the concept Resource Basin and that Lean Construction is to be applied more extensively. Leaders should strengthen their leadership skills through understanding of strategy, communication and motivation. In this context, it was also recommended that they should use a combination of situation-dependent leadership, values-based management and value management. In relation to that, companies must be convinced of the real values plus develop, expose and adhere to them.

A master thesis from Aalborg University

Hvad kan bygge- og anlægsbranchen lære af fremstillingsindustrien?

[What can the construction industry learn from the manufacturing industry?]