Presentation at the International Conference on Global Innovation in Construction 16 Sep 2009

1. Berlin Hamburg
The German platform
Frankfurt/M. Munich
1 DTU Management Engineering 16’th September 2009

2. PLATFORMS AS VEHICLES FOR SYSTEMIC
INNOVATION IN CONSTRUCTION
- LEARNING POINTS FROM A SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF A
PLATFORM FOR HOUSE BUILDING IN GERMANY
Christian Thuesen, Post Doc, chth@man.dtu.dk
Lars Hvam, Professor

3. Theory: What is mass customization
“…producing goods and services to meet individual
customer's needs with near mass production efficiency".
Tseng and Jiao (2001, p. 685)
Mass production Mass customization Individual customization
Costs / willingness to pay
Customer value
Margin ? Unit cost
Diversity in range of products
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4. Optimization of the cost value-ratio
Willingness to
pay / Costs High std.
Carefully controlled Different “designs”
quality
variation
Continuous and systematic
involvement of the user
Customer value
Outer walls
Margin ?
Inner walls
Unit cost
Stairs
Floors
Windows and doors
Roof
Diversity in range of products
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5. Different markets – the same platform
Apartments Row houses Holiday immobiles
60% 100% 90%
The technical platform
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6. The platform – a platform for growth
Apartments Single family houses Holiday immobiles
High end
product
Mid-
range
product
Low end
product
Row houses
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7. Platform development through
incremental innovation
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8. Conclusion
• Working with platforms is no rocket science,
substantial benefits can be achieved by
using existing construction practices and
tools
• No fancy IT-systems are needed for the
implementation of platforms. The platform
can be situated within a combination of well
defined skills and organizational culture.
• Implementation of platforms requires a
strong commitment and loyalty from the
whole organization
• Important to have a specific customer focus
(target costing)
• Platforms require incremental and
systematic innovation with a clear
separation between the continuous
development of and the production based on
the platform.
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9. Berlin Hamburg
Questions and comments?
Frankfurt/M. Munich
9 DTU Management Engineering 16’th September 2009