Supply Chain Integration for Small Sawmills in Industrialized House-Building

Sammanfattning: The position taken in this thesis is that a small and medium sized supplier makes a strategic choice to integrate their supply chain with industrialized house-building companies in order to deliver customer value and sustain competitive advantage. Customer values for industrialized house-building means delivery reliability, product quality, supply chain and market flexibility. Supply chain integration is the means for understanding customer requirements and to use supply chain resources efficiently through collaboration. The purpose of this thesis is to explore a small sawmill transition from single-minded focus on raw material optimization and increased production efficiency towards supply chain integration and customer focus in the industrialized house-building context. The thesis basis is a systematic literature review and five appended papers, based on a longitudinal case study at a small Swedish sawmill. Data has been collected through interviews, participant observations, and archival data during the period of 2010-2012. The theoretical gap is formed by the lack of consensus on supply chain integration. Viewing the criticism it is not clear how the constructs that constitute supply chain integration affect the possibility of succeeding with integration, how the integration should be measured, or how it affects the performance. Hence this thesis makes a holistic approach and collect empirical data trough method development on a strategic (business models, supply chain management), tactical (supply chain planning, sales and operations planning) and operational (value stream mapping, lean value delivery, simulation) supply chain integration process within industrialized house-building context. However, the findings do not conclusively prove or disprove the position. Findings indicate that small sawmills with limited resources and capabilities can employ methods of sales and operations planning, business model decomposition and value stream mapping enhanced decision making. The main contribution is the empirical data on supply chain integration divided and analyzed from strategic, tactical and operational process levels synthesized that with understanding of the importance of integrating these three levels dual perspective. Thus contribute with theoretical enhancement and reduction of the still-identifiable fragmentation of supply chain integration theory.