تطبیق نیازهای مسکن قاب چوبی صنعتی شده و برنامه ریزی منابع سازمانی: فرآیند تغییر

The potential for improvements in industrialised housing through the adoption of concepts like enterprise resource planning (ERP) from the manufacturing industry, as applied to small and medium-sized enterprises, is evaluated in this paper. Four single, consecutive case studies were performed at a Swedish medium-sized industrialised housing company. The findings suggest that ERP can meet industrialised housing needs as well as promote an organisation to be re-engineered through comprehensive change and act as a driver for a more efficient internal and external supply chain.

The majority of one-family detached houses in Sweden have timber frames and are nowadays manufactured in permanent factories (approximately 74% between 1990 and 2002). By comparison, about 69% (down from 90% 20 years ago) of all housing starts in the US are stick built on site. From a market point of view, this indicates that an industrialised and process-oriented production approach could have potential for the whole housing industry. This is supported by an extensive governmental evaluation of the Swedish construction industry (SOU, 2000), indicating that it is possible to reduce production costs in housing construction through industrialisation, customer orientation, and a more efficient construction process. Logistics and supply chain management (SCM) are demonstrated (Agapiou et al., 1998; Naim and Barlow, 2003) as disciplines with the potential to increase efficiency in the construction process. In the large enterprise manufacturing industry, the supply chain concept has been one model for improvements in efficiency. Holistic production philosophies such as lean production, and comprehensive planning methods such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), which are supported by information technology (IT) based software systems, are used to manage parts of or the entire supply chain (Crowley, 1998; Tarn et al., 2002; Al-Mashari et al., 2003). The potential for improvements in the housing industry as well as the use of concepts such as SCM, lean production, and IT supported ERP, as applied to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), motivate the research presented in this paper. The possibility of cross industry learning is discussed and analysed in two perspectives: from the manufacturing to the housing industry and from large enterprises to SMEs. The conclusions and outlines for future research are, together with an extensive literature review, based on the analysis of four consecutive case studies.

Theuseof ERP systems in themanufacturing industry is widespread ( Al-Mashari, 2002 ; Mabert et al., 2003 ; Olhager and Selldin, 2003 ). The benefits that can be gained from ERP use are illustrated ( Al-Mashari et al., 2003 ; Kennerley and Neely, 2001 ; Mabert et al., 2003 ), along with ERP disadvantages ( Motwani et al., 2002 ; Umbleet al., 2003 ). It is also shown that the implementation phasecan bea major obstacle( Motwani et al., 2002 ; Umbleet al., 2003 ), but that it can also produce re-engineered and improved enterprises ( Akkermans et al., 2003 ; Al-Mashari, 2002 ; Umble et al., 2001 ). After implementation, proper use of ERP systems can further increase the competitive- ness of an organisation ( Al-Mashari et al., 2003 ; Willis and Willis-Brown, 2002 ; Poston and Grabs- ki, 2001 ). In industrialised timber frame housing in Sweden, ERP use is not widespread ( Bergstro ̈ m and Stehn, 2003 ). The reasons vary, but generally IT systems are not considered compatible with the needs of the industry ( Bergstro ̈ m and Stehn, 2003 ). This paper, however, shows that ERP and the needs of an industrialised housing company can match and identifies the prerequisites for this match. First, there must be external and internal driving forces for the necessary change process to start. In this case, the main theme has been balancing customisation and an efficient produc- tion system. Second, the change process must aim for a production system and business processes that are functional in two aspects: meeting the external and internal needs and facilitating ERP system implementation. Third, within an organisa- tion, there must be an awareness that the ERP system can contribute in meeting external and internal needs; simply implementing a software system will most likely not increase efficiency. Fourth, the day-to-day work must not be hindered during an ERP implementation and ERP use. For an SME this can be facilitated through careful pre- implementation that allows a stepwise and flexible implementation, i.e. that the ERP implementation is secondary to day-to-day work as well as the initial change process implementation. The industrial trend is to integrate supply chain capabilities and ERP systems, where the driversfor the on-going development of IT systems are cross enterprise integration and supply chain efficiency ( Tarn et al., 2002 ). For industrialised housing there is still a long way to go, but the full utilisation of ERP benefits and the possibility to achieve supply chain efficiency can be a long- range goal to successfully integrate customers, manufacturing, and suppliers. Productivity gains in themanufacturing industry can partly bedue to technological innovations, but significant con- tributions comefrom theorganisation and man- agement of production ( Crowley, 1998 ). For industrialised housing to attain its goal, the business processes must be properly re-engineered and the production processes must be functional, i.e. apply an appropriate production philosophy before the implementation of an ERP system and find the balance between project and process orientation. In Fig. 2 , some salient features regarding industrialised housing are indicated. The pattern that derives from the external driving force (customisation), and the internal driving forces (the need of efficient internal processes, visualised by main product and production method) can explain the need for industrialisation plus the need for IT based support. The case company has continuously moved towards the edge in the spider diagram. To handlecustomisation and a complex product, thecasecompany shifted to volume element production, which has great potential advantages regarding efficiency, quality, work environment, etc. However, as shown in the case studies, a high degree of customer choices in- creases the complexity due to increased informa- tion and material flow. Simply shifting from stick building on theconstruction siteto stick building in a factory can provide certain benefits, but to utilisethefull industrial potential thebusiness process must be industrialised, initially enterprise wide, in the entire supply chain. Hence, an advanced customisation approach, a complex product, along with a production method lead to needing appropriate and efficient business processes ( real industrialised processes) and IT based support (ERP system). It should be noted that there is no contradiction in being efficient and producing, for example, one-familyhouses, but the drivers for industrialisation, starting with customisation, are stronger when producing complex products using complex pro- duction methods. More research is needed to increase ERP knowledge in industrialised housing. ERP imple- mentation follow-ups, within industrialised housing, would provide useful insights regarding the utilisation of ERP benefits. More empirical findings and theory building regarding SME and ERP in themanufacturing industry are needed for a deepened analysis. More research about customisation and production efficiency in industrialised housing, covering broad aspects in theentiresupply chain, is a major task that can contribute to more generalised construction process improvements in the whole housing industry.