Streamlining of the production flow at a wooden house manufacturing company : Case study at Vida AB

In studies carried out at wooden house companies, it has been shown that the window assembly process has been a bottleneck. Bottlenecks cause waste in the process as it can lead to unused value-creating time. Window mounting is also done in a way that is not ergonomic for the worker which damages their productivity and health. By getting rid of the bottleneck, there is the possibility of a lead time reduction. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether a new window mounting method can replace the existing one in an advantageous way. The study was conducted at the fall company Vida Building AB, which is a manufacturer of prefabricated wooden houses. To fulfill the purpose, qualitative and quantitative collection methods have been used to map work steps in the production flow and its cycle times. In this way, a comparison has been made between the existing and the new window mounting method. It has then been possible to make an analysis to investigate whether it is possible to fill queue times with the new method. Several improvement proposals have been made based on the data collected. The utilization of the new window mounting method enables a balancing in the production flow, as well as a reduction in waste partly due to ergonomic work but also due to a more efficient mounting method. To further increase productivity, proposals for aids have been specified to improve the workers working position.