Purpose

Even if glass is 100% recyclable, only 1% of window glass is currently handled in closedloop supply chains (CLSC) in Sweden, causing unnecessary environmental impact and indicating the existence of challenges. The purpose of this article is to increase the knowledge on challenges for applying closed loop supply chains (CLSC) for window glass.

Design/methodology/approach

Based upon a literature review, a first framework of challenges in different types of CLSC for window glass is developed. The challenges are complemented, elaborated and validated in two workshops with glass experts and construction stakeholders respectively, followed by interviews with experts on glass recycling.

Findings

Four different types of CLSC are identified. Many window glass CLSC design challenges in material and information flows are identified; the lack of large-scale actors, lack of general and specific knowledge, lack of business models, uncertain product quality and lack of promotion for window glass CLSC. The literature focuses more on operations and control challenges, as compared to our empirical findings.

Research limitations/implications

The developed framework structures and exemplifies challenges, which implies expanded CLSC knowledge in a specific setting. Both the model and the identified CLSC types are contributions to the CLSC literature. A research agenda is also presented.

Practical limitations/implications

Practitioners can learn from and mitigate the challenges. The research agenda indicates andassists in how. This can lead to a higher recycling rate of window glass.

Originality/value

Very limited research on CLSC for the recycling of window glass is identified, thus the study demonstrates originality.

The industrialization of wooden house building processes from traditional on-site production to off-site prefabrication is challenging, concerning the possibility of effective handling of numerous product variants, where each house is more or less unique. To obtain high productivity in the production, a well-balanced flow with minimization of waste is of great importance. In Sweden, many off-site house producers are in the starting phases of introducing advanced automation technologies in their production processes and the need for a more detailed process control therefore increases. In previous studies, the installation of windows has been identified as a demanding step in the prefabrication process, since it often creates a bottleneck i.e. the most overloaded part of process (Slack et al., 2016) and thus negatively affects the cycle-time and a balanced production flow.This study aims to understand, how the effectiveness of windows installations could be improved. By using a multiple case-study methodology, processes of several companies are compared and discussed. Further, suggestions for improvements are made for one case company. The results show that a replacement of the windows installation could (a) shorten the cycle-time of one wall by more than 10 %, (b) reduce the queueing time for the entire wall assembly process by more than 48 % and consequently (c) help to create a more balanced production flow.

Sweden has a housing shortage, which the Swedish authorities expect to continue until 2025. Producers of wooden multi-family houses have a relatively small market share in comparison to traditional building materials. The limited capability to fulfil the increased building demand also restricts the possibilities for development towards innovation, bio-economy and sustainability. The municipalities in Sweden have responsible for planning of the building development in their region based on their projected requirements and strategies. Combining this with a desire to develop sustainable building solutions based on wood increases the complexity. Currently, public building developments are achieved through the public procurement act or the land allocation activity, dependent on their development strategy. This normally involves the development of local strategies regarding, e.g. design, material choice and geographical development. By identifying market drivers enables improved market entry activities related to public building initiatives using wood-based solutions. Hence, by improving transparency in the land allocation activity generate enhanced possibilities for the companies to respond successfully to the requests submitted by the municipalities. This knowledge is used to better understand the required strategic development for the companies, the government and the municipalities to increase the use of sustainable building materials in Swedish multi-family housing projects. 

The municipalities control the planning of new housing projects in Sweden, basing their decisions on the general requirements and future strategic expectations. The activity is managed through the Public Procurement Act or the land allocation process depending on their development strategy. It involves the development of local strategies regarding design and geographical development, as well as the development of suitable procurement methods. Therefore, having the ambition to develop sustainability by increasing the use of wood building solutions imposes new challenges on the procurement process performed by municipalities in Sweden. The aim of this study is to identify ways to overcome barriers in the public procurement process for new building developments based on land allocation projects managed by Swedish municipalities, enabling an increase in wooden multifamily houses in Sweden. The study is based on direct participation at a municipality performing this activity, combined with interviews including municipalities and developers involved in the procurement process using land allocation. The result shows discrepancies in how the municipalities and developers perceive the land allocation activities. Furthermore, national standards, equal evaluation methods and a defined procurement process have been identified as drivers towards an efficient activity, which currently acts as a barrier to the development of wooden multifamily houses.

At present, Sweden is experiencing a housing shortage, which Swedish authorities expect to continue until at least 2025. Producers of wooden multi-family houses have a relatively small market share compared to those who use traditional building materials. Limited ability to meet the increased building demand restricts possibilities for development regarding innovation, bio-economy and sustainability.

Swedish municipalities are responsible for planning the building development in their regions based on their projected requirements and strategies. Combining this with a desire to develop sustainable building solutions based on wood increases complexity in the public procurement process. Currently, public building developments are achieved through the Public Procurement Act or land-allocation activity, depending on the development strategy. This normally involves developing local strategies regarding, e.g. design, material choice and geographical development. Identifying drivers and barriers in the industry and market enables improved market entry activities related to public building initiatives using wood-based solutions. Hence, improving transparency in land-allocation activity generates possibilities for companies to respond successfully to requests from municipalities. This knowledge is used to better understand the required strategic development for companies, the government and municipalities to increase use of sustainable building materials such as wood in Swedish multi-family housing projects.

Results show that the industry experiences barriers associated with municipalities' actions and knowledge related to wood as a building solution. Further, concrete’s strength as a building material is an issue, since municipalities tend to opt for familiar solutions. Furthermore, the way in which municipalities manage land-allocation activity is perceived as insufficient, with limited information, a subjective evaluation process, and uncertainties regarding their roles in the process. These factors contribute to ambiguity and sub-optimisation for developers proposing wood-based building solutions.

There is an increased demand for multi-family houses in Sweden, which makes it important to investigate what the residents consider to be building quality in relation to their living situation and what they prioritise when selecting an apartment. Having the ability to build good housing units is an essential part of society since it directly affects people's living standard and way of life. Consequently, understanding living quality creates possibilities to adjust the construction and design of housing units accordingly. Currently, more multi-family houses are being built with wooden frames than ever before, and it is therefore interesting to compare if there is a difference in how residents experience the quality of living in a multi-family house with wooden frames compared with concrete frames. 

The purpose is to show what residents consider to be living quality and if there is any quality difference in housing units using wood or concrete as construction material in the building frame. A survey has been sent out to a selected amount of multi-family houses in Sweden, Thereby, gain an understanding of the perceived quality of new building developments, which showed that the quality of living did not differ between the selected materials and the location in the city was the most important parameter when choosing accommodation for the residents. 

The Swedish industry for wooden multi-family houses have in comparison with houses in concrete had a relatively small market share. This contradicts EU’s ambitions defined in the Europe 2020 strategy, focusing on development towards innovation, bio-economy and sustainability. These strategies highlight the importance of developing the wooden multi-family houses industry to fulfil the increased market demand combined with increased sustainability in the building industry.This study aims to identify barriers enabling market growth for the Swedish industry producing wooden multi-family houses. Current barriers within the industry are reviewed by identifying areas restricting the development, e.g. the building process and procurement cycle. Thus, the goal is to find ways in which wooden multi-family houses could improve competitiveness compared to established solutions and increase its market share. The study was conducted with representatives from municipalities, developers, contractors, architects and real estate companies providing insights on new strategic possibilities in the building process.The result identifies different barriers that exist in various stages of the value chain, from procurement to construction. Furthermore, it indicates that wooden multi-family houses could be a competitive solution by developing new strategies, mitigating the identified market barriers facilitating growth towards sustainable building solutions. These instructions give you basic guidelines for preparing camera-ready papers.

The gradually changing behavior of the population, towards urbanization, ledto an increased shortage of available housing. This development has resultedin a serious issue in Sweden, where too few firms are providing solutions formulti-family houses in wood. Potential firms that could fill this increasingdemand are those in the single-family house industry. Yet, these firms mightface considerable problems with productivity, predominately derived fromincreasing production costs and inadequate production development.Developing these firms are associated with long-term investments, whichis investigated by evaluating the industry structure for sellers, highlightingthe financial and market situation within their industry. These factors aregrowing in importance due to the current market concentration, where morefirms are required to focus on product development driven by the demand toprefabricate wooden elements, volumes or modules in an industrialized way.This thesis studies Swedish firms producing wooden single-familyhouses, with the aim to investigate their possibilities to enter the woodenmulti-family house industry in Sweden.Investigations will be conducted by applying Altman’s Z’ value, riskposition model, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, the Herfindahl-Hirschmannumber equivalent, productivity ratio model for profitability and finally amodel measuring market Concentration Ratio.Results show that the industry tends towards perfect competition with toomany firms involved, i.e. firms mainly have to compete by prices. Further,firms are grouped into three zones; risk, grey or safe zone. The levels withinthese zone show a reduction of firms in the red zone over time. Related to thecurrent risks, many firms have promising positions to invest in productdevelopment towards wooden multi-family houses, in addition to theircurrent products, even though firm productivity has declined during thestudied time frame. The results that the investigated firms have goodpossibilities gaining a competitive advantage by diversifying into thegrowing wooden multi-family house industry.

Detailed planning for housing development is the responsibility of the respective municipalities in Sweden. Further, an ambition to develop sustainable building solutions based on wood is combined with each municipality’s building requirements, which increases complexity in the public process. Public actions leading to increased construction of wooden multi-family houses are important for all actors in this process, which is managed by municipalities through the Public Procurement Act or the land allocation process, depending on their development plan and strategy.

The aim is to shed light on how the land allocation process is currently performed, to improve efficiency and provide transparency and structure between developers and municipalities. The study uses the public procurement process as a conceptual model to structure the various activities in the land allocation process based on the similarities between the two processes. Thereafter, it is applied to the tender-based land allocation process to provide a transparent process for municipalities to follow.

The results display discrepancies in perception of the land allocation process and the level of competence displayed by municipalities when managing this process. This hinders the development of wooden multi-family houses in Sweden.

The wood-building industry of multi-family houses is increasing its market share in Sweden, yet the research and education are not incorporating a total building process perspective. Typically, research is conducted in individual areas without having an overall coordinated perspective, which increases the risk of sub-optimisation. In a unique project in Sweden, several components in the building process have been studied within one project; “City development project Torparängen”. The purpose was to gain a broader understanding of what influence the development of wooden multi-family houses, combining the effect from technological and non-technological advancements, which intended to support the development of a new wood building strategy. 

By reviewing several areas within the building process provided information related to how market strategies, procurement methodologies, leadership and project management, equally influence the development as the more traditional fields in the industry, i.e. material handling, lean production, logistics and production improvement. Further, having the possibility to capture end-user preferences in this process provides opportunities to develop a more agile building process, adjusting market and production activities accordingly. The study was conducted during two years and involved approximately 250 respondents in different roles, and active in the building process within companies and governmental organisations across Sweden. 

Sweden has a housing shortage, which the Swedish authorities expect to continue until 2025. Producers of wooden multi-family buildings have a relatively small market share in comparison to traditional building materials. The limited capacity to fulfil the increased building demand also restricts the possibilities for development towards innovation, bio-economy and sustainability. The municipalities in Sweden have responsibility for the planning of the building development in their region based on their projected requirements and strategies. Combining this with a desire to develop sustainable building solutions based on wood increases the complexity. Currently, public building developments are achieved through the public procurement act or the land allocation activity, dependent on their development strategy. This normally involves the development of local strategies regarding, for example, design, material choice and geographical development. This study aims to identify drivers that will enable improved market activities related to actions in public building initiatives using wood-based solutions, which is conducted by studying a specific building project managed by the Växjö Municipality in Sweden. The result indicates that improved transparency in the land allocation activity generates possibilities for developers to respond successfully to the requests submitted by the municipalities, and thus, increase the possible use of sustainable building methods using wood. This knowledge improves the understanding of the required strategic development for the companies, the government and the municipalities, to increase the use of sustainable building materials in Swedish multi-family housing projects.

In the past decades, the housing shortage in Sweden accumulated to a level that led to problems finding accommodation for many people, which created opportunities for the market producing multi-family houses. The market is dominated by concrete solutions whereas solutions using wood as a building material only comprise 9 % of the market. This market is highly competitive with many companies offering relatively similar products or services. One way to develop new business opportunities is to enhance other competence besides production technology that currently acts as a market development barrier. Hence, the material handling process at building sites is seen as a barrier that can contribute improving competitiveness.

There are currently problems with material handling at many building sites of wood-building solutions in Sweden, materials arrive at the wrong time, waste of storage space, unnecessary tracking of materials or wrong quantities arriving at the sites. The purpose of the study is to investigate if Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that can be used to achieve an efficient material handling process and if the wood building industry in Sweden is willing to implement the technology. Thus, investigate if material handling using RFID can improve time effectiveness, minimise waste and monitor moisture levels in the material efficiently, creating improved competitiveness. The study shows that the use of RFID improves time efficiency and control the material handling, indicating that RFID has potential to improve this process. Further, the study identifies possibilities by using RFID technology to minimize damages and control moisture levels.

Wood buildings are considered as a viable option to support the effort minimizing the current housing shortage in Sweden. Companies trying to develop into this industry are needed to increase the use of prefabricated wooden elements, volumes or modules in an industrialized way. Suitable companies to make this development could be found amongst firms producing wooden single-family houses. These companies currently act on a highly competitive market with many companies offering relatively homogeneous products or services. Therefore, differentiation towards the wooden multi-family house industry could be considered as a long-term strategy, minimizing the economic distress and improving the survival of the company.The study is aiming at describing the development of economic distress and market concentration ratio in the Swedish industry for wooden single-family houses, for an eleven-year period from 2005 to 2015. The companies could be helped to understand, if and how the market concentration ratio and the economic distress are connected, linking company size to economic stability and efficient resource utilization. This will be conducted by applying Altman’s Z’-score model, grouping firms into a risk, a grey or a safe zone, combined with calculating the industry structure by means of the concentration ratio model. The required data were collected from the annual reports of the 51 relevant firms in the industry.

There is currently great interest in the production of wooden multifamily houses in Sweden, due to increased environmental concern combined with a demand for modern building solutions. The focus in industry and academia alike has been dominated by new innovative building solutions along with increased industrialization of the building process, aiming to improve the overall building quality and the profitability for the involved actors. However, little attention has been paid to what the residents perceive as living quality. Understanding residents' perceived living quality—compared with architects' perceptions—allows the possibility of adjusting the modern building solution of wooden multifamily houses in order to meet residents' actual expectations and, in the long term, to increase the wood-building industries' market share.

The purpose of this article is to compare how residents and architects perceive living quality and whether these stakeholders' perceptions differ regarding building type and material choice (i.e., multifamily wooden or concrete buildings). A survey was sent out to 485 respondents in Sweden to gain insight into living quality perceptions. The results revealed discrepancies in what is perceived to be important in new housing development, although neither group was willing to pay more to live in a wooden building compared with a concrete building.

Purpose

The improvement of production processes has in many cases shortened the product life cycle, changing consumer behavior and leading to increased use of natural resources. The study describes the reverse logistics flow of garments in a closed loop supply chain (CLSC) as well as proposes improvements to the reverse logistics flow. The purpose is to increase the knowledge of how a logistics service can enable a high level of circularity within the retail supply chain. By identifying challenges within the CLSC propose improvements from a logistics perspective.

 Design/methodology/approach

The retail CLSC has not been extensively studied from a theoretical perspective; therefore, this project complements the general CLSC theories with grey literature. A case study method has been used and is appropriate for conducting exploratory research, to empirically illustrate a reverse logistics flow of garments. Empirical information was collected through semi-structured interviews, intending to identify possible improvements.

Findings

Uncertainties in the CLSC is hindering development and planning, restricting possibilities to reach economies of scale as a driver for change and development. However, increased transparency from Governmental organizations related to their view towards a sustainable society greatly increases the success of the CLSC.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable)

The practical model derived from the case study is a contribution to the development of CLSC models in research.

Practical implications (if applicable)

Practitioners can be inspired by the gap analysis, which can assist in developing new CLSC within the retail industry.

 Original/value

Only limited research related to this scope of the CLSC for the retail industry is identified, why the study demonstrates originality.

As many as 240 of Sweden's 290 municipalities estimated that there existed a housing shortage within their region. Therefore, many homes are required to be built in a relatively short period to fulfil the demand.  Production is required to take into consideration sustainable building solutions to reduce climate impact. Hence, logistics must become more efficient to contribute to an environmental solution, and the use of transports should be examined reducing the effect of heavy vehicles to meet the climate objectives.

The focus of this study is to identify differences between the transportation of materials for building projects based on wood or concrete. Different key performance indicators were derived from the collected data and presented in this study, which resulted in two formulas focusing on transport- and environmental impact. 

The KPI’s indicates that the weight of the load does not have an important impact on the amount of emitted CO₂, but it is the number of transports associated with the projects that are the main problem regarding emissions and environmental impact. Hence, the number of transports and the amount of CO₂ emissions can be calculated by the support of the formulas derived from this study.

Currently, there is a considerable lack of residential buildings in Sweden. Hence, companies that are active in the housing industry producing wood-building solutions have been affected by high demand for their products. The industry tries to be more effective, and one means of achieving this goal is to automate the production, similar to the automotive industry. However, improvements in the information flow have not come as far as developments in the production. Therefore, it is necessary to streamline the entire process and reduce the amount of manual work using rationalisation and automation to enhance competitiveness. This is not only applicable to the actual manufacturing process but also in a large degree to the design process, i.e. the transition from the basic to the detail design stage. The purpose of this research is to compare the information flow for various building projects before production, identifying development possibilities by using an improved information process.

Information has been collected into a status report using interviews, surveys and from data in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

Two areas were identified out of the status report: standard projects and special projects. The special projects constitute 90 % of the project departments actual workload, whereas standard projects do not exceed the projected lead times creating less problem than special projects. Therefore, the long-term development strategy for the industry should be to improve the level of project standardisation, developing an advanced modular system based on improved information flow minimising the need for special projects.

Sweden is forecasted to grow its population with 1.1 million people over the next eight-year period, increasing the demand on the construction phase of housing units throughout Sweden. However, at present, 240 of Sweden's 290 municipalities show an existing deficit of available housing units in their regions, resulting in inherent difficulties fulfilling this demand utilizing the current production structure. Therefore, further utilizing wood as a building material could contribute to minimize the gap, as well as fulfilling the EU’s goals towards the Europe 2020 strategy and the EU forest strategies, focusing on development towards innovation, bio-economy, sustainable sourcing and use of raw materials. This study is aiming to identify drivers supporting the Swedish industry of wooden multi-family houses to enable market growth through competitive and sustainable strategies. The representatives within the building process identify drivers, how they perceive their effect on the companies’ abilities to develop based on long-term and short-term strategic impact. Thus, the goal is to find ways in which wooden multi-family houses could compete as a building solution, compared to established solutions, thereby increasing the market share in Sweden. The methods used in this study is surveys distributed to representatives from municipalities, developers, contractors, architects and real estate companies.The result identifies three change drivers influencing the industry development for wooden multi-family houses in Sweden: technological-, knowledge- and environmental- drivers. These drivers have an effect on the companies’ ability for successful new product development and for development of sustainable strategies towards market growth for wooden multi-family houses.

Shifting concentration of population to urban areas has increased the shortage of available housing. The combination of housing shortage with a limited number of companies that provide solutions for multi-family houses in wood has become a serious concern in Sweden. Those companies that possibly could fill this void and enter this segment are at present time producing single-family houses. The development for these companies is connected to investments in long-term product development. The aim of this paper is to examine the possibility for these companies to develop and enter this segment. This is investigated by describing the risk position and financial situation for the companies within this industry, over time. It is conducted by utilizing a risk position model for 46 selected companies, comparing the development trend over a selected time period. This has exposed that many of the companies have demonstrated a positive financial situation and risk position over time, indicating a favorable position to invest in product development towards wooden multi-family houses in addition to their current products.

The housing industry for multi-family houses in Sweden predominantly uses concrete as a building material, whereas wood only constitutes 8 – 10 % of the market. The strong market position is derived from a historic ban building houses with more than two floors out of wood in Sweden, which was lifted 1994. Thus, it is a barrier the producers of wooden multi-family houses need to overcome by investments in e.g. production technology, product development and operational efficiency. The decisions regarding investment strategies have varying impact dependent on the actors within the building process i.e. municipalities, developers, contractors, architects and real estate companies have different priorities. The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors effecting investment decision as perceived by the different actors in the building process. Thereby, find ways in which producers of wooden multi-family houses can overcome current market barriers by understanding the investment drivers for those actors involved in the building process. The result will highlight investment drivers as perceived by the actors within the building process and if there are drivers that are perceived as unified by all actors, equally if there are specific investment drivers for certain actors with the building process.

From a consumer perspective, living quality in the building itself is vital, e.g. as perceived sound transmissions between apartments could differ significantly for the inhabitants and thus, affects consumer satisfaction differently. This is important for the contractor when using wood as building material, in combination with developing cost efficient and profitable building solutions. The aim of this study is to investigate if end-users in lightweight and heavyweight buildings are satisfied with the standards in their apartments, especially considering the sound transmission between neighboring apartments and from the outside of the building to their apartment, and if they would accept higher costs for a better sound insulation, i.e. an additional value created.

As studies based on data from 2012 show, the Swedish market for wooden single-family houses is highly competitive, with many firms offering relatively homogeneous products or services. In order to serve the demand on that market, only 38 % of the existing firms actually were needed. Thus, an uneven distribution of resource utilization let to welfare losses. Yet since 2012, the demand on the market increased by more than 35 %, which potentially had an effect on resource utilization.

This study is aiming at describing the development of the structure and concentration in the Swedish industry for wooden single-family houses, for a five year period from 2010 to 2014. This could help to understand, if and how market demand affects structure, concentration rate and consequently welfare loss due to resource utilization. The required data were collected from the annual reports of the 52 relevant firms in the industry. By means of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and the Herfindahl-Hershamann Number Equivalent, industry structure and concentration rate was calculated.

The results will show how the industry structure and concentration rate developed from 2010 to 2015, the distribution of resource for welfare purposes and thus, how many firms there actually were needed to serve the market.

The market for Swedish wooden single-family house producers is characterized by perfect competition, i.e. products are highly substitutional and firms mainly compete by prices. Variance in net profit margins, as a key number for profitability, for firms in this industry ranges by 60 %. As net profit margin is defined as net profit divided by revenue, these latter two directly affect net profit margin. Yet, leaving the obvious determining mathematical explanations aside, other factors might affect the profitability of the firms, showing, what distinguishes successful firms from less successful ones.

This study is aiming at exploring the factors affecting the profitability of Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses. By means of those factors, variances in net profit margins might be explained more thoroughly. Data from annual reports were collected from 52 firms in the industry and a correlation analysis performed.

The results will show if there are factors that correlate with net profit margins and if yes, what explanatory power these factors have. This in turn might serve as an input for the firms’ strategic development towards a higher profitability of their businesses.

In the past decades, the housing shortage in Sweden accumulated to a level that led to acute problems for many people combined with continuously rising housing prices. The market for single-family houses, where wood dominates with 85 – 90 % of market share, is highly competitive with many companies offering relatively similar products or services. To serve the demand on that market, only 38 % of the existing companies were needed. One way to tackle the existing housing shortage, and to develop new business opportunities, could be to get more companies from the single-family house industry to produce multi-family houses. Current competence in prefabricated house production could be utilised, yet, other areas could act as barriers for these companies. The aim of this study is to identify potential market mobility barriers for Swedish companies currently producing wooden single-family houses to develop towards the construction of multi-family houses. This will be conducted by initial interviews with decision makers in those companies, combined with a survey-study covering companies within the industry. The results show that the main market mobility barriers are related to the strong market presence of traditional building materials, lack of knowledge by the market of wood as a suitable building material and the importance of governmental guidance and actions.

"This Mesh We're In – Futures of Infrastructure"

This publication, This Mesh We're In: Futures of Infrastructure, is a strategic foresight project by Media Evolution and DigIT Hub Sweden. The initiative explores the possible futures of infrastructure in Southern Sweden by 2050 through collaborative discussions among 23 experts from various fields such as urban planning, technology, and environmental sciences. Over several sessions, participants analyzed societal and technological trends, resulting in four speculative scenarios that address critical questions about how digital, physical, and natural infrastructures may evolve in response to shifting economic, environmental, and social conditions.

Through storytelling and scenario analysis, the book examines how current infrastructure decisions shape future living conditions, emphasizing sustainable, resilient, and inclusive practices. It highlights both challenges and opportunities presented by emerging technologies, climate change, and resource scarcity.

Key Learning Points:

1. Infrastructure as the "Invisible Backbone" of Society: Infrastructure, often unnoticed unless it fails, significantly shapes daily life and societal functioning. This includes not just physical infrastructure like roads and buildings but also digital and social systems that sustain communities.
2. Sustainability and Circularity: Future infrastructures need to prioritize resource conservation and circular economies. Communities may become self-sufficient in energy production and waste management, with significant reductions in resource consumption​.
3. Technological Transformation and AI Governance: Emerging technologies, especially AI, are projected to take on more significant roles in governance, potentially leading to debates about autonomy and responsibility. AI might streamline infrastructure management but also raise questions about ethical governance and data privacy​.
4. Decentralized and Local Solutions: Southern Sweden's communities are increasingly expected to rely on local, decentralized solutions for energy, food, and transportation, driven by resource scarcity and climate resilience strategies. Innovations like community-managed energy and repurposing of public spaces are highlighted as future solutions​.
5. The Importance of Adaptability and Resilience: As climate change and geopolitical shifts accelerate, infrastructures must be designed with flexibility in mind. Southern Sweden’s infrastructure transformation is driven by the need for systems that support both human and ecological resilience amid rapid change.

In order to obstruct housing shortage in Sweden, wood is considered as an alternative material for multi-family applications. Yet, more firms are needed to prefabricate wooden elements, volumes or modules in an industrialised way. These could be found amongst firms producing wooden single-family houses; however, they might suffer from economic distress, since their core market dropped by more than 60 % in the aftermath of the economic crisis. This study investigates corporate economic distress from 2010 to 2013 of 52 Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses. This, by applying Altman’s Z’-score model, grouping firms into a risk, a grey or a safe zone. Results show that from 2010 to 2013, firms suffering from economic distress decreased from 11.1 % to 3.8 %. The two remaining firms in the risk zone most likely will face bankruptcy, if no radical action will be taken. Firms in the grey zone increased from 31.1 % to 36.5 %. The 19 firms in this zone are dependent on appropriate strategies to positively develop their business. Finally, firms in the safe zone increased from 57.8 % to 59.7 %. These firms are in good economic conditions and can be regarded as potential candidates for investing in a development towards multi-family applications. For the investigated time period, the average Z’-score improvement for the whole industry equals 38 %, with a major upturn from 2012 to 2013.

Many Swedish firms producing timber-framed houses lack in production development. Their off-site assembly is mainly non-automated and the Swedish building sector was identified to have the highest building costs in the European Union. Production costs account for the majority of these costs, caused by inefficient production processes. In this case study, value stream analysis and expert interviews were performed at a Swedish firm producing timber-framed houses. Focusing on the pre-assembly of window frame modules, possibilities to include the necessary working steps in the main assembly process of the timber-framed walls were identified, in order to eliminate the manufacturing of this component in a separate process. The results show that the average pre-assembly time for a standard window frame module is 29 minutes 52 seconds, excluding all necessary material supply. An analysis of the main wall assembly process revealed an unbalanced process flow and occurring bottlenecks upstream, resulting in queuing time downstream. Here, working steps to directly mount the window into the wall could be included. This would take about five minutes, yet, would not affect the total lead time of the pre-fabricated timber-framed walls but instead free one full-time operator. In total, a more efficient production process could be achieved.

From 2007 to 2012, the Swedish market for wooden single-family houses was characterized by an enormous downfall. Produced units per year decreased from 12 100 to 4 800, i.e. 60 %. Yet, firms seem not to have adjusted their businesses or costs accordingly, since production costs per m² housing area increased by 20 %. Looking back to 2001, costs even increased by more than 60 % (Schauerte et al., 2015). These numbers might point on serious problems related to the firms’ overall performances.

From 2010 to 2013, the total industry turnover decreased by 7 %, the total industry assets by 8 % and the average industry performance by 1 %. Thus, looking at the industry as a whole, it seems that firms try to adjust their fixed costs, here total assets, to the market development.

Looking at the firm level, wide differences exist with changes in P ranging from –67 % to +138 %. In total, 20 firms improved their performance and 29 firms downgraded it.

In the past decades, housing shortage in Sweden has accumulated to a level that has led to acute problems for many people in general, and combined with continuously rising housing prices, problems especially occur for younger people with relatively low income. On the market for single-family houses, where wood dominates with 85 – 90 % of market share, firms struggle with a low order intake and currently compete with very low margins, if any. Only few of these firms produce multi-family houses as well, even though production facilities often allow for that. One way to tackle the existing housing shortage could be to get more actors from the single-family house industry to produce multi-family houses. This would trigger competition, improve product quality and utilize economies of scale due to product relatedness, e.g. for prefabricated walls. In that way, profitability and the firms’ margins could be improved.

This study is aiming at exploring potential hinders for Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses to build multi-family houses. This will be done by deep interviews with decision makers in those firms and, based on that, a follow-up survey-study covering all listed firms in that industry segment will be performed.

The results show that resistance to change and perceived hinders mainly are related to management issues, lack of knowledge about the new segment and constructional requirements.

With rising production costs and an insufficient production development, firms in the Swedish industry for wooden single-family houses might face severe problems in productivity. This is gaining in importance, considering that this industry highly tends towards perfect competition, i.e. firms mainly have to compete by prices. This study investigates the productivity of Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses off-site, by analysing the ratio between turnover and number of employees as factors affecting productivity. 48 firms were studied from 2010 to 2013 and the results show that the average firm productivity in the industry worsened by 6.56 %, with a slight improvement from 2012 to 2013. 23 firms increased and 25 firms decreased their productivity during the investigated time span, yet, from 2012 to 2013, 31 firms improved productivity. Almost half of the 23 firms with increased productivity achieved that betterment even though their turnover decreased and 12 firms improved productivity with declining turnover. Another 12 firms tried to compensate declining turnover with resigning employees, yet, could not keep their former productivity level.

Firms in the Swedish industry for wooden single-family houses operate on a highly competitive market. Products are relatively homogenous, easily substitutional and firms mainly compete by prices. Since 2005, the accumulated market share for the five largest firms decreased from 53 % to 39 %, whilst the number of firms in the industry increased by almost 60 %. In addition to these internal issues on industry structure, construction firms are generally sensitive to external impacts, like the current changes in bank loan policy for the customer. Nonetheless, the number of produced single-family houses in Sweden increased by almost 130 % since 2012. Contributing to reducing the existing housing shortage in Sweden, wooden single-family house producers play an important role.

However, earlier studies show that around 40 % of these firms are economically distressed, or in a situation, where they need to take appropriate strategic action to avoid economic distress in the near future. Yet, what actions are appropriate?

This study is aiming at identifying current critical success factors determining economic health of Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses. By means of these factors, conclusions about appropriate strategic actions might be drawn to avoid economic distress. Data from the 2015 annual reports of 50 relevant firms were collected and processed by means of the Altman’s Z´-score model and regression analysis.

The results show that two factors accumulate to 99 % explanatory power (adj. R²) of financial health: (1) the manufacturing capacity of the firms’ assets and (2) the firms’ equity ratio. These are the current critical success factors for economic health of Swedish firms producing single-family houses. (1) matches todays’ debate about automated prefabrication and (2) can be seen as the way of financing such assets. Thus, these issues should guide the strategic agenda of firms in the industry.

On the Swedish market for single-family houses, wood traditionally dominates with around 90 % market share. Due to the economic crisis, the number of prefabricated wooden single-family houses decreased from about 12 100 units in 2007 to 4 800 units in 2012. Firms in the industry struggled with a 60 % decrease of order intake. These firms compete with relatively low margins, and many faced economic losses. Such losses negatively affect the firms’ equity ratio, describing the share of assets that are financed by own capital. This negative effect defines the firms’ long-term ability to pay its depths. The longer such an effect lasts, the more it threatens the firms’ future, potentially leading to bankruptcy.

This study is aiming at describing the development of the equity ratio from 2010 to 2014 for 52 Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses. This will be done by collecting and analyzing those firms’ annual reports and the required financial numbers.

The results show on the one hand how an average equity ratio for the whole industry developed within the chosen five-year period. On the other hand, the development of each firm’s equity ratio within that period is mapped, indicating, which firms potentially might face problems if no appropriate actions will be taken.