Productivity is often used to determine how well resources are used for an operation. Most often, the ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it determines productivity. Laminated veneer products are considered complicated products often with complex shapes, a raw material with high variation, and machining processes that create scrap materials that need to be handled. Therefore, keeping a high productivity in the industries producing such products may become challenging. This study reports productivity measurements in a production cell consisting of an adhesive, pressing and processing station. The study seeks to increase understanding of production-related problems in this industry. The research has been using productivity measurement as well as interactive discussions between researchers and workers.

Measurement of downtime causes were made for 20 days, for a total of approximately 300 hours. The production cell had 1,299 minutes of stops. Of those, 450 minutes were one-time events. The rest were intermittent disturbances. Many of them could be explained by the dust-laden air and processing residues but were also related to veneer and adhesive. There is a need for determining material and processing parameters; however, the first priority is cleaning the factory.

From a social perspective, some other issues must be added to the discussion of this paper. First and foremost, the business has gone through a transformation from a family business to a privately held firm. From the non-family employee’s view, this is a huge change. This has resulted in unclear roles and responsibilities within the company, which has also affected the productivity of the company.

The concept of productivity is often used to determine how well resources are used in an operation, and it is usually determined as the ratio of what is consumed in the production. Laminated veneer products are considered complicated products often taking complex shapes, using a raw material with high variation, and requiring machining processes that create scrap material that needs to be handled. Therefore, maintaining high productivity in industries producing such products may become challenging. This study reports on productivity measurements in a production cell consisting of an adhesive, pressing and a processing station. The study seeks to increase the understanding of production-related problems in this industry. This research has been based on productivity measurement as well as on interactive discussions between researchers and workers. Measurement of cycle times indicated bottlenecks in the processing cell. The discussion led via cycle times, processing residues and chatter marks to an examination of the foundation and rigidity of the CNC-machine in the processing cell. The study indicated that the performance of the CNC machine did not correspond to expectations. The machine was too weak to handle the required output in an efficient manner. Thus, there is a need to determine the performance expected before a machine or machine group is purchased. An update of the existing purchasing literature and its dissemination will support the crystallization of the purchasing process as a way forward to support the industry.

The wood furniture industry in Sweden has an identified need of technological development in order to stay competitive. Especially the necessity to focus on automation has been identified. In the industry there are often needs to handle large levels of customization at the same time as keeping the production effective. This requires flexible automation solutions, often described as automated equipment that can rapidly be reconfigured for new products.Before automated applications are implemented in an industry there are issues to solve related to organisational, human and technological aspects. Based on this, the project - Flexible automation in manufacturing of laminated veneer products was initiated. The project is running since January 1, 2016 and is a two year national Swedish project. The aim of the project is to investigate challenges concerning automation in the wood furniture industry and especially focusing on bended laminated veneer products.In the project a case-study with the aim of identifying factors important for successful automation implementation in an involved wood manufacturing industry was performed. Key persons and staff of the company were asked to tell their life stories and a process mapping of the production was conducted.The results indicate a problematic relation between the management and the production staff, which partly can be referred to the shift from a family business to a private owned firm. Based on the process mapping, internal transport and handling are identified improvement areas. Productivity is disturbed by stops caused by processing residues and poorly defined materials. There is potential for improvement by adapting a process-oriented approach and defining the materials used.The case–study confirms the need to consider organizational and human aspects in production before initiating production. The study concludes the need to consider the special aspects of the wood material in production development.

In contemporary times family business research has been dominated by three theoretical perspectives: principal–agent theory, stewardship theory and resource-based view theory but at the same time scholars argue that what still needs further attention is how underlying processes and phenomena can be explained. In order to understand themes such as repression or relations of asymmetry the suggestion in this chapter is to move towards a critical stance of thinking which involves problematising the obvious issues in family firms and moreover allowing the critical perspective to destabilise assumptions made within earlier research. By discussing critical theory in general, but foremost the Freirean critical pedagogy specifically, the arguments in the chapter revolve around how critical pedagogy can open up a more novel view on family business. Critical pedagogy is used to discuss family business from a limited situation perspective, and to argue for a Freirean dialogue as a means of developing a critical consciousness for family members in the family business context. The chapter concludes with some recommendations on platforms or common ground in which dialogue and raising of consciousness can occur in which the concept can open up possibilities for interesting learning transfer and bring multidimensional knowledge into the family firm. Keywords: family business, critical theory, Freire, critical pedagogy, conscientização, critical consciousness, dialogue, limited situations, untested possibilities, triple hermeneutics

The aim of this thesis is to identify and understand the phenomena of invisibility and visibility ((in)visibility) in families' situation in family business. As (in)visibility are phenomena that surrounds us in our every day life and the consciousness about them is limited, a critical perspective is embraced. By questioning the taken for granted in family business research, where only a female gender perspective on the phenomena is represented, this study involves 3 families - in total 11 individuals.

The empirical material is collected from every family member´s life story furthermore platforms are created where the individual can change her/his consciousness about the phenomena. In the process, language creation builds up a vocabulary for expressing how (in)visibility influence feelings as well as actions. Inspired by Paulo Freire and interactive method the phenomena are discussed in 2 dialogues with the aim of reaching a critical stance and action. A mutual knowledge production occurs between the researcher and the family members. In an abductive way Johan Asplund serves as inspiration for identifying (in)visibility in the life stories, which discusses with the family members in dialogue (1).  In dialogue (2) discusses the impact of the study process from the attendants' perspective. Finally roles in and outside the business in connection to (in)visibility are interpreted with support from Erving Goffman´s theories.

The study contributes theoretically and methodologically to the family business field by showing that (in)visibility has an impact on all family members and influences feelings, actions and the will to commit to the family firm, furthermore how sensitive topics can be researched in the future and how new subjectivities are created in the research process that up til now have been hidden. Outside the field of family business a contribution to entrepreneurship is made by seeing (in)visibility as a coping strategy moreover by developing a framework for identifying the phenomena an empirical contribution to social theory about (in)visibility comes through.