Byggserviceverksamheten - logistik och materialflöden

Sammanfattning: Many construction companies have a construction service department but it is normally never the largest part of the company. Rather, the building services department has been seen as a fender to keep employees engaged when the economy’s been bad, with the result that no large investments have been put towards the service department. The logistics of the construction services business is different from the traditional construction logistics. The projects are often short-lived with very limited storage space at the project site. It can also mean that many similar projects will start simultaneously, which means that staff may need to be at several project sites per day. In general there are no logistical theories that are customized particularly for the construction services and many of the most common - lean, six sigma, kaizen, SCM - are difficult to apply. Multiple logistic theories strive to minimize inventory operations and non-value adding activities. Due to limited storage space the service project sites often implies this is difficult to achieve. Timed deliveries are part of being able to reduce inventories, but when projects are small and several projects running at the same time, this requires a lot of careful planning of deliveries which is hard to implement. Establishing different comunication tools is a major part of the work to improve the logistics. To have an open line of communication between clients, suppliers and construction companies is a prerequisite for an effective work flow. In many cases this is made complicated both by lack of resources and routines but also beacuse the client can have their own suppliers where the communication path is closed. If routines remain unchanged and feedback from previous work defaults it could damage the company’s development.